Ludwig Van Beethoven

Did you know what one of the greatest composers of recorded history was deaf? Here is a good snippet on his hearing loss (scroll down to loss of hearing section.) This could be integrated into music, literature, and/or history classes.

Hearing Loss and Technology Class

One idea for integrating deaf awareness into technology class is to learn about how cochlear implants (CI) and hearing aids (HA) work. Several years back, a lego league team designed a replacement for the middle ear (specifically the 3 bones-Incus, Malleus, and Stapes).

 



It was an excellent project! If you have a computer drafting class, maybe you can have your classes use the 3D software in order to create a CI or HA. I would jump at the chance to check out one of these that had been created and printed out in 3D. Or, you could have your classes read the manuals and learn how to troubleshoot problems with CIs or HAs. The possibilities are numerous for any grade level.

Hearing Loss in the Math Class

Click here to get hearing loss stats from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). Take this statistic

About 2 percent of adults aged 45 to 54 have disabling hearing loss. The rate increases to 8.5 percent for adults aged 55 to 64. Nearly 25 percent of those aged 65 to 74 and 50 percent of those who are 75 and older have disabling hearing loss.

In a math class, you'll have to make some changes and adapt to make it appropriate for your students' learning needs. If there are 32 students in a classroom, you can use the stats provided in order to figure out how many students fall into each category. This will place 8 students in each age category. Your students will need to find out how many of each age group has a disabling hearing loss.

You can factor in the dangers of high noise levels and change the age groups. Click here for a link informing of the dangers of high noise levels. If you play music at a 100dB level for 15 minutes, you can begin losing hearing. At what length of time listening to 50dB are you safe? 85dB?

Cross-Curricular (CC) Ideas for Deaf Awareness (DA)

Here are some CC ideas for integrating DA into public/private school curriculums:

-dangers of high noise levels

-anatomy of ear

-Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing Technology (hearing aids, cochlear implants, FM systems)

-Deaf Culture and awareness

-Stats on Deafness (as a newborn, as a teenager, as a younger adult, older adult…the percentage increases with age and depending on which type of hearing loss you have, percentages differ.)

-American Sign Language as a world language 

I could write numerous pages on how to integrate these into a class lesson. If you wish to learn more about, and ways to incorporate, one or more topics into your classroom, shoot me an email at kkeasler@oconee.k12.sc.us.

Deafness and Motivation

I just finished watching a great TED talk given by Rita Pierson, Every Kid Needs A Champion. You can watch it by clicking here. I recommend you watch this; it's short, sweet, and to-the-point. In this talk she recounts an experience she had with a student in which the student missed 18 out of 20 questions and she wrote +2 with a big smiley face on his paper. Go ahead-watch it, and pay close attention to the message she is sending to her student.

Attitude really is perception....

You can choose to be deaf and give up on success or you can choose to embrace whatever hearing you do have and define success.

How can you define success? Live your life to its fullest despite your hearing loss and you'll see what success means.

Please sign and share!

https://www.change.org/p/lindsey-graham-please-demand-insurance-coverage-for-hearing-aids-in-south-carolina

Sound Field FMs Aren't Just For Students With Hearing Loss

If your classroom comes equipped with a sound field FM system (classroom is prewired for amplification), make sure you use it! It benefits all students in the classroom. In fact, if you use your system, email me and let me know what your overall class grade is and how many discipline referrals you write and for what behaviors. If you don't currently use it, calculate your grades and organize your behavior referrals, then use the system for 9 weeks. You will most likely see an increase in academic performance and a decrease in behaviors. Email me if you want more information.

Behavior Problems and Students with Hearing Loss

Do children with hearing loss exhibit behavior problems? Sure-all children do to some degree. Are the behavior problems caused by hearing loss? No. Hearing loss may contribute to frustration, but it does not directly influence a child to misbehave. The student can't do something that sends them to the principal's office, then say, "It wasn't my fault! My hearing loss caused me to throw the book at the teacher!"  They make the choice to misbehave out of their own volition (this goes way back when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God). Although I can understand why children with hearing loss may want to misbehave, I don't condone it. Hearing loss can contribute to some small behavior issues, but it doesn't cause the problems. Students make their own choice to be bad if that's what they want. I can see how this can be a confusing post, so I hope I am making sense. I may give some scenarios in later posts to further illustrate my point.

Masking and Listening Skills

Masking a child's ears will go a long way in working with him/her to strengthen listening skills. What is masking? It is basically separating the two ears via noise (white noise, music, background speech, etc). If you have a pair of headphones and you want to work with a child's left ear, you can use the headphones to mask the right ear in order to isolate the left ear and focus on improving listening skills in that ear. You can work on one ear this way, or both. Just mask the ear that you are not working on so that your results will be more valid in the end. Email me if you have any further questions.