New Study Confirms Benefits of My World Pediatric Counseling Tool

By Jeanette Blom

A new study from the Ear Foundation shows the benefits of using our My World tool as a means of understanding children’s perspectives on their hearing loss and to give them opportunities to become active partners in their own care.

The aim of the study was to better understand the professionals’ experience of using the tool and make recommendations about how to develop the tool further. The Ear Foundation held a series of training sessions on My World in the UK and Belgium to introduce audiologists, teachers of the deaf, teaching assistants, speech language therapists and mainstream school staff how to use the tool. Participants from these sessions – primarily teachers of the deaf – were invited to evaluate the tool.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with 100% of respondents stating that the child they used the tool with enjoyed playing with My World and 87% stating that My World made it easy to problem-solve with the child. A total of 92% of respondents stated that My World helped them achieve the goal of their session.

Developed in 2011 by the Ida Institute in cooperation with a group of audiologists, My World uses play theory to help children describe their experiences with hearing loss. The tool is designed as a board game and allows children to act out their days with a variety a characters, locations, and accessories. To learn more about the tool and order a copy of the board game, visit our My World page.

Read the full report at the Ear Foundation website.