Project PREPARE and the ELF Series

An exciting interactive CD-ROM series for preschoolers, kindergartners, and first graders with hearing loss is being developed by Project PREPARE, an SBIR Phase II Project awarded to HOPE, Inc. The CD-ROM series teaches young children who are deaf service words. Service words are words that cannot easily be learned through the use of real objects or pictures (like a real apple or picture of an apple) and include prepositions, conjunctions, articles, adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, “to be” verbs, etc.

Many deaf children struggle to learn service words because they cannot easily hear these words or see the meanings and referents for them (for example, it is difficult to show a deaf child the meaning of a word like “because”). In addition, deaf children of hearing parents who sign English to their children, typically are infrequently exposed to service words since it is almost impossible for most hearing persons to sign all of what they say. The signed words that typically fall out are the service words. Deaf children of hearing parents who learn and use American Sign Language (ASL- that has no speech equivalent) are also typically not exposed to service words because ASL does not include most of the service words used in spoken English.

The CD-ROM units include interactive animation, self-paced instruction and assessment, and delightful, age-appropriate activities and games.

The series is currently being tested in classrooms for young children with hearing loss in Utah.

The series will be available late 2008.