Project ASPIRE Efficacy Pilot: Achieving Superior Parental Involvement for Rehabilitative Excellence

A Parent-Directed, Multimedia Early Intervention Tool to Improve Outcomes in Underserved Children Who Are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing

The purpose of the proposed exploratory research protocol is to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of Project ASPIRE, a parent-directed intervention aiming to increase parental skills and enrich children's early language environments and ultimately improve child outcomes in children with hearing loss from low-income backgrounds.

We will test the curriculum's efficacy in increasing parental knowledge and skills with a pilot study funded by a U.S. Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences Goal 2 grant. We hypothesize that parents who complete the ASPIRE curriculum with an Early Intervention therapist will demonstrate enhanced understanding of their child's listening and language needs. This deeper understanding will support behavior changes that improve the language-learning environment through increased parental engagement and linguistic input. Knowledge increase and changes to the language environment will be apparent in comparative pre- vs. post-intervention assessment scores. In addition, child outcomes will demonstrate improved listening and spoken language trajectories.

To encourage behavior change and help parents track their progress, the curriculum will be coupled with "linguistic feedback" gathered by the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) recorders and software. With linguistic feedback, EI therapists and parents will be able to track the family's progress through skill building and set goals for behavior change. This feedback and goal setting will allow parents to translate their knowledge into behavior changes that enrich their child's early language environment.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Child is under 4.5 years old
• Child uses at least one amplification device (hearing aid, cochlear implant, BAHA)
• Child has adequate amplification (at least 30 db in one ear)
• Parent speaks conversational English
• Family's communication choice includes spoken language
• Family is considered low-SES according to income and education proxies

Exclusion Criteria:

• Child is younger than 6 months of age
• Parent does not speak conversational English
• Child is over 4.5 years of age
• Family is considered high-SES according to income and education proxies