Abstract
PURPOSE: To develop and verify the effectiveness of a hearing abilities (HA) stimulation program included in the regular school curriculum and applied by teachers in the classroom. METHODS: An HA stimulation program was developed and applied to preschoolers during the school year; 34 children underwent auditory stimulation (ASG) and were compared to a placebo group (PG; n = 31). The students were assessed regarding their HA and pre-reading and decoding skills before and after the intervention. They were reassessed twice after applying the program to monitor the students' performance amid the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: The program includes activities applied at school by teachers for 25 weeks, lasting 10-15 minutes/day, stimulating the following HA: detection, discrimination, temporal processing, figure-ground, closure, memory, and attention. The ASG and PG performances differed significantly after the program. CONCLUSION: The program was incorporated into the curriculum, helping to develop the skills recommended by the Ministry of Education. After auditory stimulation, ASG performed better in auditory figure-ground, temporal resolution, rhyme identification and production, and word production from the phoneme given.