title: Muenster Parental Programme empowers parents in communicating with their infant with hearing loss.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  With the implementation of the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS), the age of diagnosis of children with hearing loss (HL) has been steadily declining in the past years. Consequently, there is a need for early educational intervention methods that are suitable for infants at the preverbal level. To meet this need we have developed and evaluated the Muenster Parental Programme (MPP), a responsive parenting programme for parents of children with HL aged 3-18 months. It aims at enhancing the parents' communicative skills towards their child.
  
  
  METHODS
  The MPP is introduced following confirmation of a HL. Flanked by two individual counselling sessions, the programme comprises six group sessions and two single training sessions with video feedback. The focus of the programme lies in enhancing parents' responsive behaviour and in reducing inappropriate initiative behaviour. The present study involved 29 parents of 24 children aged 6.6 (mean, range: 3-12) months at the outset of the MPP. The children's degree of HL ranged from moderate to profound. Parents of children with unilateral HL and/or risk for an additional developmental delay were included. The prospective study compared parent communication skills of a trained (N = 15) versus a control group (N = 14) before and after the MPP. For this purpose, instances of responsive behaviour to the signals of the child and total time of initiative behaviour within a 4-min video-sample were measured before and after completion of the study in both groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Trained parents could enhance their responsiveness to vocal and preverbal signals of the child (Wilcoxon test, p = .002) and also their responsiveness to non-verbal signals (Wilcoxon test, p < .001). Moreover, parents reduced their inappropriate initiative behaviour (related t-test, p < .001). Pre-post comparisons in the control group were non-significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The increased parental responsiveness to infants with HL is of great importance as these early behaviours underlie later acquisition of speech, language, hearing and social communication skills. The MPP constitutes the first evaluated group concept for parents of infants with HL in the German-speaking countries and equally meets the needs of parents and professionals.
authors.affiliation: Clinic of Phoniatrics and Pedaudiology, University Hospital Muenster, Germany. Electronic address: r.glanemann@uni-muenster.de.
authors.forename: Reinhild
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Glanemann
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Reichmuth
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Matulat
authors.forename: Antoinette Am
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Zehnhoff-Dinnesen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003142:Communication; D003638:Deafness / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D018479:Early Intervention, Educational / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000193:education*; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
keywords: CI; Early intervention; Evidence-based practice; HL; Hearing loss; Interaction; MPP; Muenster Parental Programme; NH; Newborn hearing screening; PALS; Responsive parenting; UNHS; Universal Newborn Hearing Screening; cochlear implant; hearing loss; normal hearing; playing and learning strategies programme; s.e.m.; standard error of the mean