Interactive Instructional Multimedia in Vocabulary Development Of Children With Hearing Loss

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1 Interactive Instructional Multimedia in Vocabulary Development Of Children With Hearing Loss Blagovesna Stoyanova Yovkova Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria) Abstract This article describes a study that aims to reveal the specifics of interactive instructional multimedia in daily speech therapy of children with hearing loss. More specifically, the study examines the effectiveness of interactive multimedia in learning of unknown words by hearing impaired children. It evaluates the efficacy of multimedia in the process of learning pronunciation and vocabulary. The promise of multimedia learning is that deaf students can learn more deeply from well-designed multimedia programs. The characteristics of the interactive multimedia, its advantages and some restrictions in education are addressed. The questions posed in the study are whether instructional multimedia has a potential to support vocabulary building, as well as how and to what extent vocabulary improves in the process of multimedia use. The participants are eight children 12 and 13 years old, 4 of them are with severe hearing loss and 4 with profound deafness, all participants attended Sofia Special School for Deaf Children. For the aim of this study interactive presentations were designed by means of PowerPoint; which present new words in writing and with images the pronunciation and the meaning of each word are illustrated. The information is presented both visually and interactively. The students knowledge was tested before and after the training. Each child was taught individually using the multimedia materials in minute sessions. The results revealed that children s performance improved significantly. The data analysis showed that within the two groups (the one with severe hearing and the one with profound hearing loss) the acquisition of word meaning was most effective, followed by the acquisition of skills for spoken word recognition. Establishing of pronunciation skills was impacted the least. The findings also suggest that therapy which incorporates interactive multimedia is more effective for children with severe hearing loss. The conclusions made based on the outcomes of this study are that learning with the help of well-designed interactive multimedia applications has a potential to increase the effectiveness of vocabulary acquisition among the children with hearing loss. 1. Introduction The dysfunction of the auditory analyzer does not result simply in severe or profound loss of the ability to hear acoustic input; it also results in difficulties in acquisition of language on various levels: phonology, semantics, grammar, and pragmatics. These difficulties lead to serious speech impairment of children with hearing loss. Today the surd pedagogy is in search of new, more flexible and effective approaches and technology-supported methods for correction. The interactive media are viewed as one of the effective ways for supporting vocabulary acquisition of children with hearing loss. Both educators and researchers have acknowledged that a hearing impaired child is not able to use oral language as a means of communication without being supported in the process of systematic and goal-oriented learning of single words and their use. Research shows, such children have a significantly limited vocabulary and their understanding of word meaning and meaning rationalization of single vocabulary items is limited as well [3], [4], [6], [8]. This restricted ability for vocabulary

2 acquisition is the main cause for these children to fall behind their hearing peers; furthermore, it leads to weaker reception skills, as well as weaker skills related to information decoding and processing. Due to the lower level of vocabulary development, hearing impaired children have much weaker reading-comprehension skills as compared to their hearing peers [5]. For them this is a major obstacle in the process of learning content of more abstract and theoretical nature. These difficulties suggest the necessity of special approaches that would facilitate the formation of active and passive vocabulary; such approaches should start being implemented in the early years and should follow consistent and adequate methodology. The goal of the current study is to examine the potentials of interactive media for helping the vocabulary development of children with hearing impairment. More specifically, it aims to study the effectiveness of interactive applications developed within the context of the educational curriculum designed for such children. A number of studies conclude that a systematic computer-supported vocabulary presentation and activities can enhance vocabulary acquisition [1], [7], [9]. Such approach of vocabulary teaching is effective due to the possibilities of individualization and adaptation of the multimedia applications to the individual needs of learners. Through a network of hyperlinks, which provides a non-linear presentation of the content, the learners are encouraged to find segments of the presented information in a way that is the most suitable for them. Keeping in mind that the population of hearing impaired children is extremely diverse in terms of acquired passive vocabulary and oral interaction abilities, the use of such networks is a key element of the therapy. The presentation of the target words through different types of media stimulates the memory [2]. In addition, the use of multimedia provides the opportunity for extensive visualization of the content. The impaired hearing is compensated with higher involvement of the visual analyzer; therefore, the use of visuals plays a crucial role in the process of vocabulary acquisition by learners with hearing disabilities. 2. Method 2.1. Participants The research project presented in this article followed a case study design. The participants were eight hearing impaired students, four girls and four boys, in the age of 12 and 13. During the study, they attended a specialized school for children with hearing impairment which used oral method. Four of the participants had profound hearing loss (above 90 Db), the other four were with sever hearing loss Measures Each of the participants took a pre-test designed to measure the level of the following skills: identification, visual perception/lip-reading, and pronunciation of the target vocabulary items (Table 1). The same test was used as a post-test. In the design of the test, the specifics of the vocabulary knowledge of the hearing impaired children were considered. The goal was to measure the extent to which the treatment affected vocabulary learning. Studied skills Identification of studied vocabulary Visual perception and lip-reading of studied vocabulary items Pronunciation of studied vocabulary Types of activities Labeling; connecting the image with the label presenting the target object or concept. Lip-reading and pointing at images after voice input Naming images representing target vocabulary

3 Table 1. Studying skills formation based on activity type 2.3. Procedures The data were collected in the course of four months in the speech therapy laboratory of a specialized school for deaf children. The students selected for the study participated individually in 14, 30-minutes learning sessions, referred here as treatment. In each session, the multimedia program was used as the main learning tool Instructional Materials Microsoft PowerPoint (Windows Vista) was used for the development of the multimedia instructional materials. This software provides the opportunity to easily adapt presentations to learners achievements. The presentations introduced the target vocabulary items; each presentation included a different class of animals. In each presentation, interactive activities were incorporated in the form of drill and practice exercises. The multimedia lessons were built following hierarchical organization: the vocabulary items were organized in categories and sub-categories. This design supported the individualization of the treatment providing the possibility each child to learn the words based on his/her needs and interests. All vocabulary items were represented using three different media: text, image, and video. 3. Results The results of the pre- and post-tests outcomes were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The dependent variable was the percentage of the correct answers. The following independent variables were considered: The type of activity: labeling, pointing at images after voice input (lip-reading), naming (pronunciation) Level of disability: severe and profound hearing loss Time of testing: pre- and post-test The null hypotheses for the conducted tests were that the type of activities, the level of hearing loss, and the time of testing would not affect the percentage of the correct answers Sub-test 1 Classification of animals based on their class After the data of the test on animal classification were analyzed, it appeared that the outcomes for the three types of activities differ. Figure 1 shows that the participants experience the highest level of difficulty when naming classes of animals, while for the other two types of activities, labeling and lipreading, they demonstrated better results. The difference of these outcomes was statistically significant, F(2,36)=12.3; p<0.01. The test results show that the participants have limited abilities for oral production. These findings are supported by the observations that reveal a low level of participants speech comprehensibility. The detected differences, can be explained with the specifics of the development of oral production of hearing impaired children: the knowledge of the word meaning is not necessarily related to its correct oral production.

4 Fig.1. Influence of the independent variable Type of activity on the percentage of correct answers. (Sub-test 1) When the independent variable level of hearing loss is considered, the statistical analysis reveals a significant difference between the two groups. The students with severe hearing loss outperformed the students with profound hearing loss (Figure 2). The difference between the means of the two groups is statistically significant F(1,36)=15.5; p<0.01. These outcomes suggest that participants abilities are related to the level of hearing loss. Fig. 2. Influence of the independent variable Level of hearing loss on the percentage of correct answers. (Sub-test 1) In addition, the results of ANOVA revealed that there is a statistically significant difference (F(1,36)=40.7; p<0.01) between the overall outcomes of the pre-test and the post-test. It appears that the overall results of the post-test were significantly better, which suggests the positive impact of the treatment (Figure 3). It could be implied that the difficulties which deaf children experience in the

5 process of vocabulary acquisition, pronunciation, and correct lip-reading can be overcome with appropriate treatment. Fig. 3. Influence of the independent variable Time: pre- post-test on the percentage of correct answers. (Sub-test 1) It was examined if the change of the percentage of correct answers after the treatment was different for the different activity types. The data were analyzed taking into account the type of activity and the time of testing. The comparison of the pre- and post-test means when type of activities was factored in showed that there was test score improvement for all three types of activities (Figure 4). However, the interaction of the two factors (type of activity and time of testing) is not statistically significant (F(2,36)=0.11; p>0.01). It is important to mention that the relation between the outcomes of the preand post-tests, when the weakest activity performance was considered, was the same: the weakest one was naming. However, the post-test revealed some tendency for improving pronunciation. When the outcomes of the pre-treatment test on labeling were compared with pre-treatment test on lipreading, it appeared that at pre-treatment students performed slightly better on labeling; the opposite relationship was observed with the post-treatment test the outcomes for the lip-reading activity improved more than the labeling outcomes. Fig. 4. The influence of the interaction between type of activity and time of testing on the percentage of correct answers (Sub-test 1) Sub-test 2 Characteristics of different classes of animals The results of Sub-test 2 are similar to the results of Sub-test 1. Students identification and pointing at words scores are significantly higher as compared to the naming activity scores (Figure 5). The difference of these outcomes was statistically significant F(2,216)=127.9; p<0.01.

6 Fig. 5. Influence of the independent variable Type of activity on the percentage of correct answers (Sub-test 2) When the influence of the level of hearing loss is considered, again the same relationship as in Subtest 1 is observed: the group with severe hearing loss outperformed the group with profound hearing loss. There is a statistically significant difference between the achievement of the two groups, F(1,216)=62; p<0.01. These results suggest that even the minimal hearing abilities influence positively the speech and vocabulary development. Fig. 6. Influence of the independent variable Level of disability on the percentage of correct answers. (Sub-test 2) For this sub-test we can observe considerable improvement of the overall results on the post-test as compared to the pre-test (Figure 7). While, the participants started with rather low knowledge and skills, at the end of the treatment, they showed dramatic growth. These results suggest that they were able to advance in their ability to identify, perform lip-reading, and name words. There is a statistically

7 significant difference between the percentage of correct answers of the pre- and post test,f(1,216)=362,5; p<0.01. Fig.7. Influence of the independent variable Time: pre- post-test on the percentage of correct answers. (Sub-test 2) Figure 8 shows that the pre-test results are quite low; as with Sub-test 1, the lowest results are detected with the naming activity and the highest with the labeling one. Again, similarly to Sub-test 1, the post-test results for Sub-test 2 show more improvement of the pointing activity outcomes than of the labeling outcomes. While directionally the relationship of activities and treatment is the same for both sub-tests, the interaction of the two factors (type of activity and time of testing) is statistically significant for Sub-test 2, F=(2,216)=8.3; p>0.01. Fig. 8. The influence of the interaction between type of activity and time of testing on the percentage of correct answers (Sub-test 2). For the conducted tests, the null hypotheses were rejected. Conclusion Earlier studies suggest that the use of interactive multimedia can support the vocabulary acquisition process of children with hearing impairment; research also shows that multimedia supports to a great extent the skills related to word identification rather than word pronunciation. The results of the current study confirm these earlier findings. The participants in this study not only improved their skills for connecting the written words with the images representing them, but they also developed better lipreading skills. Based on these results, it could be concluded that the visual elements in the multimedia learning materials support the development of deeper understanding of word meaning, including abstract concepts.

8 The results also show that naming was the activity for which the participants had the lowest percentage of correct answers both in the pre- post-treatment tests; therefore, it could be suggested that for them this was the most difficult activity. This particular result was expected considering that the formation and development of pronunciation is an extremely complex process in the cases of children with hearing impairment which requires an extended teaching support and learning efforts. However, even this limited progress is promising. The results suggest that multimedia materials support to a greater extent the receptive skills rather than productive. In addition, the outcomes of the study show that when the two groups of participants are compared (children with severe and profound hearing loss), the children with severe hearing loss significantly outperformed their counterparts both on the pre- and the post-treatment tests. Further research with greater number of participants can shed more light on the pedagogical effectiveness of interactive multimedia instructional materials used in the education of children with hearing loss. Along with the advantages of the computer-assisted learning, there are also some disadvantages that need to be considered. First of all, in order to assure effective and consistent use of technology in the learning process, it is necessary to have access to adequate equipment; unfortunately, today it is still a problem for many schools for impaired children in Bulgaria. In addition, the educators who work with hearing impaired children need special training in order to achieve a high level of computer literacy, good understanding of technology integration in the learning process, as well as an excellent grasp of the modern trends in special education. These are all problems that call for further research and action on the side of the advocates for the rights of children with special needs. References [1] Barker, L. (2003). Computer-assisted vocabulary acquisition: The CSLU vocabulary tutor in oraldeaf education, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 8, [2] Chun D. & J.Plass J. (1996). Effects of multimedia annotations on vocabulary acquisition. The modern Language Journal, 80(2). [3] Geers, A.& Moog, J. (1989). Factors predictive of the development of literacy in hearing-impaired adolescents. Volta Review, 91, [4] Gilbertson, M. & Kamhi, A. (1995). Novel Word Learning in Children with Hearing Impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, [5] King, C.M., & Quigley, S.P.(1985). Reading and Deafness. London: Taylor and Francis. [6] Lederberg, A. ( 2003). Expressing meaning: From communicative intent to building a lexicon. In M. Marschark & P. Spencer,Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language, and education. New York: Oxford University Press. [7] Massaro, D. & Light, J. ( 2004). Improving the vocabulary of children with hearing loss, The Volta Review, 104(3): [8] Paul, P. (1996), Reading vocabulary knowledge and deafness. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 1, [9] Reitsma, P. (2009), Computer-Based Exercises for Learning to Read and Spell by Deaf Children, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 14(2), Acknowledgements: The researcher s participation in the conference was financially supported by the Research Foundation at Sofia University St. K. Ohridksi, project Integral University Center for E- learning INZ01/0111.