Students who are deaf and hard of hearing have delayed needs; however, they do not lack academic disorders like most mainstream special education population. The initial difference between deaf/hard hearing and their peers is the fluency of having full speech to communicate thoroughly. Compared to typical students’, students with hearing loss has a exaggerated effect from background noise. Students who are (D/HH) only, does not have learning disorders, but do have learning gaps and unique needs secondary to access to communicate issues. 

As we look at some of the detriments/specific issues for children with hearing loss in inclusive model settings, we face challenges like, intrinsic challenges of performing with a hearing loss in a classroom. There are many barriers and road blocks of communicating with children that have (DHH) and entering social groups, as well as interacting with peers that can hear. Even then, when a child has a cochlear implant, there are still fewer communication between deaf and hard of hearing children and children with 100% hearing. Second, we lack meeting (DHH) unique needs. The inclusion mode prevents all the necessary skills form being taught as these skills are designed to improve functional performance and are not an extension of academic skills. Skills that are necessary for DHH students’ need the appropriate access and benefit from the general environment that can only be taught outside of the mainstream classroom. Specifically, it is not possible to teach many auditory development skills because of the noise that is presented and surrounded in a typical classroom setting. Third, DHH lack the sufficient intensity to meet unique needs. Language delays, auditory or sign language development, building self-advocacy skills, and other unique skills to the students with hearing loss could be efficiently taught in a pull-out model of sufficient intensity; having to provide this teaching as push-in services severely decreases the time available to specifically teach the needed skills. If a student with 6 months of hearing loss is behind their peers, an itinerant DHH teacher cannot maintain a year’s growth and make up the existing delay with only twice a week 30 minute 1:1 teaching sessions; and fourth, DHH lack peers of hearing loss. Many DHH children that are in inclusion model settings have no role models, and rarely or never see another DHH peer. 

The inclusion model of special education has been adopted by many school districts throughout the U.S.. The positive of having a diverse learning community, implementing differentiated learning, varied teaching strategies, and universal design for learning principles are all beneficial aspects of the inclusion model. Many students’, both regular education and special education students thrive in inclusion classrooms. The participation of all children is a purpose of inclusive practice and classroom activities. However, it cannot be assumed that social communication and interaction between children who are D/HH and hearing peers will occur naturally.

As this class comes to an end, I cannot deny that this opportunity to explore the range of disciplinary areas within the Human Learning and Development field has been very interesting. Looking back on day one, I could barely explain my major to anyone who inquired in what I decided to concentrate on with a goal to attain a bachelor’s degree in Interdisplinary Studies. Now, I can articulately explain the importance of interdisciplinary approaches that has benefit many of the world's greatest problems. Nissani’s essay in 1995 on Interdisciplinarity was my first doorway to understanding how one came across the success in applying interdisciplinarity in two different studies. Gregor Mendel’s breakthrough came from combing his research on biological observations with statistics. The Four-Wheel Drive approach to complex problems video with Myra Strober’s made me more conscious that if we want to be more productive and become better problem solvers we must have disciplinary knowledge concerning our specialties. 

After my site visit at The Clifton School and having the opportunity to speak with Ms. Kari Ford (The Early Intervention Project Manager) I was fascinated by how early intervention was being implemented with many interdisciplinary approaches applied to their plans for success with the children and the amount of support available to staff and families with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The interdisciplinary approaches used at The Clifton School was evidence on how successful this program can be for students who receive the support.  This enticed me to open more doors that will broaden my understanding of the subject even more. Ms. Ford also explained to me that one must take into consideration the culture, religion, environment and what exposure the child has when identifying disciplines that are involved in the interdisciplinarity that helps the success of early intervention. Counseling such as Music therapy, speech therapy, Early Childhood Education, Psychology, Special Education are just some interdisciplinary approaches that helps the success of early intervention by providing the child with unlimited amount of support and expertise regardless of their disabilities.

Through actively participating in the Interdisciplinary Research and Development Project, it has also influencedmy perception of disciplinary perspective and expertise. By already having experience using early Intervention methods with young children at a childcare facility, I felt I was able to contribute factual points of view but after discussing the research found by my partners and I on different Disciplinary Perspective in Education and Psychology I no longer have a bias point of view that one holds more weight in success than the other. I found it interesting that in all our research none of our findings contradicted each other but more so supported how beneficial Early Intervention is for students who are deaf in inclusive classrooms. The authors Barbara Luedtke - Stahlman and Diane Corcoran Nielsen of “The Contribution of Phonological Awareness and Receptive and Expressive English to the Reading Ability of Deaf Students with Varying Degrees of Exposure to Accurate English” and Ching who wrote, “Is Early Intervention Effective in Improving Spoken Language Outcomes of Children with Congenital Hearing Loss?” both compare maternal education to language skills and agree that the components of reading requires the same achievement of skills, whether a child is hearing or deaf. 

By seizing the opportunity to attend the Inaugural Mike and Terry Metzler Distinguished Lecture “A Vision for Active Cities: Fueled by Interdisciplinary Research”, I was granted such an insightful experience learning about the thought process and strategies behind cities developing healthier behaviors. With various setting to factor, one must integrate the different expertise to develop a solution. For example, Educators, Landscape Architects, Transport Engineers and planning, parks and recreation locations needed to be taken into consideration before a plan could be put into place. 

From these assignments and activities, I have chosen to declare Behavioral and Learning Disabilities discipline and Child Growth and Development discipline to be my specialties.

Looking forward, the Behavioral and Learning Disabilities and Child Growth and Development disciplines seemed to surround their focus on what I am most passionate about. I want to become well-organized in applying interdisciplinary approaches to Early intervention services that can help in offering access to the best results for optimum development and outcome for children with autism and even others with special needs. I can imagine the fulfillment brought on by can taking part in adding to the success of Early intervention services that apply interdisciplinary works to support bringing together integrated accounts of the development of self-regulation among young children.

I believe it will be more valuable and appealing to participate in a Research Internship rather than the Community based internship in my later semesters. With my learning style I believe working closely with a professor on a problem that I am drawn to, will help me strengthen my skills to become a better researcher and start becoming a productive part of society. In the future I would love to pursue in a career as an Early Invention Specialist in childcare facilities and in elementary schools or as an Occupational therapy assistant. In both careers, kids often have cognitive or physical disabilities that make it difficult for them to live normal day-to-day lives. By helping children in my community with overcoming or adapting to their physical, emotional, or developmental challenges I could give them better opportunities to succeed in school, play with other children, and grow into successful and confident young people. 

To obtain this career choice in Georgia, I plan to better familiarize myself in the agency Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning where they are responsible for meeting the child care and early education needs of Georgia's children and their families. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peer Review for Shinika: Just add your headers, titles and other things at the top of the paper! You can also separate out your sections like "Looking Back" then the two pages and then add "Looking Forward" and then write two more pages. Go back and add commas where needed and check for grammar mistakes! You do a great job of drawing inferences and connections about what we learned in the project. You should add more about YOUR experiences! This paper needs to be based on your experiences in the class and your future goals. Talk about how your disciplines are interdisciplinary and talk about your future internship and professional goals. Mention how you can use interdisciplinary in your career and how the process helped you to see your goals in a new light. Overall, well thought out paper and only a few additions need to be made! Also, create your table at the end. 

For your two sections, you need to explain more of your choices of disciplines and why these are important to you. What you learned from the course and how it connects to your experiences. Make it to more personal story as this is about how you developed through the course. For the looking forward section, I would suggest to contain more detailed goal/information about what you will achieve in this program, after graduation, and in your future job. 

TA Aram

This is a good start. You did a good job introducing your ideas and thoughts. . In your looking forward section, based on what you explained in the first section, you will make a connection to your learnings/insights from the course and your experiences of visiting sites. Then, provide goals for the future. I would suggest containing more detailed goal/information about what you will achieve in this program, after graduation, and in your future job. You touched every element so you need to elaborate more for each section with examples, readings from the course, discussions you had from your site visits, and feedback from your peers. Also, don’t forget to double check your grammar, technical errors, and formats.  Make it sure to add your table and appendix as well!

TA Aram