Hearing Impairments by Anabelle Kessler

What is a Hearing Impairment?

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:01:40 UTC

A hearing impairment is less than normal hearing (either sensitivity or speech understanding) resulting from auditory disorders.

Source: Textbook, Special Education in Contemporary Society, Chapter 12, pg 368.

Characteristics:

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:04:06 UTC

Some characteristics of a hearing impairment may include:

Muffling of speech and other sounds.
Trouble understanding words, especially when in a crowd or a noisy place.
Trouble hearing the letters of the alphabet that aren't vowels.
Often asking others to speak more slowly, clearly and loudly.
Needing to turn up the volume of the television or radio.
Staying clear of some social settings.
Being bothered by background noise.
Ringing in the ears, known as tinnitus.

Causes of Hearing Impairments:

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:05:42 UTC

Causes include:

Damage to the inner ear. Aging and loud noise can cause wear and tear on the hairs or nerve cells in the cochlea that send sound signals to the brain. Damaged or missing hairs or nerve cells don't send electrical signals well. This causes hearing loss.
Higher pitched tones may seem muffled. It may be hard to pick out words against background noise.
Ear infection or unusual bone growths or tumors. In the outer or middle ear, any of these can cause hearing loss.
Ruptured eardrum, also known as tympanic membrane perforation.Loud blasts of noise, sudden changes in pressure, poking an eardrum with an object and infection can cause the eardrum to burst.

Risk Factors that Lead to Hearing Loss:

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:07:29 UTC

Aging. The inner ear breaks down over time.
Loud noise. Being around loud sounds can damage the cells of the inner ear. Damage can happen by being around loud noises over time. Or the damage can come from a short blast of noise, such as from a gunshot.
Heredity. Your genes may make you more likely to have ear damage from sound or from aging.
Noises on the job. Jobs where loud noise is constant, such as farming, construction or factory work, can lead to damage inside the ear.
Noises at play. Exposure to explosive noises, such as from firearms and jet engines, can cause immediate, permanent hearing loss. Other activities with dangerously high noise levels include snowmobiling, motorcycling, carpentry or listening to loud music.
Some medicines. These include the antibiotic gentamicin, sildenafil (Viagra) and certain medicines used to treat cancer, which can damage the inner ear. Very high doses of aspirin, other pain relievers, antimalarial drugs or loop diuretics can cause short-term effects on hearing. These include ringing in the ears, also known as tinnitus, or hearing loss.
Some illnesses. Illnesses such as meningitis that cause high fever can harm the cochlea.

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:08:24 UTC

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:08:43 UTC

Video:

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:12:57 UTC

Tips for the Classroom:

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:19:31 UTC

It can be challenging to work with students who have hearing impairments. It is important to make sure that I'm being inclusive in the classroom as well. Some things that I would include in the classroom are: ensuring that background noise is omitted, I won't speak when facing the board while teaching, I'd repeat any questions clearly that are asked by students, I can use closed captions on any films or videos, use assistive devices, and I'd encourage the student to sit towards the front of the classroom.

Challenges in the Classroom:

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:25:02 UTC

In the typical classroom the learning is traditionally taught by speaking to the class, but for students that are hearing impaired it will cause them the struggle. It can be hard to find inclusive ways of teaching these students. It can also be challenging to help the students to be inclusive of everyone. Some other classmates might not want to be socially interactive because they find it too challenging. It is important that I will make sure that as a teacher, I can give suggestions on how to be inclusive. It can also be hard for these students to pay attention or process materials quickly.

Strengths of Students with Hearing Impairments:

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:27:52 UTC

Although there are many challenges faced when a child has hearing loss there are some strengths. Areas of strengths I would see in my classroom include free recall, visuospatial recall, imagery, and dual encoding. Phonological encoding and rehearsal appear to be strengths when these strategies are employed.

bellekess13 — 2023-11-30 17:32:36 UTC