STUDENTS WITH HEARING LOSS

A Teacher’s Guide: Best Practice Information

Hearing is essential to speech and language development,

communication, and learning. The presence of hearing loss can have a
significant impact on all of these areas. Specifically, children with
hearing loss are at risk for developmental delays in receptive and
expressive communication skills and often experience reduced academic
achievement, and difficulties communicating and socializing with their
teachers and peers in school. The classroom environment presents a
unique set of challenges for hearing-impaired students. As a result of
background noise, reverberation, and distance from speaker, children
with hearing loss (HL), have trouble localizing sounds, and difficulty
understanding speech.

Difficulties Experienced by Students With HL:

 Fatigue-due to increased effort and strained listening

 Social problems due to missing or misunderstanding parts

of conversations and missing subtle social cues .
 Apparent inattentiveness as a result of not
understand what is being said; making it difficult for the student to .
continue to attend.
 Frustration resulting in uncharacteristic behavior problems
 Issues with self esteem; student may lack confidence

Preferential Seating: Teachers should always be cognizant of the placement of

a child with HL in all listening situations. The child's best hearing ear should always

be facing the speaker (i.e., teacher) and never be facing a noise source. In addition,

a child with HL should always be seated close to a speaker (within six feet).

Vision testing: An audiologist refers children with hearing loss to various medical
professionals. Since the child already has one sense that is compromised, the

audiologist wants to insure that vision is normal. If you are concerned about your
 student's vision, refer him/her for vision testing.

Children With Hearing Loss….continued

Also:
 Have a "pre-understood" non-verbal cue to use with your hearing impaired (HI), student
(e.g., a tap on the shoulder to regain attention).

 Give your HI student a "note buddy".

 Provide visual aids,
 Allow your older HI student to record lectures to replay at home.
 Encourage your HI student to advocate for himself. (Can you repeat
that?)

 Make sure one person talks at a time in a large or small group situation.
 Take interest in your HI student's hearing aid or FM system. Make appropriate use of

your HI student’s prescribed FM system (if applicable), on a daily basis. There are

children's books available that explain hearing loss and hearing aids. If your HI student is

older, he might want to co-teach the class a lesson about the anatomy of the ear or how

hearing aids work.

 Do not have noisy equipment (i.e., computers, projectors) on if you are not
using them. Try to keep doors and windows closed.

 Permit HI student to receive extra time to complete classwork, homework,

exams, and project assignments.

Other Recommendations: Since your HI student is at risk for educational

difficulties, monitor their academic progress closely. Report any suspected changes
in hearing to the school nurse. Hearing loss can be progressive.