Remote Neuropsychological Intervention for Developmental Dyslexia with the Tachidino Platform: No Reduction in Effectiveness for Older Nor for More Severely Impaired Children

Tachidino is a web-platform for remote treatment of reading and writing disorders. A total of 91 children with developmental dyslexia and/or dysorthographia participated in the present study and received Tachidino treatment. The purpose of the study was to compare results obtained after four weeks treatment and a six-month follow-up in older versus younger children and in more versus less severely impaired children (separately subdividing them according to reading speed, reading accuracy, and writing accuracy). The results showed no difference in improvement for reading accuracy and speed in the three age groups, but children below 9 years improved more than older children in writing accuracy. Regarding severity groups, children with more severe initial impairments improved more than children with less severe impairments. Additionally, the results were confirmed after controlling for spurious effects due to use of Z-scores and regression to the mean. The findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.

HOLISTIC DENTAL APPROACH FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED CHILDREN: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

Visual impairment is one of the most common disabilty. It requires a lot of attention especially in the field of dentistry. These children are often deprived of oral health care needs due to dental neglect. This is a comprehensive review that focuses on prevalence, etiology as well as treatment modalities for these children. It comprises barriers to dental health and various methods which can be used to overcome the challenges.

Shadow of COVID-19 on the Education of Hearing-Impaired Children

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Academic Performance of Hearing Impaired Children Who Received Early Intervention

Aims: This study aims to assess the academic performance of children with hearing impairment who received early intervention in Lahore. Study Design: Cross sectional survey design was used. Place and Duration of Study: Data was collected from Special Institute/School; Hamza foundation academy Lahore, Pakistan for the duration of six months from March 2021 to September 2021. Methodology: 97 students with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss children (aged in between 4 to 12), using hearing aids (HA’s) and cochlear implant (CI) were included by using purposive sampling technique. Hearing impaired children with other than sensorineural hearing loss and children who didn’t receive early intervention (hearing aids/implants or speech therapy) were excluded from this study. Results: It was found that 97 children with hearing impairment achieved significantly in their test score (80 to 99%) across English, Science, and Mathematics as compared to Urdu and Islamiyat (70 to 79%) after the implementation of intervention strategies. Conclusion: The study conclude that, while children with hearing impairment faced struggle in some areas of academics which includes listening and imitation in subjects like Urdu (structure of words) and Islamiyat (due to Arabic talafuz), their academic performance in Math, English, and Science is higher with overall achieved percentage between 80 to 99%.

Awareness of parents of hearing-impaired children about the importance of speech-language therapeutic interventions

Background: The importance of parental involvement of hearing-impaired children in their child's speech therapy cannot be denied. The current study aimed to determine parental awareness and involvement in the Speech-language therapeutic interventions of hearing-impaired children. Subjects and methods: This was a cross-sectional study design, and a purposive sampling technique was used. Data were collected from 45 parents (male=32, female=13) of hearing-impaired children whose children received speech therapy from special education centers and schools of Gujranwala. The duration of the study was nine months, from June 2019 to February 2020. A related questionnaire was developed with the literature, and expert opinions (Cronbach's α=0.894) were used to assess parental awareness and involvement in speech therapeutic interventions. Data entered and analyzed by SPSS version 23. Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographic variables (age, gender) of the participants. Frequency and percentage were used to access the awareness and involvement of the parents of hearing-impaired children. Results: Parental awareness survey showed that a total of 15 (33.3%) parents, both mother, and father, strongly agreed, and 24 (53.3%) agreed that speech therapy would be beneficial for their child. And results related to parents' involvement showed that 21 (46.7%) parents, both mother, and father, agreed, and 15 (33.3%) strongly agreed on their child's active involvement in speech therapy plans. Conclusions: The study concluded that most parents understand the importance of parental awareness and involvement in the therapeutic intervention of hearing-impaired children.

Optimization of Gobak Sodor Based Neuroscience Learning Game as Character Education in Intellectual Disabilities

The purpose of writing this article is to find out the optimization of traditional gobak sodor neuroscience learning-based game activities as character education in intellectual disability with grade medium (ATG). Referring to the problems, most schools do not have policies and administrations regarding character education, most schools that have an environment that supports the implementation of character education, most teachers do not have good knowledge and attitude in character education, most teachers do not have good competence, most schools have used the curriculum and most teachers have not used assessments that are suitable for children. Character education and most of the community has not supported the course of character education. The purpose of writing this article is to find out the optimization of traditional "gobak sodor" neuroscience learning-based game activities as character education in children ATG. The method used in writing this article is the study of non-systematic literature from national & international database. Based on the concept of a previous relevant frame of mind, schema, and research, it can be concluded that there will be optimization of traditional "gobak sodor" game activities based on neuroscience learning as character education in children. Optimization of adaptive physical education learning can occur through synergistic contributions through neuroscience learning in traditional games and character education of lightly impaired children. The results of adaptation of these mechanisms are able to reduce the barriers of cognitive domains, practice domains, and social domains of lightly impaired children. Keywords: character, neuroscience learning, traditional games, ATG

Parental compliance for speech therapy of their hearing-impaired children using cochlear implants

Background: Cochlear implant is a miraculous surgery to improve hearing in profound hearing-impaired children who derive no benefit from hearing aids and consequently present with speech and language disability. This study aims to explore the parental perspective regarding compliance to speech therapy and its potential benefit in hearing-impaired children with cochlear implantation. This will help understand parental concerns and plan recommendations for providing appropriate speech therapy sessions after cochlear implantation. Subjects and methods: This cross-sectional study using purposive sampling recruited 217 parents of hearing impaired cochlear implanted children of both genders, aged 1 to 15 years. Sample was collected from Audiology Department of Riphah International University, Combined Military Hospital, Bahria Town Hospital and Alam Audiology Clinic, Lahore, Pakistan over a period of 6 months. Basic demographic sheet and self-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. SPSS Version 22 was used for data analysis. Results: Results revealed that both parents of 120 (55.3%) male and 97 (44.7%) female cochlear implanted children entered the study. A poor compliance was noted with only 88(40.55%) parents got their children consulted with a speech therapist for post implant needs and of these only 75 (84.23%) received regular speech therapy. There was significant association of those who received hearing aid trial and consultation to speech therapist (p=0.01) and length of speech therapy with regular therapy sessions (p=0.03), speech language improvement with the thought that regular speech therapy was important (p=0.04) Conclusion: By and large parents are not very compliant to speech therapy needs of their implanted children with only 40.55% consulted speech language therapists and remaining remained indifferent. Of the 40.55% who consulted speech language therapists 84.23% followed speech therapy for their children. Study also revealed a significant relationship between regular speech therapy sessions and early speech and language development.

OP267 Evidence for Health Technology Assessment: The Capability Approach

IntroductionHealthcare services, such as cochlear implants and subsequent rehabilitation, aim to increase valuable activities and opportunities of those affected. Their impact may be inferred from the extent that they protect or restore capability, which reflects the real freedoms that people have to be or do things they have reason to value. Capability emerges from the dynamic interaction between available resources, individual, social, and environmental conversion factors, and functionings. This model sets the informational requirements of the capability approach.MethodsOn the basis of interviews with thirty-three hearing impaired children and thirty hearing peers, information on capability elements (values, resources, conversion factors, and functionings) was collected. Qualitative results were triangulated with standardized clinical audiological and psycholinguistic quantitative measures.ResultsHearing impaired children and their hearing peers concurred in terms of the doings and beings they valued, but differed in terms of conversion factors to realize capability. Parents of hearing impaired children played a more upfront role, hearing impairment predominated many areas of life, and communicating through hearing aids required more energy than was usually acknowledged by the people around them.ConclusionsThe capability approach offers opportunities not only to assess impact of technology on dimensions that are important to patients, but also to better understand the mechanisms that are involved in value generation.

Spontaneous speech intelligibility: early cochlear implanted children versus their normally hearing peers at seven years of age

Speaking intelligibly is an important achievement in children’s language development. How far do congenitally severe-to-profound hearing-impaired children who received a cochlear implant (CI) in the first two years of their life advance on the path to intelligibility in comparison to children with typical hearing (NH)? Spontaneous speech samples of children with CI and children with NH were orthographically transcribed by naïve transcribers. The entropy of the transcriptions was computed to analyze their degree of uniformity. The same samples were also rated on a continuous rating scale by another group of adult listeners. The transcriptions of the NH children’s speech were more uniform, i.e., had significantly lower entropy, than those of the CI children, suggesting that the latter group displayed lower intelligibility. This was confirmed by the ratings on the continuous scale. Despite the relatively restricted age ranges, older children reached better intelligibility scores in both groups.