Abstract
Although children with hearing loss are now often integrated into mainstream classrooms, many do not begin school with age-appropriate school-readiness skills. Traditional therapies in early listening and spoken language programs rarely focus on developing the social skills, executive functions, and motor abilities needed for the typical classroom environment of friends, academics, and play. The question, then, is how to incorporate group activities into traditional therapies in order to build skills in these areas, and whether or not the use of music and its social aspects could support this. A quasi randomized, group, facilitated, music intervention was conducted to help support school readiness skill development in preschool aged children with hearing loss. Standardized testing was used to measure outcomes, and although improvement in skills was observed during the intervention, all test results were nonsignificant. Families reported overall improvement in skills and enjoyment of the intervention. Questions arise regarding the limits of standardized measures and the possibility of adding observational assessments for studies measuring function in social settings to better capture change.
Recommended Citation
DuBois, G. DeLuzio, J. Thaut, M. & Nixon, S. (2021). Evaluation of a Group Music Intervention to Support School-Readiness Skills in Preschool Children with Hearing Loss. Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention, 6(1), 48-59. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26077/ddaf-cc78
Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/jehdi/vol6/iss1/6
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Accessibility Commons, Early Childhood Education Commons, Language and Literacy Education Commons
