Assessing a Video-Based Intervention to Promote Parent Communication Strategies with a Deaf Infant: A Feasibility and Acceptability Study

Infant-parent interaction forms the foundation for language learning. For the majority of deaf infants, hearing loss can impact access to, and the quality of communicative interactions, placing language development at risk. Support for families to meet the challenges faced during interaction is highly variable in the United Kingdom. In a step towards more standardized but tailorable family support, we co-produced an instructional, video-based intervention, testing for feasibility in terms of behavior change in seven communicative strategies and acceptability with 9 parents, forming study 1. Parents increased their use of the majority of behaviors and found content and delivery acceptable. However, further development was required to: (a) support use of semantically contingent talk and attention getting strategies to elicit infant attention, and (b) ensure the information was provided in a bite-size format that could be tailored to individual families. In study 2, the intervention was refined based on findings from study 1 and assessed for acceptability with 9 parents and 17 professionals, who reported similar high acceptability scores. Final refinements and modifications could be addressed in future interventions. The current studies provide a positive early step towards a standardized intervention to support communication that could be used in routine practice.

Automated summary

Infant-parent interaction is crucial for language learning, but hearing loss poses risks to language development by affecting the quality of communication for deaf infants. Family support in the United Kingdom varies greatly. This study developed and tested an instructional video intervention to standardize and tailor family support, showing positive feasibility and acceptability among parents. The intervention was refined based on feedback from parents and professionals, providing a potential standardized intervention to support communication in routine practice.