Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Comm4CHILD (Communication for Children with Hearing Impairment to optimise Language Development)
Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2024-05-31
The World Health Assembly adopted a 2017 resolution recognising hearing loss as a priority worldwide health issue. Children with hearing loss present significant risks for language acquisition, educational achievement, socio-emotional development, and well-being. Intervention plans failed to prepare those children for academic achievement and social participation in contemporary society where the diversity of their needs is increasing. Comm4CHILD is a consortium that implemented an innovative approach for optimising the communicative skills and social inclusion of children with hearing loss. Comm4CHILD addressed the large inter-individual heterogeneity in brain plasticity, cognitive resources, and linguistic abilities, and took full advantage of this heterogeneity to support efficient communicative skills in children with hearing loss. A group of 15 ESRs were trained in research and intervention in a cross-sectoral way. The work of the ESRs (1) enhanced mapping of the factors underlying heterogeneity, (2) advanced the understanding of the predictors of linguistic communicative skills, and (3) developed new intervention methods. The output of this unique consortium has an impact across all aspects of everyday life of children with hearing loss. Specifically, Comm4CHILD provides a significantly improved understanding of communicative and social skills that will underpin the development of innovative future treatment and rehabilitation measures.
The findings have been made accessible to a wide variety of stakeholders, such as children with hearing impairment (HI) and their families, deaf organisations and charities, practitioners, professional organisations, as well as to an international audience, in multiple languages through publications by ESRs, Posters and talks in scientific meetings, organisatons of events, publications of newsletters, factsheets, … Moreover, news softwares and clinical guidances and new protocols have been released.
The findings have been made accessible to a wide variety of stakeholders, such as children with hearing impairment (HI) and their families, deaf organisations and charities, practitioners, professional organisations, as well as to an international audience, in multiple languages through publications by ESRs, Posters and talks in scientific meetings, organisatons of events, publications of newsletters, factsheets, … Moreover, news softwares and clinical guidances and new protocols have been released.
15 ESRs were recruited and enrolled in doctoral schools. International and intersectoral secondments, as well as network-wide event (4 Comm4CHILD workshops and a final conference) were organized by the consortium to ensure that the ESRs receive valuable interdisciplinary training to complement their local training. Their research projects contributed to understand the biological, mechanistic, processes underlying the outcome variations at the peripheral and central level in individuals with hearing loss following therapy (work package 1), to explore various means to make communication easier and help children with hearing loss to optimise their cognitive resources for interaction and learning (work package 2) and to evaluate how individual language and learning resources affect spoken and written communication and facilitate daily-life interaction according to the opportunities and constraints of the communicative environment (work package 3). The ESRs made communications to the scientific and/or industrial community via peer-reviewed publications, posters and oral presentations in national and international workshops and conferences. Several outreach activities were made to the general public, members of the deaf and hard of hearing communities, as well as practitioners in the rehabilitation network (e.g. Teachers of the Deaf, audiologists, Speech therapists, etc.). The project fact sheet, as well as the policy brief, can be found on the project website.
Comm4CHILD addressed the need for delivering improved hearing care for children with hearing loss by training a new generation of translational ESRs able to span several sectors. Comm4CHILD also contributed to structuring doctoral/early-stage research training at the European level by providing all ESRs with the scientific knowledge, technical excellence, and transferable skills necessary to pursue a successful career in academia, industry, or in the health and policy sector. This is especially important as formal training of persons who support children with hearing loss does not exist in several countries, while there is a growing need to bridge the gap between technology and hearing loss. The ESRs are now able to motivate new educational, clinical, technological, and policy innovations to support the development of linguistic communicative skills and learning abilities of children with hearing loss.
In terms of strengthening European innovation capacity, Comm4CHILD contributed to the future leadership in the provision of hearing health care that will reduce the socio-economic burden of poorly treated hearing loss at the European level. The ESRs are a team of “paediatric hearing care entrepreneurs” of the future, with a huge potential for (1) innovating and contributing to worldwide commercialization of new hearing technologies and new care solutions and services, (2) strengthening the hearing healthcare industry, and (3) creating new jobs in the EU. This in turn will ensure a better use of current and future hearing device technology, thanks to individually-based clinical practices and intervention strategies, and lead to new strategies and policies in rehabilitation of children with hearing loss, and interventions that address their multiple challenges.
In terms of strengthening European innovation capacity, Comm4CHILD contributed to the future leadership in the provision of hearing health care that will reduce the socio-economic burden of poorly treated hearing loss at the European level. The ESRs are a team of “paediatric hearing care entrepreneurs” of the future, with a huge potential for (1) innovating and contributing to worldwide commercialization of new hearing technologies and new care solutions and services, (2) strengthening the hearing healthcare industry, and (3) creating new jobs in the EU. This in turn will ensure a better use of current and future hearing device technology, thanks to individually-based clinical practices and intervention strategies, and lead to new strategies and policies in rehabilitation of children with hearing loss, and interventions that address their multiple challenges.