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6. INTERVENTIONS
Before appropriate therapy objectives and teaching methods can be identified, the severity of the hearing impairment must be assessed. For example, if a child cannot hear herself, or others speak, then teaching will focus on visual and tactile aids to teach speech sounds, and not on having her imitate the sounds she hears.
Children with hearing impairments who can hear themselves and others often cannot hear clearly, even with the most appropriate hearing aids, because of the damage to the auditory system. They also need special assistance.
Often a child with a hearing impairment is taught to use sign language. Ideally, this begins early in the first year of life, immediately following the diagnosis of hearing impairment.
Undetected Impairment
Milder hearing impairments may go unnoticed and it is up to the teacher to spot the signs of hearing problem. There are ways to identify hearing loss in the classroom. These students may appear to be dreamers and lack concentration. They may also come across as talkative/disruptive and ask friends what they have missed or may be compensating because they did not understand.
These students regularly display gaps in learning or may frequently be in fights or display aggressive behaviour and complain that peers are picking on or teasing them. Within the classrooms, students may fidget in order to compensate for not being able to hear and understand. Students with a hearing loss may also have certain speech impairments. For example, a child may omit certain sounds, such as saying "ca_" for "cat." A child with impaired hearing may watch a speaker's face more intensely than other children in order to gather visual cues about what is being said.
Considerations for inclusion for students in school with a hearing loss
Most students with hearing loss acquire information in the classroom through hearing aids, but hearing aids do have limitations. Hearing aids amplify the environment noises in the classroom which can be very distracting for the student. Technology has provided hearing aids that can cancel the environment noises so the student can focus on the teacher's voice within the classroom.
It is useful to reduce the environment noise as much as possible in the classroom to help the child focus more on the learning material. Students can also be provided with assistive learning devices where the teacher wears a wireless microphone and the student a wireless receiver. The microphone amplifies puts the teacher's voice above the environment noise helping the student to eliminate any distraction noises and hear the teacher primarily. Students can also receive a cochlear implant which help students to hear speech better, these implants are not always successful as the success of the cochlear implantation depends on the individual (Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, 2003).
Support possibilities
Range of support is available for children who have hearing difficulties and/or wear aids, in mainstream and special schools. During their school career, children have a variety of needs and support must be flexible in order to accommodate this. At any time it may include the following: individual tuition, in-class support, audiological assessment, audiological support (hearing aids, radio aids, technical equipment), speech teaching, in-service training, team teaching, school based assessments, advice on individual education plans and tests, advice and guidance to parents and school staff.
Total Communication
This combination of oral language (talking) and manual signing is often referred to as a "total communication approach." The child must also use hearing aids to tap any residual hearing, and may lip read as well. Total communication is often the first approach to be recommended, for it encourages a child to use every available mode of communication to both receive and convey messages.
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