Hearing abilities stimulation program for schools

ABSTRACT Purpose To develop and verify the effectiveness of a hearing abilities (HA) stimulation program included in the regular school curriculum and applied by teachers in the classroom. Methods An HA stimulation program was developed and applied to preschoolers during the school year; 34 children underwent auditory stimulation (ASG) and were compared to a placebo group (PG; n = 31). The students were assessed regarding their HA and pre-reading and decoding skills before and after the intervention. They were reassessed twice after applying the program to monitor the students' performance amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Results The program includes activities applied at school by teachers for 25 weeks, lasting 10-15 minutes/day, stimulating the following HA: detection, discrimination, temporal processing, figure-ground, closure, memory, and attention. The ASG and PG performances differed significantly after the program. Conclusion The program was incorporated into the curriculum, helping to develop the skills recommended by the Ministry of Education. After auditory stimulation, ASG performed better in auditory figure-ground, temporal resolution, rhyme identification and production, and word production from the phoneme given.