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The importance of "scaffolding" in clinical approach to deafness across the lifespan
Get PDFThroughout the present work of thesis, the concept of scaffolding will be used as a fil rouge through the chapters. What I mean for “scaffolding approach”, therefore, is an integrated and multidisciplinary clinical and research methodology to hearing impairments that could take into account persons as a whole; an approach that needs to be continuously adapted and harmonized with the individuals, pursuant to their progress, their limits and resources, in consideration of their audiological, cognitive, emotional, personal, and social characteristics.
The following studies of our research group will be presented:
A study (2020) designed to assess the effects of parent training (PT) on enhancing children’s communication development (chapter two);
Two studies of our research group (2016; 2020) concerning variables influencing comprehension of emotions and nuclear executive functions in deaf children with cochlear implant (chapter three and chapter four)
In chapter five a presentation and description of our Mind-Active Communication program, main topics and aims, multidisciplinary organizations of group and individual sessions with a description of used materials and methodology is given. Finally, a preliminary evaluation to explore the use of this multidisciplinary rehabilitative program on quality of life, psychological wellbeing, and hearing abilities in a sample of cochlear implanted elderly persons is reported
School wellbeing and psychological characteristics of online learning in families of children with and without hearing loss during the Covid‐19 pandemic
Get PDFThis study investigated the psychological characteristics of online learning on Italian students with and without hearing loss (HL) and on their parents, who were forced into isolation during the Covid‐19 pandemic. An online survey collected information on socio‐demographic data and opinions concerning online learning from 61 children (mean age 11; 25 males, 36 females), including 43 with HL and also from their parents; additionally, school wellbeing and anxiety were assessed. The results showed that, in both the student and parent groups, no significant effect of HL on school wellbeing and anxiety was found. Additionally, in parents, State Anxiety was significantly higher than Trait Anxiety, suggesting one possible impact of lockdown on psychological wellbeing. Differences due to HL were observed and discussed in correlation analyses. The Authors believe that this study is the first contribution to the psychological evaluation of the impact of online learning on families with hearing‐impaired children, from the perspective of a successful, inclusive didactic
Parent Training and Communication Empowerment of Children With Cochlear Implant
No full textDeaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) need a supportive family environment to facilitate language development. The present study was designed to assess the effects of parent training (PT) on enhancing children's communication development. The PT was based on the "It Takes Two to Talk" model, with specific adaptations for families of deaf children. Before and after the PT, 14 participating families and matched no-treatment controls were assessed using the Parent Stress Index and Cole's interaction checklist. The children's language was assessed with the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory and, after 3 years, with the Boston Naming, the Peabody, and the Test for Reception of Grammar-Version 2 (TROG-2). The families' quality of interaction and the children's language increased significantly more in the trained group than in controls and differences were still present after 3 years. The parents seemed to benefit from PT that focused on strategies to empower and promote communication skills in children with CIs
Long-term speech perception and morphosyntactic outcomes in adolescents and young adults implanted in childhood
Get PDFBackground: Long-term assessments of children with cochlear implants (CI) are important inputs
to help guide families and professionals in therapeutic and counselling processes. Based on these
premises, the primary aim of the present study was to assess the long-term speech and language
outcomes in a sample of prelingually deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) adolescents and young adults
with unilateral or bilateral implantation in childhood. The secondary aim was to investigate the
correlations of age at implantation with long-term speech and language outcomes.
Materials and Methods: Retrospective observational study on 54 long-term CI users, 33 unilateral
and 21 bilateral (mean age at CI surgery 38.1 ± 24.6 months; mean age at last follow-up assessment
19.1 ± 4.3 years of age and mean follow-up time 16 ± 3.7 years). Means and standards were used to
describe speech perception (in quiet, in fixed noise and in adaptive noise using It-Matrix) and
morphosyntactic comprehension (TROG-2) outcomes. A univariate analysis was used to evaluate
outcome differences between unilateral and bilateral patients. Bivariate analysis was performed to
investigate the relationships between age at CI, audiological variables, and language outcomes.
Finally, multivariate analysis was performed to quantify the relationship between It-Matrix,
sentence recognition in quiet and at SNR+10 and TROG-2.
Results: The participants showed good speech recognition performance in quiet (94% for words
and 89% for sentences) whilst their speech-in-noise scores decreased significantly. For the It-
Matrix, only 9.2% of the participants showed scores within the normative range. This value was
60% for TROG-2 performance. For both auditory and language skills, group differences for
unilateral versus bilateral CI users were not statistically significant (p >0.05). Bivariate analysis
showed that age at CI correlated significantly with overall results at TROG-2 (r = -0.6; p <0.001)
and with It-Matrix (r =0.5; p <0.001). TROG-2 was negatively correlated with results for It-Matrix
(r = -0.5; p <0.001). In the multivariate analysis with It-Matrix as a dependent variable, the model
explained 63% of the variance, of which 60% was related to sentence recognition and 3% to
morphosyntax.
Conclusions: These data contribute to the definition of average long-term outcomes expected in
subjects implanted during childhood whilst increasing our knowledge of the effects of variables
such as age at CI and morphosyntactic comprehension on speech perception. Although the majority
of this prelingually DHH cohort did not achieve scores within a normative range, remarkably better
It-Matrix scores were observed when compared to those from postlingually deafened adult CI users
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Effects of the “Active Communication Education” Program on Hearing-Related Quality of Life in a Group of Italian Older Adults Cochlear Implant Users
No full textINTRODUCTION: The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of the Active Communication Education (ACE) program on the social/emotional impacts of hearing loss (HL) in a group of older adults with a cochlear implant (CI). DESIGN: Prospective cohort study design, with a “within-subject” control procedure. STUDY SAMPLE: Twenty adults over-65 post-lingually deafened CI users. All subjects were required to be native Italian speakers, to have normal cognitive level, have no significant psychiatric conditions and/or diagnosed incident dementia, and used CI for at least 9 months. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty participants were assessed using the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) before, during, and after ACE program, with a one and 6-month follow up. The cognitive and audiological evaluation was carried out before commencing the ACE program. RESULTS: The ACE program had a positive impact by reducing HL’s social/emotional effects. Participants benefited from a rehabilitative approach by improving multilevel skills: comprehension of audiological and hearing dimensions, acquisition of communicative, pragmatic and problem-solving strategies, and interaction and sharing of experiences with peers. CONCLUSION: Although targeting the older adults with moderate HL, the ACE program also seemed to benefit older adult CI users. An improvement in social and emotional adaptation to hearing difficulties can, in turn, significantly promote optimal use of CI in the older adults, thereby possibly reducing the risk of losing motivation and engagement in device use and in rehabilitation protocols
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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