Teaching Aids for Children with a Hearing Disability

An impaired hearing disability does not make a child poor in educational abilities, rather it only makes the process difficult for him/her. The child has to resort to other viable methods to overcome the disability. It requires a load of patience and compassion on the part of the teacher to make the techniques and learning experiences available to the child in a positive and constructive manner.

A hearing disability is an inability to identify the sound which may be full or partial. The reason is attributed to several factors both physiological and circumstantial. Technically, this is the failure to detect low-amplitude sounds.

Children with hearing impairments fail to detect voices in the class room or elsewhere. This deficiency is a matter of concern for both students and teachers in a class room. The mild cases are not that serious as the children with mild hearing disability are able to perform as ordinary students when they are given preferences in sitting arrangement in the class room.

Conductive hearing loss is due to several reasons and mostly they are biological. The quality of hearing is improved with instruments or assistive devices which amplify the sound quality. The sensory neural hearing disability is due to the insensitivity of the auditory nervous system.

Another important reason is due to the exposure to disproportionate noise for a considerable period of time. It is the reason that doctors advise regular testing of hearing for children from the time a child enters into a school. Teachers are also encouraged to explain the adverse effect of too much noise in I-pod usage or other electronic devices and help children to avoid the blatant exposure to increasing noise levels when using such devices .

In cases with moderate hearing disability in children, special cooperation is needed from teachers to help them understand lessons and if needed, the lessons should be repeated for them. The teacher should not make movements while delivering a lecture, otherwise the disabled children would find it difficult to concentrate to track the sound emissions.

The use of hearing aids serves the purpose in processing the hearing capacity. Hearing aid handling lessons should be provided to children as they are fragile instruments. Both parents and teachers have the duty to examine the function of these instruments when they are being used by children.

Teaching the hearing disabled children is a serious matter. It understood that the quality of hearing determines the access of knowledge. In educating an affected child, it has to be ensured that the child gets the best opportunity for learning in all classrooms.

Various strategies are used while teaching hearing impaired students as a part of the teaching tools. These tools are common all across the globe. These are used at various levels

General strategy

This includes a routine behavioral relationship and communication between the student and the teacher to provide a general comfort level in the class room. The students are asked to specify their problems specifically and they are assured of personal attention by the teachers. The teachers are also instructed not to reinforce their disability all the time. This is important to boost their confidence. Flexibility and patience are required to encourage promptness of students in the classroom.

Aids to give them physical access

Various changes are required in the structure of the classroom to make it comfortable and accessible to such children.

Classrooms equipped with proper sound system and the least distractions will provide a better learning opportunity for hearing impaired students. Many schools have specially equipped laboratories for students with trained lab attendants to help them access the learning materials and objectives..