About the project
My PhD project is about how we can support vocabulary development for children with hearing loss. The project has two main components. First, I want to highlight the research on linguistic interventions for this group, second I want to investigate a linguistic intervention for children with hearing loss aged 7-12 years of age. The intervention study will build on the evidence-based app Kaptein Morf and is conducted throughout the spring of 2023.
Children continuously add new words to their vocabulary. A large vocabulary is an important resource for children with typical hearing and children with hearing loss alike. All children rely on their vocabulary in everyday communication as well as for developing academic skills such as literacy and learning through language. Because children continuously add new words to their vocabularies, degraded auditory input places the vocabulary development of children with hearing loss at risk.
The digital intervention Kaptein Morf targets morphological knowledge, that is about the smallest meaningful elements of words (such as co- in cooperate and -ed in walked). Morphological knowledge appears to be particularly vulnerable for children with hearing loss. For this reason, interventions targeting morphology may support the vocabulary development of children with hearing loss and potentially reduce the gap to their typically hearing peers.
Objectives
The PhD-project has two main objectives. The first is to conduct a systematic review (meta-analysis) of high-quality language interventions for children with hearing loss. The second objective is to perform an intervention study to investigate the effectiveness of a morphology-based app in improving the vocabulary of children with hearing loss. The intervention study will build on the evidence-based app Kaptein Morf.
Background
- The duration of the PhD-project is from autumn 2020 to autumn 2025.
- Main supervisor: Janne von Koss Torkildsen, Department of special needs education, UiO
- Co-supervisor: Ona Bø Wie, Department of special needs education, UiO
- Co-supervisor: Marte Myhrum, Oslo University Hospital
Tools
Kaptein Morf (app)
