Communication Outcomes of Children With Hearing Loss Enrolled in Programs Implementing Different Educational Approaches: A Systematic Review

Speech, Language and Hearing

Erbasi, E., Hickson, L., et al. (2017).

Speech, Language and Hearing, 20(2), 102-121.

This systematic review investigates the effect of various communication intervention programs (e.g., auditory-verbal, total communication) for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Commonwealth of Australia

From 2000 through September 2014

Quantitative designs; qualitative studies; mixed methods studies

10 studies (in 14 articles)

When comparing communication intervention programs, auditory-verbal therapy (AVT), auditory-verbal education (AVEd), auditory-oral (AO), total communication (TC), simultaneous communication (SimCom), or bilingual-bicultural (BiBi) approaches, two studies of children with hearing loss who used an AVT/AVEd or AO approach found superior speech production and perception outcomes than children who used TC or BiBi approaches. Three studies reported advantages in language skills for children using a listening and spoken language approach, while two studies showed no significant difference between AVT/AO as compared to SimCom or BiBi approaches.

Ten studies investigated communication outcomes of children with hearing loss enrolled in one of the following communication intervention programs: auditory-verbal therapy (AVT), auditory-verbal education (AVEd), auditory-oral (AO), total communication (TC), simultaneous communication (SimCom), or bilingual-bicultural (BiBi) approaches. Reported outcomes across intervention approaches varied: some children with hearing loss achieved age-appropriate communication abilities, while others demonstrated significant developmental delays. In general, no matter which approach was used, children with hearing loss achieved lower scores on measures of receptive language, spoken grammar, expressive vocabulary, conversational fluency, articulation, sentence duration, and vowel duration as their same-aged hearing peers. When matched for language age and hearing experience, children with hearing loss showed no significant difference on communication measures from controls. "Furthermore, 33.3% to 83.3% of children with cochlear implants who were enrolled in programs that followed an AVT, AO, or BiBi approach were found to perform within or above one standard deviation of the normative mean on standardized measures of expressive and receptive language" (p. 116).