As much as it is important and inevitable, education and learning can be exceptionally challenging for the kids who are dealing with hearing impairment or hearing loss.

Luckily, they have teachers as their guardians at school just like they have parents at home to care for them.

With a little more attention and support, teachers and administrators can help their hearing impaired students overcome difficulties at school and reach their full potential.

TIPS FOR TEACHERS

    Effective communication

  • Effectively use nonverbal cues like facial expressions and hand gestures when appropriate to highlight your points.
  • Complement verbal explanations and auditory information with visual clues like images, graphs, illustrations and videos (that include captions for students to easily comprehend..
  • Provide the hearing impaired with notes to lessons beforehand so that they don’t have to concentrate on writing things down while trying to listen.

    Engagement with other students

  • Point to students as you say their names so as to help direct the hearing impaired child’s attention from speaker to speaker.
  • If the student uses sign language, have other students to learning the basics or common words of the language in their free period.
  • If feasible, establish a circular seating arrangement for all students to conveniently see and engage with each other.
    Reducing Background Interferences

  • Whenever possible, keep classroom doors closed to avoid unwanted background noises.
  • In case the classroom has a tiled floor, try to lay a carpet to help the room’s acoustics and suppress varied incidental distracting sounds.

    Assistance with Hearing Aid

  • Hearing aids come with a unique classroom setting. Most of hearing devices come with a microphone to be worn by the teacher and amplify their voice.
  • Be sure to adhere to all guidelines within the hearing impaired student’s IEP (Individualised Education Plan) pertaining to classroom adaptations and cochlear implants or aids for the hearing impaired.
  • In addition to hearing aid, there’s another advanced technology that translate speech into readable text in real time. Such technology can be very helpful for students with profound hearing loss and in extremely noisy situations.

    Additional Considerations

  • Try to stand close to the child with impaired hearing and keep still when speaking. This will help the child hear better and prevent missing out on something being said.
  • Speak slowly, in a clear and audible tone and use simple words and sentences on order to make instructions clear and concise to the affected child.
  • Allow the child enough time to understand your questions and respond to them./li>
  • Check if the student is able to understand what is being said by observing his facial expression or asking the child to repeat instructions.

Conclusion

A few practical changes in the teaching style and classroom setting can work wonders for a hearing impaired child when it comes to learning and engaging at school.

Do you have a student who has hearing loss and facing difficulties in learning? Help them find suitable hearing aids online at hassa.com.au, a reliable hearing aid provider in Australia and improve their listening experience.

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