Effects of Intervention with Mediated Learning Experiences on Behavioural Functioning of Hearing and Hard of Hearing Children in Primary Schools

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of school-based intervention on grade one children. This study tested the hypothesis that children receiving teacher-mediated-intervention with Mediated Learning Experiences (MLE) - would make significant progress in their behaviour.  The participants of this study comprised 200 children 100 from each of the two schools. The two schools were purposefully selected from among government schools that enrol children with low socio-economic status (deprived), making the sample linguistically and culturally homogeneous. Matching was used in sampling the participants. The instruments used for assessment was Burks Behaviour Rating Scale.  Socioeconomic status, hearing level, school acoustic conditions and teachers’ professional competence were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as qualitatively.  A two way repeated measure ANOVA was used to measure the controlled effects. The relation between hearing level and behavioural functioning was measured for the five major dependent variables.  Results of this study revealed that socioeconomic status of parents in both the experimental and control group was extremely low. With regard to teachers, their competence during the post-intervention period included modern MLE. Many of the sampled children in this study suffered from unilateral and bilateral borderline hearing losses. Both schools had a total of 13.5% children who had bilateral hearing loss. It was found that background noise at school was extremely disruptive for children’s hearing. However, the hearing level did not have a significant main effect on the behavioural functioning. On the other hand, there was a significant main effect of time on the children’s behavioural functioning. There was also a significant interaction effect between the time of measurement and the group, indicating that the intervention had a significant effect on their behavioural functioning. Besides, the effects were not dependent on the level of hearing. Therefore, hard of hearing children equally benefited from the intervention as much as the hearing children.