Marco Conceptual (Glosario)

This section reviews a few studies which have identified factors influencing the success of DHH inclusion in particular. The development of auditory/oral skills appears critical to the success of HH students in mainstream settings. Pflaster (1980) conducted a study involving such students in the USA, 90% of whom received support services from speech therapists, hearing teachers and/or teachers of deaf students. Three factors were found to be most related to their better academic performance in inclusive settings: oral communication, personality, such as the level of motivation and self-concept, and linguistic competence. The students in this study were not profoundly Deaf. Students with more profound hearing loss who use manual sign language might have great difficulty in general education classrooms, because manual sign language has its own rules of grammar, and teachers who use standard English (or standard Arabic in the case of Saudi Arabia) may not be effective at communicating abstract concepts to these students within the constraints of a general education classroom (Liben, 1978).

108

Another study in the USA, by Eriks-Brophy et al. (2006), found that the degree of hearing loss and the extent of any delay in fitting the child with appropriate amplification (i.e. hearing aid or cochlear implant) were two vital factors directly affecting spoken language acquisition (expressive language). In addition, young students with cochlear implants showed better language development and academic achievement than deaf counterparts without implants; their reading achievement was improved at the primary school stage (Marschark et al, 2011). The language delay often found in children with hearing loss has been seen as an underlying cause of reduced academic performance (Moores, 1996; Maxon, Rose and Brackett, 1982). Due to this often significant language delay, the placement of students with hearing loss into inclusive settings has been a controversial and highly debated educational alternative. Eriks-Brophy et al. argue that reading and writing ability, as well as level of speech intelligibility, have been frequently cited as important individual characteristics that impact directly on successful DHH inclusion into mainstream educational placements (Allen and Osborne, 1984; Geers, 2004; Goldgar and Osberger, 1986; Holt, 1993). Predictors of successful inclusion have typically focused on individual characteristics of the DHH students themselves, such as early identification of hearing loss, early and consistent use of amplification, early family-oriented infant/preschool programming, an auditory/oral approach to language learning using speech as the primary mode of communication and early placement into mainstream school with regular support services (Brackett, 1993; Geers, 1990; Geers and Moog, 1989; Goldgar and Osberger, 1986; Moores and Sweet, 1990; Northcott, 1990; Pflaster, 1980). Although degree of hearing loss has often been cited as an important predictor variable (Allen and Osborn, 1984; Brackett, 1993; Geers and Moog, 1989; Karchmer, Milone and Wolk, 1979; Karchmer and Trybus, 1977; Strong, Charlson and Gold, 1987; Wolk, Karchmer and Schildroth, 1982), some other studies have contradicted this assumption (Geers, 1990; Biro et al, 1985; Goldberg and Flexer, 1993), arguing that age at identification and intervention, rather than degree of hearing loss, is a significant predictor of language outcomes for DHH students and their success at school (Apuzzo and Yoshinaga-Itano, 1995; Calderon and Naidu, 2000; Moeller, 2000; Yoshinaga-Itano, 1999). Active parental engagement at an early stage of identification and intervention in achieving positive language outcomes for DHH students has also received considerable

109

research attention (Calderon, 2000; Meadow-Orlans, Mertens and Sass-Lehrer, 2003; Moeller, 2000; Yoshinaga-Itano, 2000).

Marschark et al. (2007) conducted a study in the USA into the extent to which cochlear implants improved academic achievement and the likelihood of successful inclusion. Their study was a critical analysis of empirical studies assessing literacy and other domains of academic achievement among children with cochlear implants. They emphasize the importance of factors such as age of implantation, age of hearing loss and degree of hearing loss, arguing that early implantation and longer periods of implant can be associated with better reading and higher academic achievement. However, although there are strong benefits of cochlear implantation for reading proficiency and general achievement in young DHH students, empirical results have been rather inconsistent. Marschark et al. suggest that this is because of failures to control difficult variables such as age of implantation, language skills prior to implantation, reading ability prior to implantation and regularity of implant use. They conclude that studies of other aspects of academic achievement such as writing and comprehension are infrequent, while the extent to which performance in such domains is mediated by reading ability or directly influenced by hearing, language and speech remains unclear (Marschark et al., 2007).

Yet another US study, by Leigh, Brice and Meadow-Orlans (2004), explored the level of attachment between Deaf mothers and their 18-month-old children and identified relationship patterns similar to those of their hearing peers. This finding is supported by Sieratzki and Woll (2004), who investigated an indicator of early mother-child interactions, cradling laterality, and found that the cradling bias of Deaf mothers was similar to that of hearing mothers. The significant differences among Deaf mothers related to the hearing status of their own parents and to the hearing status of their children: Deaf mothers of Deaf parents showed a strong leftward cradling bias with both hearing and Deaf children, whereas Deaf mothers of hearing parents showed a leftward cradling bias with hearing children and a rightward cradling bias with Deaf children. These researchers also found significant differences between Deaf mothers with hearing parents and Deaf mothers with Deaf parents, in that the latter ascribed greater importance to tactile interaction. This may in part be because Deaf mothers with Deaf parents may have experienced more responsivity by their mothers to their tactile needs as infants in

110

comparison to Deaf mothers with hearing parents (Koester et al., 1998; Koester, Brooks and Traci, 2000). This in turn suggests that Deaf students with Deaf parents develop better in their tactile/kinaesthetic movement and learning styles.