Title: Socialization and Support: Group aural habilitation for infants, toddlers, and parents
Introduction: Frequent and consistent habilitative support is required for infant and
toddler cochlear implant recipients in order to meet speech-language and hearing
milestones. Provision of habilitation in a group format offers the added benefit of
socialization for not only the patients, but parents as well, who may be looking for peer
support during a new and challenging period in their child’s development. To provide
habilitative and support resources to patients and their parents, a monthly group
meeting was established.
Methods: Implant recipients, ages 6 months to four years, and their parents, are invited
to participate in a group virtually via Zoom. The group is an hour in duration and
facilitated by a speech-language pathologist and an audiologist. As the group is
ongoing, new implant candidates who fall within this age range are invited to join the
group upon scheduling surgery. Each meeting follows a similar structure, including: an
energy check, a shared activity, a discussion prompt, and a song. After six consecutive
monthly meetings, participating parents were asked to complete a survey about the
program and prompted to share what they would like to see more of during future
meetings. On the basis of provided feedback, group structure was modified. The group
is grant-funded, and therefore free of charge to all participants. Grant funding is utilized
to purchase hands-on activities that are sent to the participant’s homes to utilize during
the monthly group meetings. The grant funds are also applied to cover the cost of
clinical time spent on non-billable procedures.
Results: Provision of free group habilitation services introduces and/or reinforces auditory
verbal strategies to support a child’s development of listening and spoken language skills.
By providing a specific activity, the parents learn and practice the application of these listening
and spoken language strategies during the group and then keep the item so that they can
continue to play and implement the strategies discussed. For children attending weekly
individual teletherapy, the structure of each group and the strategies implemented mirror that of
their weekly sessions and therefore further reinforce therapeutic strategies. The primary
speech-language pathologist is able to build additional rapport in group sessions and is not
limited by the frequency of therapy provision that is determined by insurance carriers. The
inclusion of infant cochlear implant candidates from the time of surgical scheduling provides
parents with a safe, low-stakes environment to observe other pediatric implant recipients, as
well as the opportunity to engage with parental peers. The group increases the number of
clinicians on the implant team with whom parents connect with. Perhaps most critically, this
group provides a format in which parents can inform one another and share first-hand
experiences, recommendations, and information. The group fosters an environment of parental
empowerment.
Conclusions: Group habilitation has provided a way for families to connect with each other.
They are provided with a forum to communicate freely with other parents who share similar
challenges and goals. Families are provided with activities that they can keep after the meeting
increasing the likelihood of continued carryover of the strategies implemented and discussed
during the group session. Additionally, clinicians connect with various families with increased
regularity without an increase in parental burden associated with travel and fees associated with
in person audiology and therapy appointments.