DNE: Lecture 9***

• Hearing Impairment


  Person suffering has difficulty perceiving or identifying sound clearly due to auditory problems

  
• Factors to consider in diagnosis


  • Physical condition
  • Attention span
  • Preferred mode of communication
  • Level of cognitive development
  • Capability for self-discipline
  • Preferred mode of reinforcement
  • Family support
• Causes of Hearing Impairment


  • Birth defects
  • Family history
  • Low birth weight
  • Buildup of ear wax
  • Buildup of fluid behind eardrum
  • Injury to or rupture of eardrum
  • Objects stuck in ear canal
  • Scar on eardrum from many infections
  • Exposure to toxic chemicals/medicines in womb
  • Genetic disorder
  • Infections mother passes to baby
  • Infections that can damage brain after birth
  • Problems with structure of inner ear
  • Tumors

  
• Symptoms of Hearing Impairment in Children

  • Delayed response to sound
  • Cannot hear clearly what others are saying
  • Show difficulty locating sound source
  • Pay more attention to speakers' facial expression and lip movement
  • Give irrelevant answers or misinterpret instructions
  • Request repetition during conversation
  • Poorer ability to understand speech in noisy environment
  • Tend to turn up TV volume
  • Incorrect pronunciation
  • Delayed language development
  • Poor attention in class
  • Frequent use of gestures
  • Easily irritated due to communication difficulty

  
• How Hearing Impairment affects child's development

  • Delayed language development with unclear speech and incorrect pronunciation
  • Easy to have emotional and behavioural problems due to difficulty expressing themselves
  • Lack of self-confidence and poor self-image
  • Socially excluded by peers, actively avoid social contact
  • Academic performance affected due to difficulty receiving correct information

  
• Difficulties in Speech & Language

  • Poor articulation
  • Omission of high frequency sounds
  • Weak breath and pitch control
  • Monotonous voices
  • Understanding abstract vocabulary
  • Complicated sentence structures and unfamiliar concepts
• Difficulties in Learning

  • Language plays important part in higher intellectual development, especially problem solving
  • Deafness may cause language deficit, affecting progress in learning
  • Tend to be weak in abstract thinking and analytical power, obstacle to acquiring knowledge
• Learning Objectives for Helping Children with Hearing Impairment

  • Develop potential to the full by providing learning experiences in school
  • Encourage use of residual hearing to develop language and communication skills
  • Help grow up well-adjusted and independent to integrate into society
  • Develop correct sense of value and citizenship
• General Teaching Strategies for Hearing Impaired Students

  • Learning materials and teaching approaches have to be reviewed and modified according to learner's needs
  • Language is best learned in meaningful situations
  • Encourage low achievers
  • Rephrasing sentences
  • Discourage telegraphic speech
  • Encourage asking questions
  • Using sign language if necessary
  • Role-play
  • Opportunities to play and share
  • Auditory learning provided for children with residual hearing
  • Interactive conversational flow
  • When speaking to HI children, use constant eye contact without exaggerated lip movements
  • Teacher should speak in clear, natural, normal pace
  • Provide immediate feedback
  • Ensure that the children's auditory aids work properly
  • Stand in a place where the children can see you clearly e.g. avoiding sun glare
• Auditory-verbal therapy

  Teaching deaf children to listen and speak using residual hearing in addition to amplification devices
• Auditory Learning Skills

  • Auditory awareness: Awareness of the existence of sounds
  • Auditory attention: Ability to focus on listening
  • Localization: Ability to identify the direction of sounds
  • Auditory memory: Ability to remember sounds heard

  
• Speech Teaching Approaches

  • Cumulative, sequential program
  • Learn speech first in auditory mode
  • Visual and tactile mode to assist
  • Ensure appropriate speech elements
  • Attention should be given to morphology, semantics, syntax
  • Speech reading: supplement to listening, not separate skill
  • Practice in presence and absence of background noise
• Language Learning Approaches

  • Meaningful verbal interactions in real and contrived situations
  • Use questions to develop answering skills
  • Using open-ended questions to develop narrative skills
  • Using action phrases or pictures to develop sequencing skills
  • Using pictures or activities to develop descriptive skills
  • Using activities to develop questioning skills
  • Social skills in communications
• Learning Environment Adaptations for Hearing Impaired Students

  • Encourage HI student to utilize the residual listening ability by wearing hearing aids
  • Encourage HI student to keep on wearing hearing aids and bring the back-up battery
  • Seating arrangement to maximize listening and lip-reading effect
  • Minimize unnecessary movement/walking by teacher to allow clear view of mouth shape, facial expression and gestures
  • Speak naturally, no need to slow down speech rate obviously or exaggerate the mouth shape
  • No need to increase the speech volume obviously because excessive voice would lead to unnatural speech after amplification
  • Rephrase the wordings or explain more, but not just repeat the message if HI student do not understand
  • Speak in complete phrases or sentences, do not pause too much to avoid destruction of meanings
  • Make use of real objects, pictures and written words to assist teaching. Do not speak and write on the board at the same time as it might hinder lip-reading
• The best seating position for a bilateral hearing-impaired student is at the mid of the classroom, about 2 meters between the teacher and student, away from sources of noise like playground and street