Family Empowerment: Supporting Language Development in Young Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Abstract

Foreword 233 serve children with a mild, moderate or unilateral hearing loss-all which can now be identified shortly after birth.As increasing numbers of children are identified with hearing loss at earlier ages, the number of children referred for services continues to steadily rise, creating further demands for qualified service providers.Although the challenges related to service coordination can appear insurmountable, the potential for making an extraordinary difference in the lives of young children with hearing loss has never been greater.This monograph on early intervention unites contributors from around the world, from Nigeria to Israel, Germany and the United States, and offers a range of perspectives and approaches to the conundrums that, to some degree or another, we all face.We begin our journey in the United States with Karl White, Ph.D., director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management, who discusses potential solutions for the challenges faced by early intervention service providers across the country following wider implementation of newborn hearing screening.Next, Joni Alberg, Ph.D., executive director of BEGINNINGS for Parents of Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc., and her colleagues outline a model of collaboration among state agencies to benefit children and families in North Carolina.Jean Desjardin, Ph.D., advanced research associate in the Children's Research and Evaluation (CARE) Center at the House Ear Institute, explores the relationship between parents' sense of their own competence to guide their child's early development and how it influences their child's acquisition of spoken language.In the past, many children with unilateral hearing loss were identified only after they had begun to struggle academically during their school years.Newborn hearing screening now makes it possible to identify this population at birth.Sarah McKay, Au.D., senior audiologist at the Center for Childhood Communication at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, focuses on the issues and challenges associated with managing unilateral hearing loss in very young children.For many years, bilingual learners in the United States were located almost solely along the southwestern border of the country.Today, none of the 48 contiguous states is completely unilingual.Jan Moore, Ph.D., and colleagues present a case study of the spoken Spanish-language development of a child who received a cochlear implant at age 20 months.The case study is designed to expand on existing knowledge regarding Spanish language development among at-risk children to improve services for this population.Next, Andrea Bohnert, M.T.A.-F., and colleagues at the University Clinic Mainz, Germany, share their experiences with bilateral implantation and auditory development among 41 young children.The article also discusses several factors that must be considered when evaluating children for bilateral implants.

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