Jun
2
Written by:
ksmith
6/2/2011 7:48 AM
What you need to know first is what type of educational model, or philosophy, your school follows. This will help you understand which types of treatment you will most likely be using, or encouraged to use.
Depending on your degree program, you may not have received a lot of training in the area of hearing impairment. This can pose a challenge to a clinician who is working with a child who is deaf or hard of hearing on their caseload. Even more challenging is taking on an entire caseload of children with hearing impairment. Not to mention the language barrier if you do not know American Sign Language.
In most cases, children will be identified as having a hearing loss at a very early age. The parents, doctors, and other team members will explore options, such as whether or not the child is a candidate for a cochlear implant.
If the child receives a cochlear implant (CI), most likely they will be started in an oral program. If they are not a candidate for a CI, the team members will look back to the amount of residual hearing the child has. A child could end up in an oral program if the amount of residual hearing is adequate to develop listening skills. Other options include a total communication program (TC) or a bilingual/bicultural school.
Typically an educational program, or school, will adopt one of the following philosophies:
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Bilingual-bicultural (Bi-Bi): ASL is taught as the primary language and English is taught as the secondary language. This is the philosophy most used by residential schools for the Deaf. Some programs will place strong emphasis on differentiating English print vs American Sign Language vs oral English.
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Total Communication (TC): A communication approach typically utilizing sign language and an auditory or verbal component, but not limited to any means of communication that a person has at their disposal.
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Most commonly, TC programs use ASL and spoken English simultaneously to present information. TC is sometimes referred to as Simultaneous Communication (SimCom). Others may have a separate idea or definition of what SimCom is, so it is always helpful to research this topic in more depth.
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Students will often wear an FM auditory trainer in class to receive more auditory information.
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Auditory-Oral (Oral): The student will use amplification (hearing aids, auditory trainer) and residual hearing to learn to listen and speak without using sign language. Instruction is given through audition only and big emphasis is placed on speech and speechreading.