Adaptation and validation of Superior Auditory Verbal Early Intervention Program (Superior AVA) to improve the speech skills of children with hearing loss*

The purpose of the present study was adoption and validation of Superior Auditory Verbal Early Intervention Program (Superior AVA) to improve the speech skills of children with hearing loss.The present research was a fundamental research. The study population included professionals of psychology and education of exceptional children and educators of children with hearing loss. 3 specialists of psychology and education of exceptional children and 3 educators of children with hearing loss participated in this study. They were selected by purposive sampling method. Validation process of program was done in five steps: study of program's theoretical principles, literature review and review of current programs, adopting contents of the program, validation of program contents and explaining the validation of program. Delfy approach for adoption of program contents, Triangulation of investigator for validation, reliability coefficient of criterion tests (agreement percent method) for determining reliability and Lawshe method for determining content validation index was used. Data were analyzed by SPSS24.Findings showed that the reliability of the program using the percentage of expert agreement was 85% and the content validity index was 0.89.Based on results, superior AVA program has high validity and reliability for improving speech skills of children with hearing loss. Using superior AVA program, that has high validity and reliability, it is possible to improve speech skills of children with hearing loss.