Examining the Effectiveness of a Program Developed for Teaching Social Skills to Hearing Impaired Students Based on Cooperative Learning. (2007)

Abstract The aim of this study is to determine whether a social skill instruction program, prepared according to the cooperative learning method, is effective for children with hearing disability in learning the basic social skills, starting and continuing a relationship, conducting a work with a group, and the generalization of these skills. Nine learning groups, that is, three groups for each three different skills, are formed because the three target social skills should be applied on different students. To determine the teaching efficiency, multiple probe model with probe conditions across subject is used. Result showed that this program is affective for hearing impaired students who can learn some social skills. Keywords Social Skills Training, Cooperative Learning, Hearing Impairment Children. People with hearing disability are in a disadvantageous situation in the development of their social skills because of the communication difficulties they have. It is necessary to evaluate and improve the social skills of children with hearing disability in classrooms in which the inclusion is applied, special education classrooms and in separate schools from the preschool period. When we review the literature, it is seen that social skill instruction programs are developed by means of different methods such as computer assisted (Weisel, & Bar-Lev, 1993), direct-method (Anderson, Nelson, Fox & Gruber, 1988; Blank, Fogarty, Wierzba and Yore,2000; Merrell and Gimpel, 1998; Prater, Bruhl and Serna, 1998; Rutherford and et al, 1998; Schroeder, Basken, Engstrom and Heald, 2000), cognitive social learning (Anderson, Nelson, Fox and Gruber, 1988), peer assisted learning (Bierman, and Furman, 1984), constructivist approach (Prater, Bruhl and Serna ,1998), drama (Freeman, Sullivan, Fulton, 2003), and cooperative learning (Antia, Kreimeyer and Eldredge, 1994; Blank, Fogarty, Wierzba and Yore (2000; Caissie and Wilson, 1995; Cooper, Smith and Smith, 2000; Ducharme and Holborn, 1997; Dunlap and Sands, 1990; Luckner, 1991; Polvi and Telama, 2000; Prater, Bruhl and Serna, 1998; Rutherford and et al, 1998; Schroeder, Basken, Engstrom and Heald, 2000) in order to improve the social skills of children with hearing disability. A social skill instruction program for these students is not encountered in Turkey. In this study, it is planned to teach social skills to children with hearing disability by means of a program which is prepared according to cooperative learning method. This study is thought to be a starting point for the improvement of social skills of children with hearing disability and will contribute for people who work in this field as well as who do research on the topic. The aim of this study is to determine whether a social skill instruction program, prepared according to cooperative learning method, is effective for children with hearing disability in learning basic social skills, starting and continuing a relationship, conducting a work with a group, and the generalization of these skills or not. Method This study is designed according to the multiple baseline design across subjects because of the difficulties in finding settings, which give us the opportunity for the same applications for independent but the same behaviors, and in finding at least three social skills, which are similar but independent. Nine learning groups, that is, three groups for each three different skills, are formed in total because three target social skills should be applied on different students. In each cooperative learning group, there is a student with hearing disability and also there are three peer students, that is in total there are 36 students in research group, 27 of them have no hearing disability and nine students have hearing disability. Students who have no difficulty in hearing are added to the research group in order to form the cooperative learning groups. Therefore, the data related to these students are not collected and only the data related to the students with hearing disability are collected. …