THE RELATIONSHIP OF HEARING-LOSS SEVERITY TO DEMOGRAPHIC, AGE, TREATMENT, AND INTERVENTION-EFFECTIVENESS VARIABLES

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how hearing-loss severity and the variables of demographics, age, treatment, and intervention e ffectiveness were related for 2519 children served by SKIHI home-base d programs between July 1979 and June 1991. Relationships between hear ing-loss severity and demographic variables were negligible to small. Severity was inversely associated with identification, amplification, and program-start ages. The relationship between severity and early ve rsus late program start was small; this was also true for the relation ship between severity and communication methodology. Severity was posi tively associated with treatment duration; however, severity was not a ssociated with treatment density. Intervention effectiveness for the s everity levels, based on expressive and receptive language scores, was examined using three predictive models. These included the residuals between actual and predicted posttest scores, proportional change indi ces, and value-added gains per month. The usefulness of the three proc edures for clinical and program-evaluation purposes is discussed.