15th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
March 13-15, 2016 • San Diego, CA
| - | 3 - Language Acquisition and Development
Using LENA Measurements to Improve Children’s Environment and Language Opportunities
According to Trussell and Easterbrooks (2013), children who are DHH are at risk for delayed language and vocabulary development, in part due to limited incidental learning opportunities and impoverished language interactions with adults. Adults who promote expressive language opportunities for children who are DHH can facilitate language, literacy, and vocabulary development. In addition, by reducing auditory distracters and optimizing the classroom environment, children who are DHH have greater auditory access to the incidental learning opportunities within their environment. With LENA, recorded measurements monitor the quality of the environment and provide teachers with feedback concerning the expressive language opportunities afforded each child. This presentation will describe findings from a six-week quasi-experimental time-series study that evaluated the acoustic environment and the adult-child conversational turns that occurred throughout the school day. Data will be compared with teacher self-report of the acoustic environment and the expressive language opportunities that each child had within the target study period and compared with objective data provided by LENA. Results reported will be pilot data preliminary to a larger study. Study results will be presented with recommendations to participants to monitor and improve the learning environment and the expressive language opportunities available in the classroom.
- Identify the impact of incidental learning and teacher-child utterance ratio in vocabulary development for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH).
- Discuss the importance of acoustic environment on language development for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Discuss results from an exploratory study using Language Environment Analysis (LENA) and implementation of recommendations.
Presentation:
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Presenters/Authors
Melissa Mulder
(Primary Presenter), Utah State University, melissamulder83@gmail.com;
Melissa Mulder is a graduate student at Utah State University studying Deaf Education with a Listening and Spoken Language emphasis. Her primary interests include vocabulary development in children who are deaf or hard of hearing and technology’s role in children’s learning.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exist.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.
Lauri Nelson
(Co-Presenter), Utah State University, lauri.nelson@usu.edu;
Lauri Nelson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education in the Listening and Spoken Language Deaf Education program at Utah State University. She has a dual background in both clinical audiology and LSL deaf education and currently directs the LSL deaf education graduate training program at Utah State University.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exist.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.