A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Vocabulary Interventions for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Children and Adolescents

Abstract

Purpose: The development of vocabulary size in deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) children and adolescents can be delayed compared to their peers due to lack of access to early language input. Complementary vocabulary interventions are reported in the literature. Our aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention methods for their vocabulary improvement. Method: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, we searched five databases for peer-reviewed journal articles in English, published between 2000 and 2022 (inclusive), reporting vocabulary interventions for 2- to 18-year-old DHH children and adolescents without comorbidities. We conducted separate meta-analyses using a random-effects model on receptive oral vocabulary, expressive oral vocabulary, and signed vocabulary. We assessed the methodological quality of each paper. This review is preregistered in PROSPERO (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews) with ID CRD42021243479. Results: We included 25 group studies in this review out of 1,724 identified records. The quality assessment of the studies revealed risk of bias ranging from some concerns to high risk. Experimental vocabulary instruction produced improvement in receptive oral vocabulary (Hedges's g = 1.08, 95% CI [0.25, 1.90], I 2 = 93.46, p = .01), expressive oral vocabulary (Hedges's g = 1.00, 95% CI [0.18, 1.83], I 2 = 96.37, p = .02), and signed vocabulary (Hedges's g = 1.88, 95% CI [1.09, 2.66], I 2 = 96.01, p < .001) in the experimental groups. Written vocabulary and general vocabulary skills are also reported as a synthesis of results. Conclusions: Multisensory and multimodal explicit vocabulary instruction for DHH children and adolescents is helpful in improving vocabulary acquisition with respect to baseline levels. However, its effectiveness must be carefully interpreted due to the lack of proper control groups and details on treatment as usual reported in the studies. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23646357

Evidence Briefing: How Can We Promote Child Language and Literacy Development in an Increasingly Digital World?

“…These multimodal supports are particularly helpful for children who struggle with reading and comprehending texts (Diprossimo et al, 2023). For deaf/hard-ofhearing children, multimodal and multisensory features (images, videos, oral and sign language) are effective in improving receptive and expressive oral vocabulary as well as signed vocabulary (Aldemir et al, 2023).…”

“…In this context, new techniques, such as data augmentation for child speech recognition, emerge as a promising technique to achieve adequate child speech recognition (Fan et al, 2023), paving the way for significant educational and clinical applications. Finally, careful consideration of ageappropriate interactive features and cognitive processing differences in the child population is essential to inform the design of digital tools (Abreu et al, 2023;Aldemir et al, 2023;Diprossimo et al, 2023).…”