When I went to school to get my Masters degree in Deaf Education, I was disappointed with the lack of emphasis on how to work with and teach children with mild-moderate deafness and non-signing deaf children. Most of the emphasis was on ASL (American Sign Language) and severe-profound deafness.
What about the kids who are in between (deaf and hearing)? I think they are equally as important as children with severe-profound deafness.
I am currently working with a young girl who has mild-moderate deafness. I am teaching her how effective it is to look at people talking to her. She did not know about lip reading or reading visual cues in people's faces. She is starting to understand how much she misses when she is not looking at people talking to her. "Oh, I can hear better using my eyes," she realized.
I feel that students with mild-moderate hearing loss are often not paid attention to as much because they seem "fine." As long as they can communicate using spoken language, they are okay. Just because someone talks well does not mean that they can hear "just fine."
It would be beneficial for these students to be taught how to communicate effectively, how their mild-moderate deafness impacts them, how to advocate for themselves, how to take care of their hearing aids or cochlear implants, and how not to further damage their hearing. I would even experiment with incorporating sign language, visual phonics, and cued speech. Just because their deafness is not severe or profound does not mean we should not consider some sort of visual communication system or language.
You can't just stick a cochlear implant or hearing aid on them and expect them to be "fine." There's a lot more to it than that. It would have been nice if the Deaf Education program I attended paid more attention to mild-moderate deafness and self advocacy.
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What about the kids who are in between (deaf and hearing)? I think they are equally as important as children with severe-profound deafness.
I am currently working with a young girl who has mild-moderate deafness. I am teaching her how effective it is to look at people talking to her. She did not know about lip reading or reading visual cues in people's faces. She is starting to understand how much she misses when she is not looking at people talking to her. "Oh, I can hear better using my eyes," she realized.
I feel that students with mild-moderate hearing loss are often not paid attention to as much because they seem "fine." As long as they can communicate using spoken language, they are okay. Just because someone talks well does not mean that they can hear "just fine."
It would be beneficial for these students to be taught how to communicate effectively, how their mild-moderate deafness impacts them, how to advocate for themselves, how to take care of their hearing aids or cochlear implants, and how not to further damage their hearing. I would even experiment with incorporating sign language, visual phonics, and cued speech. Just because their deafness is not severe or profound does not mean we should not consider some sort of visual communication system or language.
You can't just stick a cochlear implant or hearing aid on them and expect them to be "fine." There's a lot more to it than that. It would have been nice if the Deaf Education program I attended paid more attention to mild-moderate deafness and self advocacy.
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usually, non-signing deaf is dealt with speech therapy . FM system, front row, notes on board, etc. That's how it was for me. And Special Education (not the self-contained class for the deaf. My school did not have anything like that) usually handle these students. At least my school did. I thought There are more education for oral deaf/ AVT than there are deaf education using ASL. Anyway, when a parent decide not to sign to their kids, it is because they expect them to be in a mainstream setting. Which mean, you don't change anything on how you teach them. But sadly, it doesn't always work out that way because some are as visual as signing deaf kids.
ReplyDeletebtw, some deaf had AVT so some of them are trained not to use their eyes. you may need to talk to their parents about that.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am aware of the AVT method. Thus far, I have only seen this done at expensive private oral deaf schools or private speech practices.
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That is what speech therapy is all about - to support aural and oral training. Unfortunately many mainstreamed programs do not provide these services so it is usually up to the parents to provide those outside the school. It is imperative to educate the parents about their responsibilities to support the aural and oral therapies - by either paying for the services themselves outside of the school or request them from the school.
ReplyDeleteI agree that too many children do not utilize their eye contact enough to make their communication more effective, them being ASL user, HH, CI users, or whatever...it doesn't matter. They see the normal behavior among their hearing members of the family not using eyes to speak to each other and they emulate that behavior. They need to be taught they communicate differently from their hearing members of the family - that they need to use their eyes.
Yes, it is shame that many mainstreamed programs do not offer high quality speech services. Most of my students, signing or not, receive 45-60 minutes of speech services only one to two times a week.
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45-50 sounds reasonable. I had less speech therapy than that.
ReplyDeleteMost deaf do not really want to spend most of their time focusing on speech. They want to learn other things.
45 minutes once a week sound reasonable. Most deaf do not really want to focus on speech all the time. It get quite boring and they miss out other subjects.
ReplyDelete(SORRY about the duplicate, I wasn't sure if my post went through. It's alittle confusing on how to leave a comment)
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about the duplicate. :)
ReplyDeleteWell, if the parents want high quality, consistent speech services or if they want to raise their deaf child orally/aurally, 30-60 minutes a week in a mainstream environment will not cut it.
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