Educating+Students+Who+are+Deaf+or+Hard+of+Hearing

**TEP 547 **
In our classes we hardly ever think we will have students who are deaf. The misconception that people have is that there are special schools for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. However, if the families don’t have the financial means to send their children to those schools they are placed in special education when these groups of students have the mental capacity to learn and grow. The article that I read talks about appropriate placement through which they learn best curriculum.

Communication, academic, intellectual, medical, and audio logical characteristics of a child combine to create an interconnected pattern of strengths and needs that parents and teacher must translate into classroom goals and objectives for their children. Most common assessment of children who are deaf or hard of hearing includes: Assessment needs can take many forms, from administration of standardized tests in a clinical setting to classroom observation. Children who are deaf and hard of hearing sometimes act different compared to their home environment. Complicating factors come into play in the classroom setting and assessments. Administrators of the test may not have the credentials or experience with the deaf population needed to obtain valid results or produce programming recommendations. The administrator needs to be able to communicate with the student. A child who is deaf or hard of hearing may use one of several different communication languages or modalities. In the US these include: speech and listening, cued speech, American Sign Language, a form of Manually Coded English, or a combinations of any of these. In addition, the examiner may not be aware of the special communication requirements of children who are deaf or hard of hearing and how to communicate through spoken language. The child’s performance on a task presented by a stranger will rarely be comparable to that child’s performance in a classroom during a familiar activity. Interpretations of test results depend on the knowledge and experience of the evaluation team. Professions who are very familiar with a child may be overly generous, while those with insufficient information may mistakenly estimate the child’s capabilities. Results of various assessment types must be viewed together. Understanding academic test performance depends on knowing how to communicate and intellectual assessment results. Behavior can be evaluated adequately only if the psychologist knows the child’s language and academic limitations in his or her current placement. Multidisciplinary team developing an individualized education program based on assessment results sometimes does not include professionals trained in education of children who are who are deaf or hard of hearing. Sometimes teachers might assess students who are unfamiliar with the child, which may lead to inappropriate or unrealistic goals and objectives. The people who do the assessing should always possess credentials to administer formal tests, they should be familiar with the effects of hearing loss on test and classroom performance. They should have experience with intervention as a teacher, speech-language pathologist, or psychologist/counselor for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and be able to communicate effectively with the child, parents, and teachers during and after the assessment, with or without an interpreter. Administrators must also have access to previous assessment information and educational history relating to the child being tested. Through lack of assessment, some deaf students have reached high school age without learning to read, have developed behavior problems through long-term frustration with inappropriate placement, or have not been challenged enough. Appropriate assessment can avoid these problems by: Validating or questioning the concerns of parents and teachers about a child’s performance level or progress, Indicating areas of strength and weaknesses, Identifying and helping to resolve conflicts among parents and professionals by suggesting solutions based on the best interests of the child. They also provide information that can be directly incorporated into a student’s (IEP). Assessment works as a tool that helps parents and professionals provide a child who is deaf or hard of hearing with the best possible educational and development opportunities. However, assessment by itself will not accomplish that purpose, and limitations of assessment include the following: 1) assessment cannot specifically pinpoint age and grade levels comparable to those assigned to normally hearing children. Age equivalent scores on tests have very limited relationship to the daily classroom performance of a child who is deaf or hard of hearing. 2) The usefulness of assessment results is often limited by the qualifications of the examiners or by missing information. Appropriate recommendations based on assessment data depend on the examiner’s ability to interpret the results. 3) Assessment cannot replace only supplement, daily observation and parent/teacher judgment (Eccarius 1997.) Examiners and parents must always ask what the diagnostic questions are at the time of this evaluation and why the evaluation is being done and how will the results be used. They must also need to ask how the environmental factors, the child’s behavior, and the child’s familiarity with the examiner influence the reliability and validity of the assessment. They must ask themselves how the finding of other diagnosticians fit with the test results to create a comprehensive picture of the whole child and lastly, what are the resources available in the child’s community to implement the recommendation from this assessment. Eccarius, Malinda. (1997) Educating Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: Assessment. Omaha, NE. Boys Town National Research Hospital.
 * 1) //Establishing a baseline level of performance //
 * 2) //Determining an appropriate placement or change in placement. //
 * 3) //Measuring progress (including legally required assessment such as three year re-evaluations). //
 * 4) // Suggesting solutions to identified problems such as behavior, attention difficulties, or slow progress //
 * 5) //<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Developing goals and objective when reviewing a program ( ////<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Eccarius 1997.) //
 * //__<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Some problems associated with Assessment __//**
 * __<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.33px;">The Benefits of Assessments __**
 * __<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.33px;">Some of the limitations of assessments __**
 * __<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Questions one should ask during assessment __**
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">References **