Reading interventions for deaf and hard-of-hearing children: a systematic review of intervention components, participant characteristics, and methodological quality
摘要
Although deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children face significant reading challenges and have been the focus of various interventions, a systematic synthesis of the influencing factors is still lacking. This systematic review addresses this gap by analyzing intervention components, participant characteristics, and methodological quality across studies. A systematic search across six databases (between January 2000 and August 2024) identified 39 studies on reading interventions targeting DHH children, coded for intervention-related components (design, approach, duration, sample size, delivery format, and outcome measures), participant characteristics (age, degree of hearing loss, hearing device usage, and communication modes), and methodological quality (RoB 2 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs), ROBINS-I V2 for quasi-experimental designs, and RoBiNT for single-case studies). Reading interventions for DHH students were predominantly studied using quasi-experimental or single-case studies, typically delivered individually or in small groups. Participants were mainly primary-school-aged children with heterogeneous hearing levels and communication modes; intervention approaches emphasized cognitive-linguistic methods for word reading in younger children and metacognitive & strategy-based interventions for comprehension in older ones. Methodological quality assessments indicated low risk or some concerns in the two RCTs, low to serious risk in quasi-experimental studies, and moderate overall quality with critical internal validity weaknesses in single-case studies. These findings underscore the interconnected roles of intervention components, participant characteristics, and methodological quality in shaping reading intervention outcomes for DHH students. The heterogeneous participant profiles and methodological limitations emphasize the need to tailor intervention designs to individual needs and adopt rigorous methodologies to enhance intervention quality.