Promoting alphabetic skills of young children with hearing loss in co-enrollment versus individual inclusion

The study assessed the efficacy of an early literacy intervention for 79 children ages 5-6 years with prelingual hearing loss (HL) who all functioned auditorily, using appropriate devices. Teachers and speech therapists administered an 8-month-long intervention in preschools through two alphabetic sessions and one storybook-reading session per week. Alphabetic sessions involved games and activities that encouraged letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and functional writing. Storybook-reading sessions utilized children's books to discuss central concepts and ideas via games and creative activities. The study compared two educational inclusion tracks: individual inclusion (a single student with HL fully integrated into a regular classroom) and co-enrollment (a group of students with HL partially integrated into a regular classroom and co-taught by a regular teacher and a special education teacher). Another group of children with HL studying in a co-enrollment track served as a control group. Children's alphabetic skills (letter naming, orthographic awareness, phonological awareness, and word writing) were assessed at pretest and posttest. Results showed that participants progressed more in the intervention groups than in the control group on phonological awareness and word writing, regardless of inclusion track. Interestingly, the two intervention groups did not differ in their progress.