Mother-Child Storybook-telling to Kindergartners with Hearing Impairment Enrolled in Two Educational Systems, in Comparison with Kindergartners with Normal Hearing
Aram, D., Most, T., & Mayafit, H. Mother-Child Storybook-telling to Kindergartners with Hearing Impairment Enrolled in Two Educational Systems, in Comparison with Kindergartners with Normal Hearing.Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Behavior Analysis – Accepted.
Abstract
We investigated the mediation profile of maternal storybook-telling to kindergartners with hearing impairment in two educational settings: group (N = 15) and individual (N = 15)inclusion. The results were then compared with the mediation profile of mothers of hearing children. The mothers were videotaped while telling their child a wordless book. The manner of the interaction was analyzed with regard to the following mediation aspects: dialogic reading, language complexity, questions, social praises and manual illustrations. The findings revealed that mothers of children with hearing impairment in individual inclusion were the most active during the interactions. Mothers of normal hearing children used more complex sentences and asked more open questions when compared to mothers of children with hearing impairment.
Key words: Hearing impairment, Dialogic reading, Parent child interaction, Educational setting, Story book telling, Kindergartners
Introduction
This study investigated the mediation nature of mother-child interaction during storybook-telling to kindergartners with hearing impairment. It explored the differences between mothers' mediation profiles as expressed with children with hearing impairment and who were enrolled in two different educational settings: individual and group inclusion. Moreover, these mothers' methods of storybook-telling were compared to the one used by mothers of hearing children.
Young children acquire literacy knowledge through interaction with adults. Keeping this perspective in mind when examining the realm of early literacy, shared book reading is considered to be a major context that promotes literacy (e.g., Bus, van IJzendoorn & Pellegrini, 1995; Neuman, 1996; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994; Sénéchal, 1997, van Kleeck & Stahl, 2003).
The evidence indicates that among hearing children, the frequency of storybook reading predicts a variety of early literacy features such as vocabulary, oral language complexity, narrative skills, familiarity with printed concepts, book orientation, phonological awareness (e.g., Aram & Levin, 2002; Frijters, Barron, & Brunello, 2000; Sénéchal, LeFevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998; Sonnenschein & Munsterman, 2002; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998; Zevenbergen & Whitehurst, 2003).
Adults differ in reading styles to children and certain styles are more productive than others in promoting language and literacy (Reese, Cox, Harte, & McAnally, 2003). Vygotsky (1978) claimed that the nature of adult mediation is crucial and optimal methods have to be sought to enable adults to interact with children within the children’s Zone of ProximalDevelopment (ZPD). The level of interactivity of shared reading in kindergartens has been linked to the children’s concept of print in kindergarten and to their reading comprehension in first grade (DeBruin-Parecki, 1999). When adults give children an opportunity to be active participants in the reading experience by using evocative techniques of Dialogic Reading (prompting the child with questions, expanding the child’s verbalization abilities and praising the child’s efforts to cooperate), children show greater language gains than when adults simply read them a book (Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst. & Epstein, 1994); Reese & Cox, 1999; Whitehurst, et al., 1994). Rich interaction with a child during shared reading that includes questions (asking open-ended questions and encouraging inferences) lead to a more developed vocabulary (Sénéchal, 1997; Whitehurst et al., 1994). Discussions during book reading that extend beyond the immediate situation and that provoke processes such as inference-making and hypothesis-testing stimulate the development of oral language skills (Sénéchal et al., 1998; Snow, 1999) as well as print skills (Reese, 1995).
Language delay does not prevent children with hearing impairment from participating in literacy activities and from gaining early literacy concepts (Rottenberg & Searfoss, 1992; Williams, 1994, 2004).Williams (1994) followed three profoundly deaf children (ages 3.11 to 5.10) and documented the emergent literacy activities in their homes. Williams indicated that their parents read to them or with them almost daily. While research regarding family literacy of hearing children is extensive and books have been written about it (for example see Wasik, 2004), there are only a handful of studies on the subject of family literacy of children with hearing impairments (Williams, 2004).
The studies that focused upon storybook interaction with children with hearing impairment have shown that experience with storybook reading contributes to early literacy (Akamatsu & Andrews, 1993; Andrews & Gonzales, 1992) and has a lasting effect on literacy achievements (Ewoldt, 1990; Rottenberg, 2001). When examining the preferable method of storybook reading interaction with children with hearing impairment, it is clear that merely reading aloud is not efficient nor sufficient (Fung, Wing-Yin Chow & McBride-Chang, 2005). Parental explanations that accompany the picture-book reading are effective in promoting vocabulary in young hard-of-hearing children (Van der Lam & Timmerman, 1995). Moreover, children with hearing impairments can learn much about the written language through recurring interactive storybook reading involving questions and prompts that help the child take an active part in storybook reading interactions (Rottenberg, 2001). Some evidence points to the fact that interactive storybook reading supports deaf children’s self-confidence as emergent readers, and increases their comprehension skills, their interest and engagement with books, and their storytelling as well as their word recognition skills (Williams, 2004). In the current study, our aim was to analyze in more detail the manner of storybook-telling to children with hearing impairments, comparing this to that of storybook-telling to hearing children. Moreover, we wanted to examine the method of storybook interactions of parents of different groups of children with hearing impairment. In other words, we compared methods of maternal storybook-telling – those of mothers of children who are educated in small group inclusion settings versus those of mothers of children in individual inclusion settings.
The impact of the educational setting on the literacy levels of children with hearing impairment has received some empirical attention. These studies have underscored the fact that children attending regular classes perform better in a number of different domains such as academic competencies and achievements, communication abilities, and social and emotional skills than those attending special classes (Anderson, 1998; Bilir & Bal, 1998; Farlow, 1996; Gans, 1998; Paul & Quigley, 1990).
In Israel, young children diagnosed with hearing impairments enter formal educational settings at the age of three. These settings, under the administrative supervision of the country’s Ministry of Education, receive support and professional supervision from the MICHA Society for Deaf Children, a national early intervention agency that provides educational and rehabilitation services for young children (ages 0-7 years) with hearing impairments and for their families.Two different educational settings are available: individual inclusion and group inclusion.
The individual inclusion track integrates children with hearing impairments into regular kindergartens in their neighborhoods. These children, approximately 60% of Israeli kindergartners with hearing impairment, receive hearing, speech, and language therapy in two locations – in their normal environment in the kindergartens and at the MICHA center. In addition, they receive social and emotional support through meetings at the MICHA center with peers who also have hearing impairments. Children in the individual inclusion track usually communicate solely through spoken language.
The group inclusion track (the remaining 40% of Israeli kindergartners with hearing impairments) integrates a group of 6 to 8 children who have hearing impairments into a regular kindergarten with 25 hearing children. Both groups share many common activities during the day, but some activities are conducted separately. The children in the group inclusion track receive most of their hearing, speech and language therapy in the kindergartens. They have a special education teacher for their small group who teaches them both in an individual and in a group setting. They also get some treatments at the MICHA center. The children in the group inclusion setting communicate through spoken language and/or simultaneous communication (speech and sign).
Parents of children with special needs are strongly encouraged to be involved in the decision-making process of their child’s education and in the placement decisions regarding their children (Calderon, 2000). In addition, in Israel, as a result of the special education law, parents of children with hearing impairments are involved in the decisions regarding their child's educational placement. Once parents decide to place their child in the individual inclusion framework, they become very aware of the potential difficulties that their child may face and therefore, may become more involved in order to help their children profit the most from the kindergarten, both socially and academically. On the other hand, parents whose children are placed in group integration settings know that this place is well-equipped and can accommodate the hearing impaired children's needs, and thus, may become less involved personally.
The above-mentioned exposure of children with hearing impairment to deficits in literacy, and the importance of home literacy activities, especially storybook interactions, calls for research that investigates storybook interactions with these children. The differences in method used in small group and individual inclusion educational settings, as well as the differences in parents’ attitudes, motivations and beliefs with regard to these setting, invite a comparative study. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the mediation nature of mother-child interaction, during storybook-telling to kindergartners with hearing impairment. It explored the differences between mothers' mediation profiles as expressed with children with hearing impairment who were enrolled in two different educational settings: individual and group inclusion (HI-II and HI-SGI). In addition, these mothers' manner of storybook-telling was compared to the one of mothers of hearing children (NH). Our study has a few unique advantages. It is a quantitative study which thoroughly analyzes the storybook-telling methods of 44 dyads of mothers and their children. Thus, our sample is relatively large and uniform in terms of age as well. Our study focuses on the interactions of mother and child with hearing impairment in two distinctly prevalent educational settings, settings that have not as yet been compared with regard to these interaction aspects. Moreover, it compares the method of mother-child with hearing impairment storytelling to that of the mother-hearing child storytelling interaction. Lastly, our data is not based upon parental reports but upon the analysis of videos of storytelling interaction within the families' environment, thereby allowing us to analyze the situation in depth and learn about the nature of the interactions.
Method
Participants
The participant group was comprised of 44 kindergartners and their mothers. The participants were divided into three groups. The first group of participants consisted of 15 children with Hearing Impairments who were in the Small-Group Inclusion track (hereinafter: HI-SGI), integrated as small groups within a regular kindergarten class (in a total of 4 kindergartens). The second group of participants consisted of 15 children with Hearing Impairments who were in the Individual Inclusion track (hereinafter: HI-II); each child with a hearing impairment was individually integrated into a regular kindergarten class with normally hearing children in his or her neighborhood (in a total of 15 kindergartens). The control group consisted of 14 normally Hearing (hereinafter: NH) children who were enrolled in 2 regular kindergarten settings.
All 30 children with hearing impairments were recruited from the Tel Aviv branch of MICHA. MICHA Tel Aviv is a non-profit institution which provides family-centered services to hearing-impaired infants and toddlers and their families. All the children had pre-lingual hearing loss. The mean degree of hearing loss was 61dBHL (SD = 28.5) for the HI-II group and 86dBHL (SD = 24.5) for the HI-SGI group. Both groups contained children with various degrees of hearing loss. The HI-II group consisted of 8 children with moderate loss (up to 70 dBHL) and 7 children with severe to profound hearing loss (poorer than 71 dBHL). The HI-SGI group contained 6 children with moderate loss (up to 70 dBHL) and 9 children with severe to profound hearing loss (poorer than 71 dBHL). Chi Square analysis revealed no significant difference between the two groups' distributions of degree of hearing loss(X2 (1) = 0.54, p >.05).
The children with hearing impairments (N = 30) used sensory aids. 12 children in the HI-II group wore hearing aids and 3 children had cochlear implants. 7 children in the HI-SGI group wore hearing aids and 8 had cochlear implants. The mode of communication - all the children in the HI-II group used spoken language except for one child, who used total communication. Eight children in the HI-SGI group used spoken language and 7 used total communication. The two groups differed significantly with regard to age at the onset of rehabilitation. The onset age for therapy was earlier in the HI-SGI group than in the HI-II group (t (28) = -2.82, p < .01).
The children in the three groups (N = 44) did not differ in age F (2, 43) = 2.64, p > .05). Their mean age was approximately six years old (M = 71.16 months, SD = 6.96). They were scheduled to start first grade in the ensuing school year and according to their teachers and parents, showed no cognitive, emotional or behavioral problems.
All the participants (N = 44) had hearing parents and came from Hebrew-speaking homes. The mean age of the mothers was 35.13 years (SD = 5.72). Their mean educational level was 14.30 years (SD = 2.51). The three groups did not differ significantly with regard to socioeconomic levels (using Roe’s 1956 scale that considers parents' professional status). According to Roe and Klos’s (1969) classification, 20% of the mothers had professional and managerial careers; 40% had semi-professional careers; 26.7% had skilled occupations, and only four mothers (9.3%) had semi-skilled occupations.
Measures
Parents completed demographic questionnaires that included data on their child’s age, degree of hearing loss, type of sensory aid, mode of communication, age of onset of rehabilitation, other difficulties, parents’ hearing status and professions. We assessed the nature and the frequency of storybook interactions using the measures described below.
Nature of Mother-Child Storybook-telling Interactions:
Videotapes of mothers telling their children a story served as a basis for measuring the nature of maternal storybook-telling. The book that we used was a picture book called "When the night came into the room", written and illustrated by Leshem-Piliy (1999). The book is a wordless adventure story that tells the story of imaginary (illustrated) creatures that leave the girl's drawing when the girl falls asleep and set out on a night of adventures. This story was selected because it is not a common book and we presumed that the mothers and the children would be coming across it for the first time during this study. Moreover, the book is a wordless book, which is less restricting, and therefore encourages richer interactions than a regular storybook that contains text (Leshem-Piliy, 2000). The mothers received the book and were given a few minutes to reflect and study it. When ready, they told the story to their children. Their instructions were: "Tell the story in your normal, everyday manner.” We transcribed the videotapes and their analysesyielded four groups of measures: Dialogic Reading, Linguistic Complexity, Questions, and General Behavior Measures. Inter-judge reliability of two independent judges, computed on a randomly selected 20% of the sample, resulted in 97% agreement.
Dialogic Reading Measures. Based on Whitehurst et al (1994), we counted the number of two-step, three-step and four-step dialogic reading cycles demonstrated by the dyads during the storytelling interaction. We began counting steps whenever the mother asked a question and the child answered her. We rated each such dialogue according to the number of steps:
- two-steps - Adult prompts child with a question (1) and the child answers (2).
- three-steps - Adult prompts child with a question (1), the child answers (2) and the adult praises the child’s efforts to tell the story (3).
- four-steps - Adult prompts child with a question (1), the child answers (2), the adult praises child’s efforts to tell the story (3) and the adult expands upon the child’s verbalizations (4).
We counted the number of two, three, and four-step dialogic cycles where each interaction was counted only once as a two, three, or four-step dialogic cycle.
Linguistic Complexity Measures. We counted the total number of utterances expressed during the interaction and from this, calculated the percentage of complex and simple sentences expressed by the mother, as well as the child's initiatives.