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An individual who is deaf is someone who has little or no functional hearing and uses sign language to communicate. Someone who is hard of hearing is characterized as having mild-to-moderate hearing loss who may communicate through sign language, verbal communication, or both.

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1. Conductive hearing loss- due to problems with the ear canal, ear drum, or middle ear.
2. Sensorineural hearing loss- when hearing loss is due to problems of the inner ear.
3. Mixed hearing loss- a combination of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss.

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About 2 to 3 of every 1,000 children in the United States are born with detectable hearing loss in one or both ears.

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Statistics on hearing, ear infections, and deafness among both adults and children in the U.S.

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More than 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents.

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Personal hearing device

FM system (class microphones)

Specialized seating arrangement

Reduce auditory distractions (background noise)

(Carpet, sound absorption)

Enhance speechreading conditions (avoid hands in front of face, mustache, gum chewing

Educational interpreter

Flashing fire alarm

Visual supplements

Buddy system for notes

Step-by-step directions

captions / scripts for video

Provide demos

Check for understanding often

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-Malformation of outer ear, ear canal, middle ear, or inner ear structures.
-Fluid in the middle ear from colds.
-Ear infections
-Poor Eustachian tube formation
-Perforated ear drum
-Impacted ear wax
-Benign tumors.
-Exposure to loud noises
-Head trauma
-Virus or disease
-Otosclerosis

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Types, Causes and Treatments of Hearing Loss - the Basics

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There are three types of hearing loss. In the sections below you will find information about the types, causes and treatments for hearing loss.

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Depending on the severity treatment options can include:

Removing wax blockage- the buildup of earwax in ones ear can create hearing loss. Doctors can easily remove this excess earwax to improve hearing.

Surgical procedures- small tubes can be surgically inserted to help ears drain.

Hearing aids- If the cause of hearing loss is due to inner ear, hearing aids amplifies sound which makes it easier to hear.

Cochlear implants-Severe hearing loss cochlear implants compensates for damaged or non working parts of the inner ear.

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Page 36 refers to the accommodations for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

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Characteristics of Students who are deaf or with hearing loss

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Characteristics of Students who are deaf or with hearing loss

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Difficulty with verbal language

Often a degree of language delay

Exhibits articulation difficulty

Some difficulty with social/emotional intrapersonal skills

Comorbidity with other disabilities

There is a high prevalence of comorbidity with emotional behavior disorders.

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How to Recognize Characteristics of Deafness and Hearing Loss in Students. 

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How to Recognize Characteristics of Deafness and Hearing Loss in Students. 

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Often, teachers seek extra support and help in recognizing the characteristics of deafness in their students in order to better address the specific needs of the child. This usually happens due to certain cues that the teacher is able to pick up about the student's language development in class or after a known hearing impaired child continues to struggle in their classroom.

A student or child with deafness or hard-of-hearing disabilities has deficits in language and speech development due to a diminished or lack of auditory response to sound. Students will demonstrate varying degrees of hearing loss which often results in difficulty acquiring spoken language. When you have a child with hearing loss/deafness in your classroom, you need to be careful not to assume that this student has other developmental or intellectual, delays. Typically, many of these students have average or better than average intelligence.

How to Recognize the Signs of Deafness

Some of the common characteristics of deafness commonly found in classrooms include the following:

Difficulty following verbal directions

Difficulty with oral expression

Some difficulties with social/emotional or interpersonal skills

Will often have a degree of language delay

Often follows and rarely leads

Will usually exhibit some form of articulation difficulty

Can become easily frustrated if their needs are not met - which may lead to some behavioral difficulties

Sometimes the use of hearing aids leads to embarrassment and fear of rejection from peers

What Can You Do to Help Students With Hearing Loss?

Language will be the priority area for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. It is the basic requirement for success in all subject areas and will influence the student's comprehension in your classroom. Language development and its impact on the learning of students who are deaf or hard of hearing can be complex and difficult to attain.

You may find that students will need interpreters, note-takers, or educational assistants to facilitate communication. This process will usually require external personnel involvement. However, some of the basic steps that you as a teacher can take to address the needs of a hearing impaired student include:

Many students with hearing disabilities will have some form of specialized equipment recommended by an audiologist. Help the child to feel comfortable with their hearing device and promote understanding and acceptance with other children in the class.

Remember that devices do not return the child's hearing to normal.

Noisy environments will cause grief to the child with a hearing device and noise around the child should be kept to a minimum.

Check the device often to ensure it is working.

When using videos, make sure you use the 'closed captioning' feature.

Shut classroom doors/windows to help eliminate noise.

Cushion chair bottoms.

Use visual approaches whenever possible.

Establish predictable routines for this child.

Provide older students with visual outlines/graphic organizers and clarification.

Use a home/school communication book.

Enunciate words clearly using lip movement to assist the child to lip read.

Keep close proximity to the student.

Provide small group work when possible.

Make assessment accommodations to enable a clear picture of demonstrated academic growth.

Provide visual materials and demos whenever possible.

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How to Recognize Characteristics of Hearing Loss in Students

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Learn how to recognize the characteristics of deafness and hard of hearing disabilities in students, plus get tips on how you can help.

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Educational Effects: Students who do not receive intervention services are anywhere from one to four grade levels behind hearing students. Students who receive intervention services can still experience difficulty due to the learning environment and a teacher who does not understand how to support students with hearing loss.
Communication Effects: Students who are deaf or have hearing loss can have difficulty with verbal language and articulation which can lead to complications when speaking with the hearing population. Sign language is used as another form of communication for the Deaf community but the amount of people who know this language is limited.
Social/Emotional Effects:
Without the ability to effectively communicate, a lot of students who are deaf or hard of hearing can experience feelings of unhappiness or isolation. Students can feel frustrated by not being able to communicate or comprehend with others which can lead to problems with processing emotions.

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During her years teaching, former Oklahoma teacher Bonnie Stone encountered several students who were flagged as having learning, language and behavioral challenges when in reality, they had hearing loss.

"I taught first grade and discovered six children in three years with hearing loss," Stone said. "One was a Spanish-speaking boy who was profoundly deaf, but his lack of oral speech was dismissed because 'he doesn't know English.'"

Another student was about to undergo testing for learning disabilities when Stone suggested to the mom that her daughter get her hearing checked first.

"The next day, the mom comes in and tells me her daughter had impacted earwax in both ears and had them cleaned. By the end of the year, the girl tested in the top quartile for first grade," Stone said.

Misdiagnosis leads to real learning problems

When treated with pediatric hearing aids or cochlear implants, kids with hearing loss are just as capable as their peers. However, if childhood hearing loss is left undiagnosed and untreated, it can have an impact that's similar to a learning or behavioral disorder.

A child who can't hear well will struggle to keep up, may get restless and act out in class, or disengage from lessons. Unfortunately, this may lead to getting screened for other conditions, such as learning disabilities or ADD and ADHD. Eventually, this can affect their self-esteem, too, leading to behavioral problems.

"Hearing loss is a real and possible cause of behavioral and learning problems," she explained in a blog post about her experience. "ALWAYS assume hearing loss first and have the child screened."

Even a mild hearing loss can affect
academic performance.

How common is childhood hearing loss?

According to the CDC, about 15% of children ages 6 to 19 have hearing loss of at least 16 decibels in one or both ears. Around .1% have severe hearing loss.

Even hearing loss in only one ear has a tremendous impact on school performance; research shows anywhere from 25 to 35% of children with unilateral hearing loss are at risk of failing at least one grade level.

Hearing and learning are connected

Untreated hearing loss causes delays in the development of speech and language, and those delays then lead to learning problems, often resulting in poor school performance.

Even mild hearing loss can make it hard to keep up-yet mild hearing loss is the hardest to detect and diagnose, because kids learn quite early how to compensate for their hearing loss, and the milder it is, the easier it is to compensate. And parents may not realize that their child can hear but not understand. Over time, though, this catches up to them in school.

Untreated hearing loss leads to a very real learning gap

According to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association ( ASHA), children who have mild to moderate hearing loss but do not get help are very likely to be behind their hearing peers by anywhere from one to four grade levels.

And for those with more severe hearing loss, intervention services are even more crucial; those who do not receive intervention usually do not progress beyond the third-grade level.

What are the reasons behind this education gap? It's certainly not a question of intelligence; just because a child has hearing loss doesn't mean he is any less capable of doing well in school than his hearing peers. Sometimes the classroom environment itself doesn't support a child with hearing loss. A busy teacher who has many students to tend to, or a teacher with a poor understanding of hearing loss, often is unable to alter his teaching style or keep a student's hearing loss in mind while teaching a lesson or assigning homework.

Speech, language and vocabulary development

For example, if a teacher turns his back on the students while teaching, his voice will be directed toward the blackboard, causing a student with hearing loss to miss part of the lesson. Oral changes to homework assignments, an unfamiliar accent or a teacher who talks too rapidly can all hinder the learning progress of a student with hearing loss.

In addition to the classroom environment, certain subjects are just intrinsically more difficult for a child with hearing loss. While the ability to hear affects all aspects of academic achievement, perhaps the areas most affected are those involving language concepts. Vocabulary, language arts, sentence structure and idiomatic expressions are extremely difficult for a child affected by hearing loss to grasp.

New vocabulary, language arts, sentence structure and idiomatic expressions are extremely difficult for a child affected by hearing loss to grasp.

Frustration and confusion can also play a big part in poor academic performance. Though he might have perfectly normal speech, a child with only mild hearing loss can still have trouble hearing a teacher from a distance or amid background noise. Imagine the difficulty and confusion of not being able to hear the high-frequency consonants that impart meaning in the English language (ch, f, k, p, s, sh, t and th) and you can begin to understand some of the academic struggles a child with hearing loss faces on a daily basis. "Chick" and "thick" may sound identical to a child with hearing loss, for example.

Social struggles due to communication challenges

In addition to academic struggles in school, children with hearing loss can also experience trouble socially. Communication is vital to social interactions and healthy peer relationships; without the ability to communicate effectively they often experience feelings of isolation and unhappiness.

If a child with hearing loss is excluded from social interactions or is unwilling to participate in group activities due to fear of embarrassment, the result is that she can become socially withdrawn, leading to further unhappiness. Children with hearing loss are also slower to mature socially, which hinders peer relationships.

Hearing aids and other interventions make all the difference

The good news? Hearing aids help language development in kids with hearing loss.

Children who receive hearing aids or devices like cochlear implants can make great strides and perform just as well as their peers, according to research.

How to help hearing-impaired students in the classroom

Teachers are in a unique position to help learners with hearing impairments by arming themselves with the knowledge as to how a student with a hearing loss receives and understands information, as well as comprehensive knowledge of an individual student's capabilities and level of comprehension. Since early intervention is key, signs teachers can watch for in the classroom include:

Inattentiveness

Inappropriate responses to questions

Daydreaming

Trouble following directions

Speech problems

A child who is struggling in school, especially if she has a family history of hearing loss or has had r ecurring ear infections, should be seen by a hearing care professional for an evaluation.

Depending on the results a proper course of intervention and hearing loss student accommodations can then be recommended. Intervention is crucial because a child who is supported both at school and at home has the best chance of success, academic and otherwise.

If you believe your child is suffering from hearing loss, take her to a pediatrician or your local hearing healthcare professional today. Check out our hearing care directory for one near you.

Hearing loss is invisible and kids may not know they have it

Hearing loss in kids can be mistaken for many different problems, but is easily diagnosed with a hearing evaluation, either at school or with a doctor. Stone, the retired first grade teacher, can't stress doing this enough.

"Unlike vision, it cannot be recognized by a student who squints or tells you they can't see the board. Children with hearing loss may not even realize they aren't hearing properly," Stone, the former teacher, said. "So it is up to us, as their teachers and parents and caregivers, to be observant, educated, and aware of the signs. And to offer support and help."

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Hearing loss can mimic learning disorder in kids, leading to school problems

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During her years teaching, former Oklahoma teacher Bonnie Stone encountered several students who were flagged as having learning, language and behavioral challenges when in reality, they had hearing loss. "I taught first grade and discovered six children in three years with hearing loss," Stone said.

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25 Basic ASL Signs For Beginners | Learn ASL American Sign Language

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A great deal of students with hearing loss or students who are deaf are misidentified as having ADD or ADHD because of inattention.