Funding Period: 03/2026 – 12/2029

Funding: Exzellenzcluster Hearing4all.connects

Lead: Prof. Dr. Ulla Licandro

Team Member: Lara Hardebeck

Short description: The project examines the school and communicative participation of children and adolescents with hearing loss as part of the Translational Research Center (TRC) of the Hearing4all.connects Cluster of Excellence. The goal is to identify barriers, facilitating factors, and best-practice approaches for inclusive education and to translate these into practical solutions. To this end, the perspectives of parents and educators on school and communicative participation are being gathered, and those involved are actively engaged in the research process through participatory approaches. Additionally, international approaches to inclusive education are being systematically reviewed. Another focus is on the importance of communicative and acoustic environmental conditions for participation and language development. For this purpose, everyday social and acoustic environments are examined using an innovative tracking tool. The results are intended to contribute to a better understanding of the conditions for successful participation and to highlight existing challenges in the everyday school life of children and adolescents with hearing loss.

Funding Period: 03/2025 – 12/2029

Funding: Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture (DE: Nds. Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur)

Lead: Prof. Dr. Ulla Licandro

Team Member: Dr. Aleksandra Kappenberg

Short description: The aim of the project is to comprehensively analyse the communicative participation of monolingual and multilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD). This involves a mixed methods approach that integrates both quantitative and qualitative methods. The focus is not only on the children's linguistic and communicative competences and general participation, but also on their perspectives on communicative participation in different areas of life. In addition, key success factors for the communicative participation of children with DLD in school contexts are analysed based on the experiences of experts. This forms the basis for identifying possible knowledge gaps and developing professionalisation strategies for (special needs) education professionals in order to promote targeted support in communicative participation.

Information on the current dissertation projects of the working group can be found here.