Week 2

Educational Placement

There are many types of schools and programs for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. But which placement is the best for the child?  This is an incredibly important decision to make when it comes to appropriate education for the child.  There are many factors that play into this decision.  It takes a lot of time and thought on the parents’ part to determine what placement will be best for their child.  Input from child’s educators and other individuals that know the child well, can help start the parents in the right direction.  This input comes from close interaction between the educators and parents.  It also is discussed at the child’s IEP meeting.  Information from every individual or service that works with the child is necessary to make the most appropriate decision on placing the child within the “mainstream” or in a centralized program/school.  This decision needs to be determined after all of the child’s learning styles and skills are assessed.  The goal for the child is to be placed in the least restrictive environment.  It is ideal to have the child in the regular education classroom with typically developing peers.  This way the child has the opportunity to grow in their academics and stay on track with their peers.  If the child is not quite ready for this option there comes the concept of “push-in” and “pull-out”.  This is a little of both mainstream and centralized.  The child can be pushed into regular education classroom for particular subjects and then be pulled out for others.  This can be very beneficial for the child.  The child has the opportunity to experience education with peers and also has the individual time with the educator to learn material that may need more attention.  Overall, it all depends on the child’s needs and what the parents feel is most fitting for their child. 

 

Attention Span and Problem Solving

Attention span can be a very difficult task to control as an educator.  Of course educators want the attention span to last for a whole lesson. It would be wonderful if a child could have full attention for the entirety of a lesson.  However, this probably will not happen.  It is so easy for a child with a hearing loss to become distracted.  It is our job to bring the child back into the lesson to make sure they are engaging and learning.  I know I have used redirection techniques to try to bring students back into my lesson.  It is also important to have movement incorporated into a lesson so the children are more likely to be engaged.  There are a variety of techniques that can be utilized in lessons in order to keep the child participating and learning. Attention span will be something, I will have to pay close attention to for all of my students and learn how long each of their spans are in order to develop and implement a successful lesson.

Problem solving is another area that can be tricky for educators. When should we step in and help? And when should we let the child problem solve on their own?  This is difficult because we always want to help the child learn.  However, we need to decide when our help is absolutely necessary and when the child needs to figure it out on their own. It is important that children who are deaf or hard of hearing learn to problem solve for themselves. They often are being helped and things are done for them.  We want to create independent students that know how to ask for things on their own and figure out how to solve their own problems. We always want to push our students in order for them to grow into independent learners.