Hearing Impaired Training for New Staff March 2006

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Hearing Impaired Training for New StaffMarch
2006

• Introduction to HIP
• Decible Scale
• Normal Hearing/The Speech Curve
• Listening to Hearing Aids
• Impact of Deafness
• What Can You Do
• Please Remember Strategies

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Hearing Impaired Provision

• Teachers of the Deaf
• Amanda St.Prenderville
• Lorraine Hutchins
• Melanie Fox
• Monica Timothy

• Special Support Assistants
• Salma Banu
• Nicola Cann
• Natalie Westerman
• Sign Communicators
• Naomi Landon
• Frances Welling SSA

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The Decible Scale
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An Audiogram
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The Speech Curve
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Losses at Different Frequencies

• High frequency sounds are often badly distorted
  or may be missing altogether in severe cases.
• High frequency sounds are very important because
  they carry a lot of information. Here is a
  familiar phrase with all of the consonants
  removed. The consonants are typically high
  frequency sounds
• -a-e a -i-e -a-

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Losses at different frequencies

• Without the consonants, it is difficult to
  decode. Yet, if we take the same phrase and
  remove the vowels and add the consonants, the
  message is far easier to decode
• H-v- - n-c- d-y
• The hearing impaired listener, given vowels
  alone, faces a harder task in understanding the
  message than the listener who is given the
  consonant clues.

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How do Hearing Aids help?

• Unfortunately, they dont correct hearing like
  glasses/contacts do.
• They can only amplify residual hearing.
• And all environmental sounds.
• LISTEN FOR YOURSELVES !

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Radio Aids help to cut out background noise
They do not amplify sound They give a direct link
from the speaker to the listener
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How does language affect learning?

• Learning may be delayed and below potential
• Learning can be delayed because deaf students are
  learning language at the same time as they are
  learning through language.
• At Caterham some HI students have additional
  learning difficulties. Others are exceptional
  achievers.
• Good support and teaching strategies are needed.

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How does deafness affect intelligence?

• Not at all!
• There is a normal range of distribution of
  intelligence among deaf children. This reflected
  in the HI students at Caterham.
• Expectations are high for all our students
• Verbal/Non verbal differences
• There is usually a significant gap between verbal
  and non verbal scores in IQ tests. This is the
  result of delayed language acquisition.

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How does deafness affect speech intelligibility?

• Some students have noticeable speech
  difficulties, eg The sounding of s, t, ch, th and
  f sounds and words endings.
• Voice quality, intonation and vowel sounds can
  also be affected in profoundly deaf people.

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How deafness affects general knowledge and
experience?

• Awareness of the world may be poor.
• Learning and language delays also hinder
  development of general knowledge.
• Background chat is not heard. Verbal information
  on the TV may be missed and the radio is
  inaccessible.
• Deaf children may be overprotected so have less
  life experience.

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Meeting the Needs of the Hearing Impaired
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What You Can Do?

• Liaise with support staff in advance concerning
  lesson content and structure
• Provide support staff with materials in advance.
• Use the OHP as much as possible
• Keep background noise to a minimum
• Write lesson structure, Key words etc on the
  board

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Position HI Students Suitably

• The first or second row in the middle is ideal,
  they need to lip read without craning their
  necks.
• Beware they will quite happily sit at the back
  and tell you they can hear perfectly well !

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Dont talk whilst writing on the blackboard.

• The hearing impaired students have no chance lip
  reading you!
• A difficult habit to break!
• If you find yourself doing this, just repeat
  yourself.
• Use your support - get them to write whilst you
  talk.

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Repeat Contributions from the Class

• This provides equal access to their learning.
• Otherwise the HI students are in the unique
  situation of hearing lots of questions but never
  the answers!

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Dont stand in front of a window

• This plunges your face into darkness. All crucial
  lip reading clues will be lost.
• Ensure the blind is down if you have to be by the
  window.

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Pass the Microphone Around

• When asking for lengthly responses from the
  students pass the microphone around.
• You wont want to repeat long answers and the
  students love being given the microphone!
• Although remind them not to twiddle with the
  aerial lead - this leads to whooshing sounds and
  not the speakers voice.

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Stand still and close by

• This makes lip reading much easier.Amplified
  speech is difficult to make sense of if the
  distance from the source keeps changing.
• The hearing impaired student should sit at the
  front or in the middle - not more than 12 feet
  away.

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Get their attention before you talk

• Hearing impaired students have a tendency to
  switch off !It is very tiring having to
  concentrate hard on lip reading all day.
• You may have to tap them or ask another student
  to gain their attention.

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Dont cover your mouth

• This makes lip reading impossible
• Remember hearing impaired students rely heavily
  on lip patterns to provide them with sounds they
  cannot hear.

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Dont speak too quickly

• They will not be able to follow your lip patterns
  and have little chance of being able to follow
  and understand.
• This can be very confusing and demoralising for
  them.

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Get to the point!

• Long sentences are difficult to follow.
• If you find yourself rambling, recap
  verbally,listing key points or note them on the
  board.
• When you ask students to contribute repeat their
  contributions.

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Dont shout or over exaggerate!

• Over articulation changes the rhythm of speech.
  This distorts lip patterns and makes words
  difficult to recognise.
• It is also very embarrassing in front of their
  hearing peers

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Use of Videos

• With Subtitles
• The HIP provides a subtitling service.
• If you are thinking of recording a programme for
  school at home - Dont!
• Ask the HIP to do it for you, so you can have a
  subtitled copy in your department.

• Use of Transcripts
• Many of the videos used at Caterham have a
  transcript.
• Your department has a list of all these.Let us
  know if you intend to show one of these, so we
  can prepare the HI students first.
• Remember most narration takes place off screen.
• OR use the direct input cable.

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What the HIP Staff Do.

• Pre teach new language and concepts in sessions
  before and after school and during registration
• Use support books to note lesson content,
  vocabulary and terminology and produce
  reinforcement exercises.
• Write key notes on the board with your
  permission
• Acetate class work sheets to support your use of
  the OHP.
• Advise on positioning HI students suitably in the
  classroom
• Differentiate tasks/materials and modify texts
  to make them linguistically accessible
• Produce video transcripts or provide closed
  caption readers or audio leads for attachment to
  tvs

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..What the HIP Staff Do

• Withdraw students from class if an activity is
  inaccessible
• Supervise tests in the HIP so that carrier
  language can be explained
• Sort out audiological problems
• Keep the class teacher informed of any ongoing
  issues with students
• Check understanding of homework tasks and offer
  time/support in HIP
• Cover for you if you are absent! If you know you
  will be off please let us know so that we can
  pre-teach thoroughly

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Thank you for your time.

• Dont forget to take your booklet and complete
  the evaluation.

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