Social interaction and acceptance of deaf or hard-of-hearing children and their peers: A comparison of social-skills and familiarity-based interventions

This study compared the effects of two interventions on the social interaction and acceptance between deaf or hard-of-hearing children and their (a) deaf or hard-of-hearing peers, (b) normally hearing peers who were familiar with the deaf or hard-of-hearing children and participated in the interventions, and (c) normally hearing peers who were unfamiliar with the deaf or hard-of-hearing children and did not participate in the interventions. During a teacher-mediated social-skills intervention, teachers designed activities to promote peer interaction and modeled and prompted children to use specific social skills during these activities. During an integrated-activities intervention, deaf or hard-of-hearing and normally hearing children worked together regularly to allow them to become familiar with one another. The social-skills intervention successfully increased the interaction between the deaf or hard-of-hearing children and their deaf or hard-of-hearing peers. The increase in interaction generalized to free play and was maintained for 4 weeks after the intervention ceased. Neither intervention increased interaction between deaf or hard-of-hearing children and their normally hearing peers. Deaf or hard-of-hearing children and familiar normally hearing peers increased their recognition of one another, but neither intervention increased normally hearing children's social acceptance of their deaf or hard-of-hearing peers.