2024 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 17-19, 2024 • Denver, CO
| The Language Environment during the Covid-19 Pandemic for Children with Hearing Loss
The Language Environment during the Covid-19 Pandemic for Children with Hearing Loss
The current Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted many aspects of daily life across the globe. For families of children of hearing loss, the pandemic may affect critical factors for successful language development, including early intervention services, social interaction, and their language environment at home. For instance, many clinics have shifted to using telepractice services rather than in-person therapy. Given the importance of these factors in ensuring successful language outcomes for children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH), we conducted a study to determine the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the language environments of DHH children. We created a parent questionnaire to assess frequency and duration of speech-language therapy services before and during the pandemic, changes to the home environment (e.g., amount of time spent with their child at home), disruptions to therapy services, and experiences with telepractice. We collected data from 30 parents of DHH children in Ohio, Colorado, and Texas. Preliminary results indicate that, as predicted, 66.67% of parents report spending more time than normal at home with their children. However, the pandemic has affected families in other ways as well. For instance, many families (34.48%) reported disruptions to their normal speech therapy services, but many (41.38%) also reported little to no disruptions in services. On the other hand, a few families (10.34%) report spending more time with their children on targeted language activities, while other families report spending less time (17.24%) or no change (75.86%). We plan to assess the impact of these disruptions on the language outcomes of these children in the coming months. This research will help clinicians, researchers, and policymakers to further understand the effects that the pandemic will have on the language development of DHH children, which will inform the development of interventions and policy changes aimed at mitigating negative consequences of Covid-19 and future pandemics.
- Participants will be able to describe the effects of the pandemic on the language environments of children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing.
- Participants will be able to identify the kinds of disruptions in services due to the pandemic.
- Participants will be able to describe families' experiences with telehealth during the pandemic.
Presentation:
23278_13502ClaireMonroy.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
CART transcripts are NOT YET available, but will be posted shortly after the conference
Presenters/Authors
Claire Monroy
(Primary Presenter), The Ohio State University, claire.monroy@osumc.edu;
Dr. Claire Monroy earned her PhD in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in 2017 at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, in the Netherlands. Her graduate research focused on early learning mechanisms and action perception in infants and toddlers, using a combination of eyetracking and neuroimaging methods. She currently is an postdoctoral scholar at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, where she is studying the effects of hearing loss and cochlear implantation on caregiver-infant interactions and cognitive function in infants and toddlers who are deaf/hard-of-hearing. Her research is currently funded by an individual fellowship from the NIDCD.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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Nonfinancial -
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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Nonfinancial -