Positive Parenting Behaviors: Impact on the Early Vocabulary of Infants/Toddlers With Cochlear Implants

Family-Centered Early Intervention Deaf/Hard of Hearing (FCEI-DHH): Support Principles

This article is the sixth in a series of eight articles that comprise a special issue on Family-Centered Early Intervention (FCEI) for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) and their families, or FCEI-DHH. The Support Principles article is the second of three articles that describe the 10 Principles of FCEI-DHH, preceded by the Foundation Principles, and followed by the Structure Principles, all in this special issue. The Support Principles are composed of four Principles (Principles 3, 4, 5, and 6) that highlight (a) the importance of a variety of supports for families raising children who are DHH; (b) the need to attend to and ensure the well-being of all children who are DHH; (c) the necessity of building the language and communication abilities of children who are DHH and their family members; and (d) the importance of considering the family's strengths, needs, and values in decision-making.

Sociodemographic disparities in pediatric cochlear implantation outcomes: A systematic review

OBJECTIVES

To determine the impact of sociodemographic factors on post-operative performance outcomes among PCI recipients across the world.

METHODS

A qualitative systematic review of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase was undertaken for studies analyzing the association of sociodemographic factors with measures of PCI outcomes published before July 18, 2021. Study quality assessment tools from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were used to assess for risk of bias.

RESULTS

Out of 887 unique abstracts initially retrieved, 45 papers were included in the final qualitative systematic review. Sociodemographic disparities in PCI outcomes from 4702 PCI recipients were studied in 19 countries, with 14 studies conducted in the United States of America, published within the years of 1999 to 2021. Parental education and socioeconomic status (e.g. income) were the most investigated disparities in PCI outcomes with 24 and 17 identified studies, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Socioeconomic status was a consistently reported determinant of PCI outcomes in the USA and elsewhere, and parental education, the most reported disparity, consistently impacted outcomes in countries outside the USA. This study is limited by our inability to perform a meta-analysis given the lack of standardization across measures of sociodemographic variables and assessment measures for PCI outcomes. Future studies should address the literature gap on racial and ethnic disparities among PCI outcomes and use standardized measures for sociodemographic variables and PCI outcomes to facilitate meta-analyses on the topic. Targeting the mechanisms of these disparities may mitigate the impact of the sociodemographic factors on PCI outcomes.

Benefits of Parent Training in the Rehabilitation of Deaf or Hard of Hearing Children of Hearing Parents: A Systematic Review

The present study is a systematic review on the effectiveness of Parent Training (PT) and coaching in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) rehabilitation programs which reviews and synthesizes the existing body of evidence to assess the benefits of these programs in enhancing parents' sensitivity, responsivity and promoting language development in DHH children during the first years after HA fitting or CI activation. Five published studies met the Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes (PICO) inclusion criteria and were eligible to be included, but heterogeneity in terms of the study design, interventions and outcomes did not allow for performing a meta-analysis. All included studies shared the view that a parent's learning is a circular (rather than frontal) process, and the results appear promising in terms of enhancing parents' responsiveness and promoting DHH child language development. Nevertheless, the available evidence was judged to not be robust enough due to limitations in the studies' designs. Further high-quality evidence is needed to evaluate the true degree of clinical value and the cost effectiveness of PT programs aimed at increasing parents' responsiveness to their DHH children.