What Did You Say? Could You Repeat That?
Life with a hearing disability.
This blog takes the time to take you through the ins and outs of what it is like to have a hearing disability. Specifically starting at a young age, in a public school classroom that may or may not have the needs to support you.
Hearing Impairment or Deaf, is one of three sensory impairment disabilities spelled out in the Massachusetts Education Laws and Regulations. It is defined in section 28.02 of regulation 603 CMR 28: Special Education as "The capacity to hear, with amplification, is limited, impaired, or absent and results in one or more of the following: reduced performance in hearing acuity tasks; difficulty with oral communication; and/or difficulty with understanding auditorally-presented information in the education environment. The term includes students who are deaf and students who are hard-of-hearing."
HearingLikeMe, provides unique stories of adults and children with hearing loss. They also share strategies that have worked in real classrooms, such as the FM technology and personal teacher-student accommodations. I found the personal hand signals especially unique and helpful.
FM Technology is microphone and head set that can be used between teacher and student in the classroom to help students with hearing loss reach their success in the classroom. This starter guide for teachers and parents provided by phonak is extremely user friendly and helpful in understanding the benefits and uses of FM Technology.
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The cold hard truth about how many children in the U.S have a hearing disability, and what these percentages mean.
This article from TEACH Magazine, goes into detail about specific strategies teachers should use in the classroom to enhance learning for those students with hearing loss. Their recommendations come from "Speech Language & Hearing Disorders: A guide for the teacher" by Hall, Oyer and Haas in 2001.
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So what is the difference between deaf, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing, anyway?
The perfect combination of parental support, self-advocacy, and school involvement.
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Experience for yourself what hearing loss feels like.
Find out what it sounds like in a busy airport (or school yard, classroom etc.) for someone with mild to moderate hearing loss.
This specific page of DeafTEC spells out the challenges one might face in teaching, communicating, support services, and the environment with a student who has a hearing impairment. They then apply strategies to the challenges that are accessible to classroom teachers.
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In the video above, the parents have a positive outlook on their daughter's deafness and are committed to instilling a confidence in her. I felt that it was a great perspective for parents to have about any child's disability and hopefully other people do as well.
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