Children with hearing impairments frequently have ongoing challenges in vocabulary development due to traditional textbook-centered teaching methods that offer insufficient multimodal, contextual, and interactive educational assistance. Despite the significant educational promise of augmented reality (AR), current research has largely concentrated on assessing singular AR applications, with insufficient emphasis on the systematic creation of curriculum-aligned AR educational materials via an evidence-based design methodology. This research consequently created and authenticated a curriculum-integrated Augmented Reality Sensory Book (AR-SB) and suggested an evidence-driven design strategy to facilitate vocabulary acquisition in children with hearing impairments.A three-stage Design and Development Research (DDR) methodology was utilized, consisting of a needs assessment to determine instructional necessities, iterative prototype creation and expert verification, followed by a classroom-oriented quasi-experimental assessment. The AR-SB incorporated five fundamental design tenets: curriculum coherence, multisensory integration, structured educational advancement, interactive engagement with prompt feedback, and continuous expert validation. Five specialists assessed the prototype over two validation phases. The S-CVI/Ave rose from 0.75 to 0.94, while the S-CVI/UA ascended from 0.75 to 0.875, signifying enhanced expert agreement after successive revisions. The confirmed AR-SB was thereafter used in a four-week pre-test–post-test investigation with 60 hearing-impaired children aged 6 to 8 years. Baseline comparability was established between the experimental and control cohorts. At the conclusion of the exam, the experimental cohort attained markedly superior vocabulary scores compared to the control cohort, t(58) = 6.305, p < .001. The experimental cohort exhibited an enhancement of 7.00 points (p < .001), while the control cohort demonstrated an insignificant increase of 1.13 points (p = .244). Enhancements were noted in all seven categories of curriculum-based vocabulary. The results indicate that the curriculum-aligned AR-SB was methodically created, validated by experts, and experimentally substantiated in a genuine special education setting. The research formulates a design framework grounded in evidence that incorporates curriculum alignment, multisensory learning, instructional scaffolding, and iterative validation to direct the creation of AR-enhanced vocabulary learning tools for students with hearing impairments.
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