Helping the Hearing Impaired

Ecstatic are teachers who are informed that their class would only consist of six. But a lady instructor of the hearing impaired program has her work cut out for her. The local special education cooperative has a program where her six students, aged from 5 to 15, belong to and their funding is made possible by a three year federal grant. It is part of the coop's efforts to serve 19 school districts providing for learning disability classes.

Her six students have two that are hard of hearing and four that are profoundly deaf. Only needing special assistance are the hard of hearing for a decibel loss of 60 or less but they can function in regular classrooms. Up to 90 decibels or more is the loss for a profoundly deaf person. For a case like this, special learning methods are extremely important. The hearing impaired class have students who make use of their own hearing aids which are suited for their abilities to hear.

As their teacher hands out instructions the students are assisted in hearing by a special audio device. Even in 83 different radio frequencies, this phonic ear system can work. There is a microphone being used by the teacher that relays any speech to the receivers that are worn by the children on their ears. The device can be used with different frequencies allowing a teacher to speak to one child without interrupting what another is doing.

It has been said by the teacher that the facility traveled to by the students for 11/2 hours is quite spectacular. Much expense has been encountered with everything being specially crafted. Other than a complete kitchen, the carpeted room comes with loads of audio and visual equipment. Interpreting recipes in the kitchen allows the students to learn language and this is a method often used.

According to the teacher, the biggest hurdle is language and so they do everything with language. Storing a word in one's memory calls for a repetition of 10,000 times. It is very important for these students although it can bore other people. When describing objects learning is made simpler through sight for those who are hard of hearing. Not much meaning is attributed though to words such as time, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

There are numerous methods for teaching used. Signs and speech are crucial elements for the teacher to be able to provide a learning experience with total communication. By watching how another's lips move, students are also able to understand them and this is lip reading which they teach. The teachers favors oral instruction and this leads to the requirement of students to communicate verbally. Acceptance in our society for these children can come in the simple way of them being able to communicate the way we do.

Using the sense of touch in teaching is another method referred to as the tactile method. Students touch the teacher's throat and feel her tongue to understand the g, s, or th sounds. The teacher says that it's not unusual to walk into her classroom and see one of her students with his hand in her mouth. Other than social studies and math, grammar and spelling are taught as well. When the student is prepared to be integrated into other classes in the school system, he may study speech, gym, auto mechanics, music, typing, and home economics. This class can be attended by the students aged 18 years and younger.

One may wonder what would create such drive in a person to help the hard of hearing. There are no secrets as she answers questions directed to her career choice. It was when she was five when she was diagnosed with hearing loss herself. At the time of her birth, no cartilage was found in her ears and her eustachian tubes were closed. Because of corrective surgery, she and the people she helped regained their hearing abilities. As young as when she was in the fifth grade, she knew that one day she will choose to go out and help these children.

For her education, she finished with a special education degree from an Illinois college. Aside from earning degrees in deaf and elementary education, her education from a Florida university resulted to a certificate in learning disabilities too. It was about two years ago when she came to Southwest Kansas after working in Fort Lauderdale as a teacher in a school for the deaf. No other alternative but to listen is given to every student as her phonic ear system sends the sounds directly to his ears and this is a big help especially when she has a number of things to accomplish for the day.

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