Deaf Advocacy

Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA)

Chicago's Walk 4 Hearing is October 6th in Lincoln Park.  Come out and walk 5 miles to show your support for deaf awareness.  For more information check out their website, http://www.hearingloss.org. 

Your child can advocate for him or herself by:

Choosing a seat close to the speaker

Letting the speaker know they are having difficulty hearing them (close the door, turn off a fan, have others stop talking, etc)

Wear their hearing aids all day long at home and school, including weekends

Ask for clarification

Check assignments with a buddy

Remind people to speak clear and face them

Ask a friend to take notes

Leave extra batteries at school

Let a guardian know they are having difficulty hearing

Deaf Advocacy Information

13 Facts: Hearing Loss in the Classroom

by Karen L. Anderson, Ed.S.

1. Our present hearing screening procedures identify less than 50% of the children with significant hearing problems.

2. Medically, a child is not considered to have abnormal hearing until his/her hearing is worse than 25dB. A 25dB hearing loss is slightly worse than plugging your ears with your fingers. We screen in school at 20-25dB.

3. The typical ear infection causes a “plugged ear” hearing loss. Two-thirds of preschoolers have at least one episode of ear problems, and 16% of preschoolers have six or more episodes. One-half of all episodes of ear problems go undetected by parents or teachers. Even with good medical follow-up, 10% of preschoolers continue to have chronic ear problems during critical language development years.

4. The difference between reading comprehension and grade equivalencies for normal hearing children and those with 25dB hearing losses:
                           Grade 1                 Grade 4
Normal Hearing        2.3                        6.3
25dB Loss               2.0                        4.5

5. The difference between expected and actual performance on language tests:
Degree of Hearing Loss Language Delay in Years
15-26 dB 1.2
27-40 dB 2.0
41-55 dB 2.9
56-70 dB 3.5+

6. Of the learning disabled population, as many as 38% have been found to have abnormal hearing thresholds, indicating high incidence of history of ear-related problems. Sufficient data is available to suggest that children with early, recurrent ear problems are at risk for developing delays in auditory, language and academic skills.

7. Eighty-nine percent of hyperactive children have had three or more episodes of ear problems, and 74% have had 10 or more. Of those receiving medication for hyperactivity, 94% have had three or more episodes of ear problems; 68% have had 10 or more.

8. For the Down’s Syndrome population, the incidence of hearing loss ranges from 23 – 90 % and 40-50% have hearing losses greater than 25 dB in both ears.

9. When the special education population was considered in two studies, one found that 75% and the other found 84% of these students had abnormal hearing levels.

10. Of children whose parents identified them as having gifted characteristics via a short checklist, 66% were found to be in the gifted range on the Stanford- Binet. Seventy-five percent of those who fit the characteristics, but tested below the gifted range, had experienced chronic ear infections in infancy.

11. Children with hearing loss only in one ear (30 dB or greater) have 10 times the risk for failing a grade as normal hearing children. Almost 50% of unilaterally hearing impaired students have failed one or more grades or received support services in school.

12. Noise-induced hearing loss is a serious concern. Only 3% of children in grades 1-3 were found to have high pitch loss, presumably due to noise exposure. The incidence in high school leaps to 22% of the student population.

13. The effectiveness of hearing instruments can become reduced in the regular educational setting. In the presence of typical classroom noise, a student’s ability to understand may drop 60% or even as low as 27% if there is no captioning.
 

Karen Anderson, Ed.S., is an educational audiologist. She can be contacted at: 15610 121st Ave. Ct. E., Puyallup, WA 98374.
These facts were originally presented at the 1995 American Academy of Audiology Convention.
Reprinted with permission from Hearing Review, Vol. 3, No. 9, 1996.
 

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