Associating Meaning through Sight

Most teachers would think they had it made if they taught only six students all day. Everything is different though for a lady instructor of the hearing impaired program. Thanks to a three year federal grant, her six students aged from 5 to 15 are given the opportunity to engage in a program done by the local special education cooperative. For 19 school districts learning disability classes are available through the coop.

Of the six students, two are classified as hard of hearing and four are profoundly deaf. Having a decibel loss of 60 or less requires special assistance to be given to the hard of hearing but they can adapt to regular classrooms. Profoundly deaf people can lose as much as 90 decibels or more. For someone in this position, special learning methods are highly necessary. Utilizing hearing aids of their own, students from the class for the hearing impaired have personal devices suited to their hearing needs.

In order to help the students hear what the teacher is saying then a special audio device is used. Even in 83 different radio frequencies, this phonic ear system can work. On their ears, the children wear receivers that accept the transmitted speech from the teacher who uses a microphone. Because of the possibility to transmit through different frequencies, a teacher can communicate with a child per given time.

It has been said by the teacher that the facility traveled to by the students for 11/2 hours is quite spectacular. Expenses are rather high for the facility because everything was specially made. Other than a complete kitchen, the carpeted room comes with loads of audio and visual equipment. The kitchen serves as a guide for language learning through recipe interpretations.

Everything they do is related to language as this is considered to be the most important obstacle to overcome. 10,000 times is the number of repetitions needed for a word to be retained. Other people may find this boring but these students need this method. Objects and descriptive words can be taught with the assistance of sight for the hard of hearing. Less meaning though is given to words like yesterday, time, today, and tomorrow.

Plenty of teaching methods are being utilized. Signs and speech are crucial elements for the teacher to be able to provide a learning experience with total communication. They are also being taught about lip reading so that the students can comprehend by watching one's lip movements. The students are asked to use verbal communication and this is in line with their oral method of teaching. By not communicating differently these children may be better accepted by those who are living in our society.

What is referred to as the tactile method is a method that uses the sense of touch. Students touch the teacher's throat and feel her tongue to understand the g, s, or th sounds. She has been used to having a student's hand in her mouth from the moment she steps into the classroom. Instruction is provided in the subjects including spelling, math, grammar, and social studies. If there are students who are in preparation for integration into a regular school system, there are other subjects they may need to take like gym, music, typing, home economics, speech, and auto mechanics. Over 18 years old students are no longer able to attend the class.

You might be thinking why she is so dedicated to help the hard of hearing. Considering her career choice, she does not hesitate to answer. She experienced a bout with hearing loss at the tender age of five. Closed eustachian tubes and no cartilage in her ears became her problem at birth. Corrective surgery is to thanks for the recovery of her hearing as well as those of the people she helped. This career path was determined by her as early as during the fifth grade when she wanted to be of help to children.

From an Illinois college is where she got her special education degree. From there she went to a university in Florida where she earned degrees in deaf education and elementary education and a certificate in learning disabilities. Her previous occupation before coming to Southwest Kansas two years ago is as a teacher in a school for the deaf in Fort Lauderdale. In her arduous daily tasks she has the phonic ear system to thanks for how students are required to listen to whatever she is saying as the sounds are directly sent to their ears.

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