Are you a teacher who has a deaf or hard of hearing child in your classroom this year? Here are some tips from my personal experience, plus resources available on the web.
Tips from Personal Experience
I grew up mainstreamed in hearing classrooms before we even had a term like "inclusion." These tips are from my own experience.
- Give deaf/hoh child seat in front or near front. This one is just common sense because the deaf/hoh student needs to be able to see the teacher and blackboard (or whiteboard) clearly.
- Be careful about turning your back, because then the deaf/hoh child can not read your lips. Face a deaf/hoh student when talking to them directly.
- Talk directly to the child, not to the interpreter (if there is an interpreter - I didn't have one). It is important to do this so that the child feels like he/she is part of the class.
- To reduce the risk of a deaf/hoh child being bullied, encourage the child or child's parents to explain deafness/hearing loss to the class.[This is important. I remember that one resource teacher did not explain my deafness to the class, which set me up for being bullied. My mother was upset by this.]
- Always write tests, quizzes, and homework assignments on the board. [When I was a child, I often missed out on such announcements and was surprised by quizzes that the rest of the class had known were coming. Good thing I was in the habit of reviewing the material so I didn't fail the "surprise" quizzes.]
- If you have a mustache and the deaf/hoh child reads lips, consider shaving it off or reducing it to a small enough size that does not hinder lipreading.
- If the class is watching a film, either make sure the film is captioned or provide the child with a copy of the script. This will avoid situations like what happened when I was a teenager, cutting class to avoid having to watch an uncaptioned Romeo and Juliet.
- Do not treat a deaf/hoh child any differently from the hearing children. That means no special treatment.
- Request the assistance of an itinerant teachers or resource teacher. They may have more suggestions and be able to provide assistance.
- If a website used in the classroom has only audio, make notes for the deaf/hoh student (suggested by a deaf college student).
- Provide an older deaf/hoh student with note takers, either peer or professional.
- Be aware of the importance of classroom acoustics, as it has an impact on how much the deaf/hoh student is able to hear.
Resources on the Web
Further suggestions can be found on the following web resources:
- Communication Tips For Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Children In The Classroom is a document available through the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center.
- Hands and Voices has a PDF, "Mainstreaming the student who is deaf or hard of hearing - A guide for professionals, teachers, and parents. Pages 17-20 are especially useful for teachers.
- There is an online video transcript of the video
"Make a Difference: Tips for Teaching Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing."
- Listen-Up's page, "Information Packet for Your Child's Teacher" includes cochlear implant information for teachers. Interestingly, one of the tips is "no oral tests." To this day I wonder how I managed to get through all those oral spelling tests without benefit of an interpreter.
Books and Articles
Our Forgotten Children: Hard Of Hearing Pupils In The Schools (Third Edition) (
compare prices), is published by the AG Bell Association. This book has become a classic, discussing the needs of hard of hearing children who can be overlooked. One article is "Investigating Good Practice in Supporting Deaf Pupils in Mainstream Schools," (
Eric EJ627557),
Educational Review, v53 n2 p181-89 Jun 2001. The abstract states that it is a survey
that identified best practices for meeting the needs of deaf students in the mainstream.
