Special Education
Hard of Hearing and Deaf Students:
A Resource Guide to Support Classroom Teachers
Preparing to Teach Students who are Hard of Hearing or Deaf
Needs of Learners who are Hard of Hearing or Deaf
To be made welcome and to belong where successful social relationships can occur. Smiled at, introduced, given time to talk and share personal information, find other people with common interests, invited to extra-curricular activities.
To expand the ability to communicate with others. Encouraged and actively taught communication skills or questioning, listening, speaking, reporting, reading, writing for all sorts of occasions.
To be challenged to take risks and grow. Lots of praise, encouragement, high personal-interest work.
To have opportunities for experiential and incidental learning. First hand experience (labs, workshops, dramatizations, projects) field trips, team projects, group or paired activities.
To have as much visual access to information as possible. Board notes, handouts, glossaries, course books, multi-media materials, closed captioning, hands-on research, other students' notes, pictures.
To have assistive listening devices, and appropriate technology, made available. FM systems, phone amplifiers, silent overhead projectors, closed caption decoders.
To have a classroom which provides the optimum listening environment. Low general noise level, not beside a gymnasium or band room.
To take responsibility for learning (help plan, produce, assess). Be made aware of strengths, learning styles, interests, and goals for growth and improvement; encouraged to keep a portfolio of work in progress; opportunities for periodic assessment and new goals.
To have optimum lighting situations. Faces of peers and teacher need to be clearly lit for speech reading.
To have people speak clearly and normally and directly with them.
To work with people who understand the educational implications of hearing loss. Positive inclusion of information about people with hearing loss. (Books, films of positive role models, artists, writers, scientists, teachers).
To have people ask questions and expect full participation in the classroom . Teach questioning skills, share class work equitably.
To have opportunities to work cooperatively in groups. To extend communication skills (paraphrasing, reporting, summarizing ) and experiences.
