Sensory Learning Hub
Deaf and Hearing Impairments
What May This Look Like in the Classroom?
When we consider the diverse impacts associated with experiences of deafness and hearing loss, discussion can largely revolve around perceptions of "difficulty in hearing others", the influence of "atmospheric noise" and "communication barriers".
​
While these are not wrong assumptions, they are extremely limited in both the nature and extent of what individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing experience in their everyday lives.
Let's take a look below ...
Physical and Sensory Impacts ...
Hearing Loss - particularly when onset at birth or during early childhood - is a significant factor in a child's ongoing speech and sensory development (Gleason & Ratner, 2022).
As we venture into and explore the surrounding world, hearing - both as an experience and skillset - enables us to receive, organise and respond to competing sensory information. Additionally, as children take these first few steps into a sensory world, they model the speech inputs and types that persistently occupy their comfortable environments.
​
However, when building speech and sensory skillsets, hearing loss can often contribute to the development of two secondary disorders. Both of which are explored below ...
Speech Delay/Speech Disorder:
​
-
A Speech Delay refers to the development and use of the mechanisms that produce speech in a sequential pattern, but at a later period than regularly expected.
​
-
A Speech Disorder refers to the ongoing challenge of creating and forming the necessary sounds and movements that produce speech.
​
-
Children who are affected by speech delays or disorders may experience difficulties in reading and writing, as well as communicating with their peers and surrounding environment. (Fitriani & Prayogo, 2020).
​
-
Frustrations with the communication barrier may further result in a child's sense of alienation, embarrassment or decreased self-esteem and a disinclination to participate in peer activities.
​
Sensory Processing Disorder:
​
-
SPD is a condition that exists when sensory signals don't get organised into appropriate responses. In this vein, a child may struggle to interpret the sensory stimuli that they touch, taste, smell, see and hear.
​
-
Within a school environment, students who experience SPD may have difficulties in transitioning between tasks, or altering a comfortable routine. (Alkhamra, & Abu-Dahab. 2020).
​
-
Children may also exhibit heightened reactivity to loud noises and movements within the classroom. Or oppositely, may demonstrate "under-reactive" responses to certain stimuli - such as their name being called, or social cues. (Alkhamra, & Abu-Dahab. 2020).
Cognitive and Intellectual Impacts ...
Cognitive and Intellectual challenges are extremely diverse, and can manifest for children in a multitude of ways. However, as auditory input plays a crucial role in cognitive processing, modes of hearing loss can significantly influence a child's attention within private and public circles, short term-memory recollection and problem-solving skills (Luft, 2022).
​
So ... How does this translate into the classroom environment?
​
Remember, perceptions of laziness, bad behaviour or "acting out" by students often allude to a primary need not being met. Subsequently, teachers may observe cognitive or intellectual difficulties within students who are experiencing hearing loss through observed behaviours, such as (Luft, 2022):
-
Challenges in reading comprehension and written expression.
​
-
Wandering attention or easily distracted/disruptive.
​
-
Difficulties in interpreting non-verbal cues.​
-
Challenges in following lectures, discussions and activities in the classroom setting.
​
-
Shyness or decreased participation in peer or group activities.
-
Delayed Response in academic or social conversations.
Social, Behavioural and Communication Impacts ...
Outside of academic growth and discovery, school plays a crucial role in the development of a child's socio-behavioural experience and sense of self - particularly through ongoing engagement with their surrounding peers.
​
And while it is objectively "easy" to correlate hearing loss with visible classroom challenges such as: concentration difficulties, whole-class participation and delayed responses ... a child's Social and Behavioural Shifts are much less discernible for positive identification and support (Podury et al., 2023).
​
​
​
The beside YouTube video provides a brief examination of some common social and communicative stigmas that individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing face in the wider community.
As video participant, Lia, indicates, "[She] is NOT her ear." However, much of society remains unable to distinguish between the individual and the disability.
Let's dissect this below ...
Children who experience deafness or hearing loss face a series of challenges to the development of their socio-emotional wellbeing and the formation of their self-identity. Surrounding stigmas and ignorant perceptions of disability can disastrously lead to a student's social isolation, decreased self-esteem and barriers in maintaining friendships (Dalton, 2021).
As teachers, there are some external behavioural signs of social and communicative barriers that we may observe in deaf and hard of hearing students (Alasim, 2021):
​
-
An unwillingness to participate in whole-class academic discourse or peer-to-peer conversations.
-
Sitting alone or on the fringes of groups.
-
Classroom disengagement, or irritability and frustration when completing tasks.
-
Rude and disruptive behaviour - particularly whilst conducting larger tasks or assignments.
-
Declines in quality or consistency of classroom tasks or assignments.
Remember: All experiences of deafness and hearing loss are individual - many members of the Deaf Community actively celebrate and embrace their experiences.
​
However, teachers must be equally equipped to recognise social and communicative behaviours, alongside potential physical and sensory impacts.
However, external behaviour is often driven by a student's internal socio-emotional conflicts and feelings. By developing trusting relationships with deaf and hard of hearing students, teachers may perceive or discover (Dalton, 2021):
​
-
Anxiety and Self-Consciousness when interacting with peers in the school setting.
-
An "I can't do what others can ..." Mindset.
-
A belief that teaching staff and the school curriculum is ill-equipped to effectively deliver differentiated learning.
-
Embarrassment or "odd-one-out" perceptions when using (or questioned about) hearing aids, devices and supports.
​
Numeracy and Literacy Impacts ...
Before we move forward, it is important to remember that Deafness and Hearing Loss is NOT AN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY. While the ability to hear and subsequently communicate are greatly impacted, individuals who are deaf or experience hearing loss do not operate at a decreased cognitive function or intellectual capacity.
Where Numeracy and Literacy challenges may arise, however, is through a vast array of individual and classroom circumstances, some of which include:
​
-
Assumed Knowledge and Content Delivery.
-
Lack of Visual Aids and Support.
-
Inaccessible Texts and Work Formats.
-
The Finesse of Spoken Sentences, Grammar and Phonetics.
As Marschark et al., (2018) identifies, limited or strained auditory exposure to spoken language can significantly affect how students' perceive vocabulary to sound, sentences to read and syntax to extend.
​
In breaking down the linguistic intricacies - phonetic movements, grammar, colloquialisms and symbols - of written texts; deaf or harding of hearing students often experience cognitive fatigue as they attempt to "keep up" with their peers. (Marschark et al., 2018).
​
This is particularly observed in the submission of written texts or assignments, where students may struggle to independently phrase and structure academic essays; or critically analyse the language and musicality of a text - such as the rhythm and tone of poetry.
​
Despite the prevalence of numbers and mathematical symbols in numeracy, its study can be deceptively challenging for students who experience deafness or hearing loss.
Student knowledge of numeric language is often assumed across mathematic categories. Symbols such as: + - = x ÷ x² , take on new literary and formulaic meaning, which is typically represented through a teacher's verbal demonstration. (Santos & Cordes, 2022).
​
Subsequently, deaf and hard of hearing students may struggle to recognise the patterns and relationships that exist between numerical formulas and values (such as fractions, ratios, etc.)
​
The same challenges may persist in a student's formation of graphs, charts and diagrams which rely upon diverse, literal interpretations of data groups presented, the desired purpose of the data and its subsequent numerical representations (Santos & Cordes, 2022).