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 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.
