Teachers and Peers as Communication Models to Teach Grammatical Forms to Preschoolers With Hearing Loss

Abstract

Structured input from both teachers and peers maximizes the opportunities for preschoolers to learn grammatical forms. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using a teacher and a peer with typical hearing and language skills to model grammatically correct verbal responses to action wh- questions (“What is he/she doing?”) using picture stimuli with three preschool-aged children with hearing loss. Data from a multiple probe across participants design indicated that (a) all children learned to appropriately answer the wh- question using their targeted grammatical form during intervention, (b) all three children were able to generalize these skills to untrained pictures with varying degrees of success, and (c) all three children maintained the skills for 6 to 10 weeks following intervention. Implications for teaching grammatical forms to preschool children with hearing loss are discussed.