19th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
March 8-10, 2020 • Kansas City, MO
“Double standards” in language assessment with DHH children: the good kind and the bad kind
EHDI programs and related organizations in many states commonly provide parents of DHH children language acquisition milestones/checklists. Many also use norm-referenced assessments of spoken and/or sign language development. However, figuring out how to interpret the resulting information is often less clear. Developmental milestones and standardized assessments are almost always based on children with typical hearing: is it appropriate to hold DHH children to those same standards? Likewise, some sign language assessments are normed on Deaf children with Deaf parents: can those help us understand sign language acquisition in a DHH child whose hearing parents are novice signers?
To resolve these challenges, we must confront the idea of “double standards”. This presentation argues that there are both good kinds and bad kinds of double standards: we will learn how to avoid falling prey to the bad kind (e.g. being content with sub-par outcomes “because they’re deaf”), and how to take advantage of the good kind (e.g. using a relative standard to evaluate language progress but an absolute standard to evaluate risk for problems in other language-linked domains).
Attendees will learn how to use checklists/standardized assessments to evaluate:
(1) How a DHH child’s development compares to typically-developing children of their age
(2) Whether their development is different from what we would expect based on their individual situation.
(3) Whether their skills are developing at a rate that indicates that a gap is getting bigger, getting smaller, or holding steady.
Above all, attendees will be equipped to support their families and children they serve by integrating these concepts into developing IFSP goals and/or joining in systematic efforts to track language outcomes, as called for by JCIH Goal 6. Holding DHH children to a lower standard than hearing children is bad. Using different standards to answer different questions is good.
- Attendees will learn to distinguish between the "bad kind" and "good kind" of double standards
- Attendees will learn to leverage the power of the "good kind" of double standards
- Attendees will learn how to apply this knowledge to support JCIH goals (esp. Goal 6)
Poster:
This presentation has not yet been uploaded.
Presenter: Matthew Hall
The overarching goal of Matt Hall’s research program is to maximize all d/Deaf children’s developmental potential. As an assistant professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Temple University, he applies knowledge from cognitive/developmental psychology and linguistics to questions that concern DHH children, their families, the professionals who serve them, and other stakeholders. He is particularly concerned with the paucity of evidence regarding language acquisition and psychological development in DHH children whose hearing parents have chosen to include ASL as part of their child’s access to language. In his reading of the literature, strong and contradictory claims have been made without sufficient empirical support. He is therefore committed to increasing the quality of the empirical evidence so that clinicians and families can make better-informed decisions.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exist.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.