VIDEO: Deaf News - According to the researchers, the cascading impact of hearing loss on access to school communication.
Fragmented Hearing, Effort, Listening, Comprehension, Fatigue and Pace of Learning. Hearing Loss is invisible. Someone observing a student with hearing loss may believe that he or she has an attention problem or a learning disability as hearing loss can also impact perceiving, language processing, processing speed, memory and attention. Unlike ADHD or LD, learning issues caused by hearing loss are not due to a disorder (an issue with brain processes). Instead the learning issues are secondary to delays because the child has incomplete access to speech occurring around him or her, especially soft speech or completely understanding someone talking from a distance further than 3-6 feet.
Fragmented Hearing - Our educational system is based on the assumption that students in the classroom will perceive, and therefore understand, all of what the teacher is saying. When much information received in school is fragmented because of hearing loss, learning consequences are likely. Even with the latest hearing technology, normal hearing ability is not restored by hearing devices. Even aided thresholds of 20 dB HL will cause soft speech, high pitch speech sounds and unemphasized brief words to be undetected or too quiet to process.
It is not unusual for children with hearing loss to have a 20% ‘listening gap’ as compared to class peers who may miss only 5% of information 1. The image shows a story about Fran the frog who has a sore throat. As you can see, comprehending the meaning of the story is impacted when 20% of the information missing. Even if a child is able to perform well in a quiet setting using hearing devices, a classroom setting is typically noisy, with fast-paced peer-to-peer conversations and teachers that move about the classroom, causing significant listening challenges. These conditions typically result in barriers to access.
Increased Effort - Effort refers to the exertion of physical or mental power. Listening effort refers to the attention necessary to understand speech. Ease of listening is the perceive difficulty of the listening situation by the listener. Even low noise in the environment will interact with the fragmented hearing to interfere with their speech understanding. Children with hearing loss work harder than their peers to listen leaving fewer cognitive resources to understand speech in the classroom as compared to class peers.
CSS Movies presents "Alone In A Hearing World" shows true to life scenarios of a young Deaf boy growing up in a hearing world. With family members who can't communicate and continuous misunderstandings by his teachers and coaches, he is forced to live in a world of isolation. However, when he pleas for his Mothers understanding and falls short, he ends up in the only place he seems to find acceptance.
It has been assumed that speechreading will help children to compensate for what is missed due to fragmented hearing. Research results make it clear that speechreading (lipreading) help children to compensate for what was missed...read more: http://successforkidswithhearingloss.com/pdf.
Sources:
http://successforkidswithhearingloss.com/2014/06/Cascading-Impact-of-Hearing-Loss-on-Access-to-School-Communication.
http://successforkidswithhearingloss.com/2014/06/The-Cascading-Impact-of-Hearing-Loss.
Related:
Living In Between The Deaf And Hearing Worlds
Dropout Rate Among Mainstream Deaf Students
Deaf Awareness 'Voiceless' Short Film
Deaf Girl's Bullying In Mainstream School
Deaf Student Bullied At Alexander Graham Bell School
Mainstream School Is Failing Deaf Students
Petition | Stop Moving Deaf To Mainstream Schools
