Speech perception and listening accuracy cannot be assumed by looking at the audiogram – it must be assessed. Teacher’s voices, room acoustics, and classroom management vary so identifying listening challenges – and specific accommodations – needs to be done for students who are hard of hearing each school year. New information about the Listening Inventory …

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Teaching Auditory Skills via Remote Learning The COVID-19 pandemic has forced educators worldwide to adjust their methods of teaching, moving from direct classroom instruction to virtual teaching. While these adjustments have proved challenging, teachers everywhere are providing instruction in reading, math, writing and more, through remote learning techniques. They are being creative so that various …

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Access and Advocacy in an e-Learning World With remote learning, the teacher, student and the parents need to understand how to use accessibility accommodations and why. This article includes: ground rules for communication in online learning recent research on the impact of face coverings on speech understanding remote learning listening technology and connectivity options for …

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Assessment of Online ACCESS The world of education has shifted sharply once we began our societal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, we remain responsible for offering an equal educational opportunity to students with hearing loss. To do so we must identify and address access issues in online learning situations. Some current issues for our …

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Despite the technological leaps made in Hearing Assistive Technology Systems (HATS), devices like hearing aids and cochlear implants do not “fix’ the listening challenges of students with hearing loss. Incomplete auditory access usually interferes with auditory skill development therefore, children who are hard of hearing benefit from practice with listening skills1. It is up to …

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Classroom observation is a critical part of assessment and performance monitoring. It provides the opportunity to collect data on how the student with hearing loss is functioning in the classroom in comparison to typical peers. Specifically, we need to observe behavior using what we know about how the hearing loss impacts speech perception, listening, learning, …

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December 2018 Students do not know what they didn’t hear because they didn’t hear it – yet they are held accountable for receiving and fully understanding this information. Full participation in the classroom requires that a student recognize when a communication breakdown occurs, and self-advocate for their listening and learning needs. If a student who was …

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The evaluation process requires1 that a variety of assessment tools and strategies are used to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information about the student to determine if there is a disability that is adversely affecting educational performance. We also must develop a statement about the student’s present level of academic achievement and functional performance. Classroom observation provides the opportunity to collect data on how the student with hearing loss functions in the classroom in comparison to typical peers. Using the ‘deaf lens’ during observations, systematically considering performance, and obtaining teacher checklist information all help to paint the picture of functional performance and identify issues.

Itinerant teachers must be ready for anything. Many itinerant teachers have evolved into their role, rather than trained for it.  Just as “deaf children are not hearing children who cannot hear,” itinerant teachers are not simply classroom teachers with cars.  Itinerants are also consultants, technology experts, cultural attaches, collaborators, and communicators. Itinerants know that planning and preparation are essential; we also know that all the best planning and preparation can be thwarted. Supporting our low incidence students so that their needs can be met in the inclusive classroom takes knowledge, heart, and stamina.

Late September 2018 The job of hearing devices is to improve the audibility of speech, allowing students to perceive much more of verbal instruction and all other spoken communication more fully. By funneling more audible speech information into the brain, the student is able to access more of the curriculum. For our hard of hearing …

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August 2018 Each Fall, teachers of the deaf/hard of hearing scramble to contact each of their student’s classroom teachers about the impact of hearing loss on educational performance and what the teacher needs to do to accommodate the student’s unique learning needs. Without inservicing the teachers, it is likely that they will believe: (1) hearing …

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Early April 2018 The ‘bread and butter’ of itinerant support to students with hearing loss is often considered to be ensuring communication access, supporting language development, and self-advocacy skills training. While access relates to ADA requirements, and supporting language is linked to academics, training in self-advocacy is too often considered to be non-academic and therefore not …

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