Strategies for Teaching Hearing Impairment Disabilities - Essay Example

Strategies for Teaching Hearing Impairment Disabilities Strategies for Teaching Hearing Impairment Disabilities A normal human being has five physical senses namely sense of smell, touch, taste, see, and hear. Some of the above senses are vital compared to others. Daily agendas are executed with the help of the five senses. People love to smell fresh air, taste great food, see newborn babies, and feel whatever one touches. If one of the five senses malfunctions then, an individual is categorized under IDEA. People with moderate hearing impairment cannot hear moderately and soft-loud noises hence they cannot understand speech in presence noise in the background. Such individuals are forced to put more effort when coping with their daily life. Moderate hearing impairment is regarded as a disability. This is because students a moderate hearing impaired student has a variety of problems especially when attending classes. For instance, student with this problem cannot hear important points of a class discussion such as content and context without visual cues. They cannot also hear all the vowels in a word. In most cases, they end up omittings, ing and ed in writing and speech. In addition, they are said to have problems when pronouncing some words, misinterpreted some speech because they cannot clearly understand what was said (Stacey et.al, 2006). Hearing sounds amplify sound for the people with mild-moderate hearing impairment to hear background noise by making the sound louder. As a result, this necessitates a teaching methods or strategies that a crucial when teaching mild-moderate hearing impaired population. In most cases, these strategies are educational based because they aim at improving the quality of learning to students with hearing problems (Gurgur, 2012). There are mainly three teaching methods or strategies essential when teaching hears impaired population namely manual strategies or approaches, computer programs, and use of hearing aids. The research will focus on the above three teaching strategies. Manual teaching strategy Research shows the number of students with hearing difficulties has grown over the past decades. This creates difficulties in the way students receive voices that may result to communication, social, and learning problems. Therefore, educators need critically to consider both long-term and short-term consequences of mild and moderate hearing problems to students especially in classroom situations. Moderate and mild students are socially and academically vulnerable while attending classes. Teachers need to coordinate with students, their families, and curriculum designers in order to adopt alternative programs that aim at implementing alternative teaching methods such as lip reading and sign language (Johnson, 2013). Although there has been an argument in pursuit of the most practical teaching approach to be used when teaching mild and moderate hearing impaired students. The deaf fraternity has proved manual approach to be among the best teaching strategies. This approach entails sign language as opposed to oral approach that makes use of lip and speech reading. On the other hand, proponent of the manual approach argues that lip and speech are reading force people with hearing impairment to communicate. Hence, denying them an opportunity to use sign language (Stacey et.al, 2006). In classroom settings, teachers need to utilize manual approach in the following ways. First, teachers need to give attention to students with mild and moderate hearing impairment such as sharpening their common sense through collaborating specializes in deaf training and experience. To enhances teaching, the hearing impaired person is also supposed to support his or her teacher through constructive criticism to the classroom difficulties. In addition, efficient use of the manual method can be achieved in a classroom setting by ensuring there is an optimal listening and hearing environment. It also advocates a minimum distance between the student and the teacher during the learning process. In this case, teacher should be facing student especially during oral communication (Johnson, 2013). Secondly, the approach emphasizes on non-exaggerated pronunciation because if exaggerated then, it deters understanding. Environmental noise should also be minimized in order to maintain a balance between the noise and listening devices. Moreover, it is appropriate for the teacher to give notes earlier enough because two visual things cannot occur at the same time. For instance, teacher may expect he or she can talk while students take a note that is not realistic. Therefore, teacher should consider one visual thing at time to favor such students and enhance lip reading. If a student with hearing impairment is in university or higher grade learning. Then, he or she should be assigned a volunteer note taker to assist him or her in a note taking as the class progresses (Gurgur, 2012). Thirdly, in manual approach teachers can make use of instructional aids such as speech reading, finger spelling, and sign. In addition, teachers can use equipment such as bulletin boards, televisions, computers, and overhead projectors to enhance teaching. Materials such as illustrations, slides, artifacts, computer graphics, pictures, and films can also be used in a classroom setup. Lastly, manual approach can also entail the use of visual aids such as job and choice menus, classroom rules charts, card, charts, task organizers, and internet to facilitate communication and learning process. Auditory-Oral Educational Approach This is a teaching strategy that enlightens student on residual hearing and enhance access to speeches and spoken language. The method greatly emphasize on speech reading that places moderate and mild hearing impaired students in the school environment. There are two types of auditory training that are utilized when teaching a child to use contextual clues and speech reading in order to perceive information. Auditory oral use signs as a second language that a child with a hearing problem can use to communicate with his or her teacher. On the other hand, auditory verbal trains students to make use of his residual hearing. In a classroom setting, this approach gives the student with a hearing problem spoken language skill that helps him or her to function in the hearing world. Those who learn through this approach are mainstreamed socially, academically and professionally (Stacey et.al, 2006). Secondly, if this method of teaching hearing impaired population is used in the classroom situation it improves reading level and writing skills as it develops good reading ability hence making the learners proficiency in language skill. Additionally, the approach enables the student with moderate and mild hearing problems to learn and talk with the help of hearing aids. One of hearing aid is cochlear implants that enable the deaf to receive auditory information, speak, and use intelligible language to communication (Geers et. al, 2009). Lastly, in classroom setting teachers experienced in spoken and speech language can perceive communications through children’s daily activities. Computer aided strategy Computer programs can be used to teach students with hearing impairment problems. In a classroom setting, a student with language difficulties especially in English language, may be given a computer fitted with communication software that is essential in grammar check. In addition, students can use emails as an important aid to communication. In classroom, teacher may send email to students with a hearing problem for the purpose of stressing of important points. Hearing impaired student upon receiving such email are train to be keen on the issue being emphasized. In the case a student wants more clarification he or she can send instant email through live chat service. In addition, student can use laptops or iPhones in lectures to enhance lip reading (Yang & Lay, 2005). Secondly, if the teacher is analyzing a play that must be watched by students especially in literature then, it is appropriate to use film with caption. In this case, the audio parts of a visual program are converted into text messages that are streamed on the screen. The captions are usually white upper-case letters appearing on a black background. Closed captioning can also be applied which is the method of presenting the captioned text when it is desired. Computer programs can also display textual version of the video rather than audio. In a classroom setting some computer programs, automatically convert voice to texts. Lastly, AURIS is another computerized teaching method which improves communication skills. This software combines both audio and visual technology. In the classroom, AURIS serves as an instructional tool that is essential to both the educator and the student. It is useful at early stages when the baby learns to talk. AURIS can also be used in classroom setting, where concepts are taught through seeing and hearing with the audio and visual computer support. As a result, AURIS improve pronunciation, speaking, and improves memory hence students do not forget the learned keywords. Hearing impaired students also begin to hear and draw differences in the learned concepts (Yang & Lay, 2005). Conclusion In conclusion, the number of people with hearing impairment has grown over time. This creates problems especially to the student, who cannot ask their colleagues any information about assignments unless they have paper and a pen or a computer. These individuals cannot clearly hear an ordinary conversation in places where there is background noise. In such situations, hearing impaired student supposed to wear hearing aids to perceive ordinary speech. In addition, mild-moderate hearing impaired students may utilize speech reading cues. As it has been discussed, manual, auditory, and computer programs are three teaching strategies that can be used by teacher to make teaching easier in classroom situations. References Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Geers, A. E., Moog, J. S., Biedenstein, J., Brenner, C., & Hayes, H. (2009). Spoken language scores of children using cochlear implants compared to hearing age-mates at school entry. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 14(3), 371-385. Gurgur, H. (June 06, 2012). Examining the Training Process of a New Teacher Educator in the Field of the Education of the Hearing Impaired. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 12, 2, 962-970. Johnson, H. A. (January 01, 2013). Initial and ongoing teacher preparation and support: current problems and possible solutions. American Annals of the Deaf, 157, 5, 439-49. Stacey, P. C., Fortnum, H. M., Barton, G. R., & Summerfield, A. Q. (2006). Hearing-impaired children in the United Kingdom, I: Auditory performance, communication skills, educational achievements, quality of life, and cochlear implantation. Ear and hearing, 27(2), 161-186. Yang, H.-J., & Lay, Y.-L. (May 01, 2005). Implementation and evaluation of computer-aided Mandarin phonemes training system for hearing-impaired students. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36, 3, 537-551. Read More