Retrospective assessment of the impact of an education specialist on the care of children with hearing loss.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of an education specialist in a multidisciplinary pediatric hearing loss clinic. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective review and cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Single tertiary care center. METHODS: Consultations held between an education specialist and families of pediatric deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) children within a two-year period were reviewed. Reasons for referral and services provided to each patient and family who subsequently worked with the educational specialist were assessed. Parents of patients who had previously worked with the education specialist were invited to complete a survey evaluating their experience. RESULTS: 102 patients were referred to the educational specialist in a two-year period. Most common reasons for referral included need for special education plans to accommodate their hearing deficit (32) or family request to support for revisions to such plans (37). 14 patient families completed our survey. 76.9 % of respondents confirmed that the education specialist recommended resources they had not been introduced to before. Given a scale of 1 ("completely dissatisfied") and 10 being "completely satisfied," the average rating of the 14 respondents was 9.0. CONCLUSION: The role of an education specialist in a pediatric hearing loss clinic is to optimize patient and family access to resources that could benefit their DHH child's academic development over time. Future studies should prospectively investigate the impact of education specialist services on the educational progress of DHH patients compared to outcomes without these supports.