Early identification of hearing loss followed by a timely and effective intervention programme for children with hearing loss is necessary to minimise the negative effects of hearing loss on the development of cognition, psychosocial and verbal communication skills. Such early intervention programmes need to be multidisciplinary, technologically sound and most important, it should take cognisance of the specific context (community, country) in which the child and family function. The main aim of this study is to obtain accurate and reliable baseline information regarding current status of the early intervention process for children with hearing loss in Johannesburg, a Metropolitan City in a developing country. Self-administered questionnaires were handed out to obtain information from 19 hearing impaired childrens’ parents regarding the ages of suspicion of hearing loss, diagnosis and commencement of aural habilitation. The nature of diagnosis and the management of these children are also described. The findings indicate that children in the study were diagnosed and began habilitation late (mean age 24 months and 36months respectively) and that the management process is fragmented. The strengths in the current identification and follow-up process namely, parental involvement and established early intervention service structure are highlighted. Parents’ perceptions of the success and failures of the early intervention services were resolved. Key words: childhood hearing loss, parents/caregivers views, age of diagnosis, age of intervention, developing country

A recent U.S.-based survey (Boyle et al,. 2011) estimated stuttering prevalence in American children ages 3-17 years at 1.6% or 1 in 63 children. In comparison to the reported 1 in 68 school age children living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010), stuttering affects nearly as many. These estimates suggest that Speech-Language Pathologist (SLPs) should increasingly develop their skill sets for identifying and providing interventions for children who stutter. The evidence base for school-age fluency intervention, while promising, leaves much room for further development (Nippold, 2011). The majority of current interventions revolve around the traditional methods of fluency shaping and stuttering management. While these approaches are widely used, there is limited evidence to support their efficacy with the school-aged population (Bothe, et al., 2006). In addition, there is disagreement about whether treatment of stuttering in children should focus exclusively on "building fluent speech" or, whether interventions should also include cognitive/emotional components (Yaruss, Coleman, & Quesal, 2012) as are often associated with interventions for stuttering in adults. As a solution to the need for a cognitive/emotional component, Michael Boyle (2011) suggested including mindfulness in school-aged stuttering intervention by pointing out the similarities between the advantages of mindfulness treatment and personality traits necessary for long-term fluency maintenance. Although there has not yet been any published research in direct support of this idea, the notion that these three elements influence the effects of fluency intervention provides a foundation for the proposed research questions.

In Anlehnung an das Self-Regulated-Strategy-Development-Modell von Harris und Graham (1996) wurde das Selbstregulatorische Aufsatztraining (SAT) zur Förderung der Schreibkompetenz bei Grundschülern der 4. und 5. Klasse entwickelt. SAT integriert die Vermittlung von Schreibstrategien (hier: „Erzählendes Schreiben“) mit Merkmalen selbstgesteuerten Lernens (Zielsetzung, strategisches Planen, Selbstbewertung und Selbstkorrektur). <br><br> Die Wirksamkeit des Trainings wurde in drei Studien untersucht: 1. Eine Pilotstudie diente der Überprüfung der prinzipiellen Eignung von SAT zur Förderung von Schreibleistungen bei Grundschülern der 5. Klassen (N = 42) und der Optimierung seiner Teilkomponenten und Vorgehensweisen. 2. In der Hauptuntersuchung wurden die Effektivität und Nachhaltigkeit des SAT-Programms bei Schülern der 4. Klasse (N = 154) im Vergleich zu zwei Bedingungen getestet: (a) der isolierten Einübung von Schreibstrategien (Aufsatztraining) und (b) konventionellem Aufsatzunterricht (Unterrichtskontrollgruppe). 3. In einer weiteren Studie wurde die Wirksamkeit des Trainings speziell bei Schülern mit ungünstigen Lernvoraussetzungen überprüft; die Studie diente zudem der Illustration des dabei gewählten Vorgehens am Einzelfall (N = 6). <br><br> Die ermittelten Befunde sprechen übereinstimmend dafür, dass die Kombination aus strategischem plus selbstregulatorischem Training (SAT) die stärksten und nachhaltigsten Effekte auf die Schreibleistung erzielt. Der Trainingseffekt generalisiert zudem auf die Erinnerungsleistung bei der freien Wiedergabe einer Kurzgeschichte. Schüler mit schwachen Aufsatzleistungen und ungünstigen Lernvoraussetzungen profitieren von dem SAT-Programm in besonderem Maße. <br><br> In der Diskussion werden Aufgaben für die zukünftige Forschung erörtert. Forschungsbedarf besteht u.a. hinsichtlich (a) einer stärkeren Verknüpfung von Schreibtrainings mit der kognitionspsychologischen Forschung; (b) der Dekomposition und gezielten Überprüfung der einzelnen Trainingskomponenten; (c) der Ausweitung des SAT-Programms auf andere Textgenre; (d) der Integration verfeinerter Revisionsstrategien in das Förderprogramm; und (e) dessen Implementierung in den Regelunterricht. / Extending on Harris and Graham′s (1996) Self-Regulated-Strategy-Development-Model, I designed an curriculum-integrated intervention program (SAT) to promote the composition skills of elementary school-age students. SAT combines the instruction of task strategies required to write good narratives with the explicit instruction of self-regulation procedures (goal setting, strategic planning, self-evaluation, self-correction). <br><br> Three studies examined the effectiveness of the training: 1. A pilot study investigated the viability of the SAT-program among 5th graders (N = 42) and served to refine its components and procedures. 2. In a sample of 4th graders (N = 154), the main study tested the strength and stability of the SAT effects in relation to two comparison groups: (a) Students who were taught the same set of task strategies but received no instruction in self-regulation procedures (strategy-only condition); (b) students who received conventional classroom teaching in composing (control condition). (3.) A third study served to examine the effectiveness of the SAT-program in a group of low achieving 5th graders and to illustrate its instructional steps in a number of single cases (N = 6). <br><br> Results obtained from these studies converge in showing that a writing program that conjointly addresses both task strategies and self-regulation procedures (SAT) is most effective in producing strong and lasting effects on elementary school students′ composing skills and generalization performance. Among all students, low achievers were most likely to benefit from the SAT-program. <br><br> The discussion highlights a number of issues for future research on writing. Specifically, it is argued that there is a need to (a) further explore the cognitive and meta-cognitive processes underlying good writing, (b) examine the effectiveness of specific training components incorporated in the present version of SAT, (c) crossvalidate the reported SAT effects with respect to various writing genre, (d) incorporate more elaborated revision strategies into the training program, and (e) implement components and procedures specified in SAT into conventional classroom teaching.