Building strong foundations for educational achievement: Language assessments in early childhood education for deaf and hard of hearing children

Abstract

It is widely accepted that assessment plays a role in monitoring the development of young children with special needs in early intervention/early childhood settings. The process of assessing young children's language skills often looks for delays within a solid language foundation. However, many children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) may not have a solid language foundation to assess, leading to inaccurate assessment. When we reframe how we assess language skills in children who are DHH, we ensure the assessment provides a comprehensive picture of the child's language development. It is important to modify language assessment tools where necessary while ensuring the assessment stays reliable and valid. It is critical to use multiple assessment tools to monitor the child's progress, including standardized assessments and assessment tools normed for DHH populations. Finally, it is crucial to monitor the child's skills in each language that they are using, regardless of which language is used most often. We explain why each of these factors needs to be considered in the assessment of young children who are DHH, will discuss the challenges of assessing this population, and will provide solutions to some of the challenges of assessing language skills in of young children who are DHH. K E Y W O R D S assessment, deaf, language

Instrument to evaluate the perception of minimal contrasts in Chilean Sign Language – reliability evidence

“…In recent years, there has been great interest by researchers in the creation of instruments that measure the development of visual language in deaf children (4) . The evaluation of a child's language requires adequate measures that are appropriate to their age, language, and culture (5) . There are few valid and reliable evaluations available for deaf children, especially those that evaluate language among deaf children in their first 5 years of life (6,7) .…”

Instrumento de evaluación de la percepción de los contrastes mínimos en Lengua de Señas Chilena - evidencias de confiabilidad

“…Durante los últimos años ha habido gran interés por parte de los investigadores en la creación de instrumentos que miden el desarrollo del lenguaje visual en niños sordos (4) . La evaluación del lenguaje de un niño o niña requiere de medidas adecuadas que sean apropiadas a su edad, idioma y la cultura (5) . Existen pocas evaluaciones que sean válidas y confiables disponibles para los niños sordos, especialmente, las que evalúan el lenguaje entre niños sordos en sus primeros 5 años de vida (6,7) .…”

mHealth-Supported Hearing Health Training for Early Childhood Development Practitioners: An Intervention Study

“…Hearing loss (HL) is one of the most prevalent developmental disorders, with 34 million children estimated to have disabling HL globally, of which 95% reside in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Hearing loss identification in young children is delayed typically due to absent screening programs, with late identification having far-reaching consequences [ 4 , 5 , 6 ], including listening and communication difficulties, delays in speech and language development, delayed cognitive development, poor academic achievement, and adverse effects on social and emotional well-being [ 4 , 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Furthermore, an estimated 60% of childhood hearing loss [ 3 ] is preventable through the implementation of public health measures, including immunization, adequate maternal and childcare practices, early identification, and management of common ear conditions through systematic screenings [ 3 ].…”

“…Hearing loss (HL) is one of the most prevalent developmental disorders, with 34 million children estimated to have disabling HL globally, of which 95% reside in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) [1][2][3][4]. Hearing loss identification in young children is delayed typically due to absent screening programs, with late identification having far-reaching consequences [4][5][6], including listening and communication difficulties, delays in speech and language development, delayed cognitive development, poor academic achievement, and adverse effects on social and emotional well-being [4,5,[7][8][9][10][11][12].…”