Social Skills Training for Arabic-speaking Pre-lingual Cochlear Implanted Children

Abstract

Background: The majority of intervention programs devised for Arabic-speaking cochlear implanted (CI) children focus mainly on improving their auditory, cognitive, and language skills while social skills were not directly targeted in interventions. Management of social skill deficits in CI children is important to prevent the negative impact of these deficits on children’s quality of lives. This study aimed to construct and evaluate the efficiency of a training program for remediation of social skills’ deficits in Arabic speaking pre-lingual CI children. Methods: The present study was conducted on 40 pre-lingual Arabic-speaking CI children in the age range 5-12 years with impaired social performance. After assessment of auditory, language and social skills, children received twice-weekly training sessions by the newly designed Mansoura Arabic social skills training program (MASSTP). Revaluation was done after 6 months. Results and conclusion: The children’s social age, as well as their scores on the pragmatic test and social abilities questionnaires were significantly higher in post-training assessment than in pre-training assessment with better post training social performance in older children aged 7- 12 years. The MASSTP is a valid and efficient habilitation program for pre-lingual Arabic- speaking CI children in the age range 5-12 years. IQ, language age, and auditory abilities scores showed significant positive correlations with post-training social abilities.