The Effects of Virtual Assessment on Capturing Skill Growth in Children With Hearing Loss

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of switching from in-person assessment to virtual assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic on the growth trajectories of children with hearing loss who are learning spoken language.

Sixty-eight children with typical hearing, 44 children with cochlear implants, and 47 children with hearing aids were assessed with a norm-referenced measure of receptive vocabulary, a criterion-referenced measure of phonological awareness, and a criterion-referenced measure of conceptual print knowledge at least 4 times, at 6-month intervals, between the ages of 4 and 6 years. Of those participants, 26 children with typical hearing, 13 children with cochlear implants, and 13 children with hearing aids entered virtual testing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The slopes of growth for children who entered virtual testing were compared to their own slopes prepandemic and to the growth slopes of children who completed all testing in-person, prepandemic.

Within-subject comparisons across all measures did not show a change in growth slopes prepandemic to postpandemic. For the measure of conceptual print knowledge, children who were tested during the pandemic showed slower overall growth than children who were tested prepandemic. No effects of hearing status were found across growth on any measure.

These preliminary data support the use of virtual assessment to measure growth in receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, and conceptual print knowledge in children with hearing loss learning spoken language.