Teaching Self-Advocacy Skills for Students With Hearing Loss

Students with hearing loss need to develop self-advocacy skills. These skills assist students in recognizing their hearing needs, requesting accommodations, resolving communication issues, and fully engaging in school. Self-advocacy training should begin in early childhood and continue throughout a student’s academic career. The resources below can help educators and families assess and support the development of age-appropriate self-advocacy skills.

What self-advocacy skills should be learned by what age? How can we assess these functional skills?

The Guide to Self-Advocacy Skill Development is a suggested sequence for students to attain self-advocacy skills from preschool through grade four, after which students should be able to repair communication breakdowns and advocate for their listening and learning needs appropriately. This hierarchy is a useful assessment tool, as it provides age expectations for specific skills.

Minnesota Compensatory Skills Checklist for Students with Hearing Loss 

Source: MN Department of Education, 9/27/18. Use this form for assessing hard-of-hearing students’ compensatory skills.

Supporting Self-Advocacy Skills in Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. A 2-page article directed to families from the Minnesota Hands & Voices May-June 2018 newsletter.

Through Deaf Eyes is an almost 2-hour video that portrays the history of deaf education and the views of people who themselves are deaf. This video, or viewing portions with your students, may be valuable in Deaf culture studies and self-advocacy considerations.

What are some materials to use to help children develop self-advocacy skills?

View this one-hour YouTube video produced by high school junior Zina Jawadi, who has a moderate-to-severe hearing loss. The video is narrated by Zina and features her teachers speaking on how classroom teachers need to adapt and accommodate the student with hearing loss. This very positive video is conveniently divided into 17 sections, and the material provides an excellent outline for students to learn about the important points to get across to their teachers when self-advocating. It also provides an excellent role model for self-advocacy!

TED Talk by Justin Osmond, son of the famous Osmond singing family, who has a severe/profound hearing loss (15 min)

The Listening Project: Young adults with hearing loss revisit their experiences learning listening and spoken language (2 min)

Another excellent video comes from the Hampshire Regional Program in Massachusetts. True Deaf Kids Shining Bright in High School is a 14-minute video where four students talk about their hearing losses.

Want to do a fun activity with your elementary-age students to teach them the parts of the ear and how it works? Try the EDIBLE EAR! Use food items for fun and learning. See the Edible Ear for a list of materials and a visual of the finished ‘ear.’

Backseat Drawing Jr. This game is recommended for practicing listening to and following directions in a fun way or for practicing giving clear directions. A great activity to also practice communication repair skills is if you cover your mouth, mumble, or add noise that makes it challenging to understand the directions.

Click here for a YouTube review and demonstration, and click here for a written description regarding use for communication goals.

How can we systematically develop expectations for independence with hearing devices? 

The SEAM for School Success (Student Expectations for Advocacy & Monitoring Listening and Hearing Technology). The SEAM provides expectations for the level of independence a child should have with their hearing devices. It ranges from starting school (preschool or kindergarten) through high school. The student gradually takes on the responsibility for the care and monitoring of hearing devices and also for assertively dealing with challenging listening situations. Below are materials that can be used to help students become more knowledgeable and independent with their hearing devices.

Developing Skills Related to Hearing Status

• Audiology Self-Advocacy Checklist – ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (ASAC-ES)
• Audiology Self-Advocacy Checklist – MIDDLE SCHOOL (ASAC-ES)
• Audiology Self-Advocacy Checklist – HIGH SCHOOL (ASAC-ES)

These checklists contain skills that students should develop during elementary, middle, and high school, related to their hearing status. To complete the checklist, enter the date the topic is introduced and then track performance using the progress levels (1, 2, or 3). If the skill has not yet been introduced (NI), the item is included but does not receive a score. If the skill is not applicable to a student, note NA and eliminate that item in the overall scoring. Specific skills that are being addressed may also be recorded as objectives on the student’s IEP. Skills should be re-evaluated at least annually. Follow the scoring directions at the bottom to obtain an overall performance level. A mastery level of 90-100% indicates the student’s audiology self-advocacy skills are functioning at the proficient level. If proficiency is not reached when the student transitions to middle school, work should continue on the deficient skills.

How can we address self-advocacy and other areas of the expanded core curriculum in core content standards-based IEPs?

A valuable resource for self-advocacy and ‘the hidden curriculum’ is Iowa’s new Expanded Core Curriculum. This is a wonderful resource for IFSP and IEP team members when developing educational plans for a student who is deaf or hard of hearing. This tool is designed for teachers of students who are deaf or hard of hearing and education audiologists to address these identified areas that are either not taught or require specific and direct teaching. Check out the 9 documents that comprise the Iowa ECC.

The Minnesota Compensatory Skills Checklist and the Minnesota Social Skills Checklist are also helpful guides for professionals and parents as student skill areas and needs are considered.

How can we find out what students think about their hearing loss and hearing devices?

Growing up with hearing loss isn’t always as easy as it is for children with typical hearing. How they feel about themselves can greatly affect their self-esteem and how willing they are to comfortably advocate for their communication needs. The My World tool:
The developed Ida Institute is suggested as a way to help students explore their feelings and their challenging communication situations.

DOWNLOAD THE FREE MY WORLD APP. My World was originally designed as a board game to enable children to share their perspectives about their daily lives and experiences, give them a voice, and help DHH professionals uncover information about the child’s communication successes and challenges. The tool allows children to recreate their day and talk about how they communicate in different environments – at home, on the playground, or in the classroom – by populating the spaces with friends, family, and the things they enjoy. The new app was designed to make the tool globally available in an easy-to-access digital format. Download it for free in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Refer to Using the Ida My World Counseling Tool with Children: Suggestions for Use at Different Stages of Development, a one-page handout that suggests how, when, and why the tool can be used. My World can be of great benefit to enhance student understanding and growth at different psychosocial stages of development, and as an adjunct to administering the
ELF, CHILD, LIFE-R, SAC-A, and SOAC-A tests. Watch for more good things to come from the Ida Institute and the use of My World.

E-BOOK: Self-Advocacy for Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. The second edition of this popular book is a 2012 e-version written by Kristina English, PhD, of the University of Akron. The materials in this workbook consist of 12 lessons, organized into four units with three evaluations and a summative learning activity.
Thank you, Kris!     

You can open each lesson individually by clicking on the lesson link.

Unit 1: Introduction – What Is Self-Advocacy?

Self-Advocacy Skills Checklist

Can the student:

• Explain their hearing loss?
• Identify communication challenges?
• Request accommodations?
• Troubleshoot hearing technology?
• Ask for repetition or clarification?
• Describe when listening is difficult?
• Participate in IEP meetings?
• Explain communication preferences to others?

Frequently Asked Questions: Developing Self-Advocacy Skills for Hearing Loss

What are self-advocacy skills for students with hearing loss?
Self-advocacy skills are the functional abilities used by deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students to understand their hearing needs, articulate those needs to others, request accommodations, and independently resolve communication breakdowns.

The Core Reality: Hearing technology, visual communication, and teacher accommodations are only half the battle. Because students do not know what they didn’t hear, they must be explicitly taught to use situational awareness to notice when they are missing information.

What core self-advocacy skills should a student develop?
Instead of relying completely on adults to manage their classroom environment, students should be explicitly taught to master the following milestones:

• Describe Functional Needs: Explain the specific type/degree of their hearing loss and how it affects them in various listening environments.
• Manage Assistive Technology: Check and independently troubleshoot hearing aids, cochlear implants, and FM/DM Roger systems.
• Assert Accommodations: Proactively request preferential seating, closed captioning, or transcription services from teachers.
• Deploy Communication Repairs: Shift away from a vague “What?” and use specific scripts like, “Could you please rephrase that last step? The background noise blocked it.”

What is the operational difference between self-advocacy and self-determination?
While often used interchangeably by IEP teams, they represent two completely different stages of student autonomy:

• Self-Advocacy (The Skills): Knowing what your communication needs are and exactly how, who, and when to ask for assistance in a specific scenario.
• Self-Determination (The Problem-Solving): The broader internal cognitive framework. It includes goal setting, making an informed choice, evaluating the consequences of that choice, and adjusting plans for the future. Working only on basic advocacy is only doing half the job.

How can educational professionals accurately assess these skills?
Teams shouldn’t guess at a student’s independence level. Progress can be systematically tracked through direct classroom observation, data from tools like the Listening Inventory For Education (LIFE-R), and standardized developmental checklists.

At what age should instruction begin?

• Basic Technology Ownership:
  • Preschool to Early Elementary.
  • Children focus on the absolute fundamentals: putting on their own devices, learning the names of components, and speaking up if a device stops working or feels uncomfortable.
• Acoustic Situational Awareness:
  • Upper Elementary & Middle School.
  • Students practice identifying specific environmental barriers (e.g., HVAC noise, a substitute teacher turning away from the class) and choosing a script to fix it.
• Legal Literacy & Postsecondary Prep:
  • High School & Transition.
  • The student moves toward full self-determination. They learn their civil rights under ADA and Section 504, lead their own IEP transition meetings, and practice formal disclosure for college or workplace settings.

Additional Resources:
Self-Advocacy Apps
Self-Advocacy as a Stand-Alone Service
The Ultimate Goal: Self-Determination 
Teen Transition: A Necessary Part of Future Success
Don’t Wait, Self-Advocate! Self-Advocacy for Students with Hearing Loss
Self-Advocacy Skills Development for Full Classroom Participation

Originally published: June 2020
Last updated June 2026