Deaf education

Deaf education is the education of students with any degree of hearing loss or deafness which addresses their differences and individual needs. This process involves individually-planned, systematically-monitored teaching methods, adaptive materials, accessible settings and other interventions designed to help students achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency and success in the school and community than they would achieve with a typical classroom education. A number of countries focus on training teachers to teach deaf students with a variety of approaches and have organizations to aid deaf students.In his ministerial relation, Mr. Townsend became acquainted with a lady, whose son was deaf and dumb, and who had been a pupil of Mr. Braidwood’s almost ten years. The youth evinced an intellectual capacity which caused delight and surprise to the good pastor, who was astonished at the facility and accuracy, with which ideas were received and communicated. Mrs. C, the lady referred to, sympathising with those mothers whose circumstances precluded their incurring the expense of 1500 £, (which was the sum paid by herself,) pleaded the cause of those afflicted and destitute outcasts of society, until Mr. T. entered into her feelings of commiseration, and decided with her on the necessity and practicability of having a charitable Institution for the deaf and dumb children of the poor. (Memoirs p.37-8). Deaf education is the education of students with any degree of hearing loss or deafness which addresses their differences and individual needs. This process involves individually-planned, systematically-monitored teaching methods, adaptive materials, accessible settings and other interventions designed to help students achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency and success in the school and community than they would achieve with a typical classroom education. A number of countries focus on training teachers to teach deaf students with a variety of approaches and have organizations to aid deaf students. Children may be identified as candidates for deaf education from their audiogram or medical history. Hearing loss is generally described as slight, mild, moderate, severe, or profound, depending upon how well a person can hear the intensities of frequencies. Of the children identified as deaf, only 5% are born to deaf parents. This percent of deaf students may have a linguistic advantage when entering the education system due to more extensive exposure to a first language. In cases of congenital hearing loss (hearing loss from birth), parents can start to notice differences in their kids hearing as soon as newborn to three months old. If a child doesn't respond to sudden loud sounds, this could be an indication. As the baby begins to age to around four to eight months, they should turn their head towards where the sound is coming from. Around a year to 16 months, if they don't pronounce words correctly, or don't speak at all, this could also be an indication. All those are indications of congenital hearing loss, which means the child was born this way. A child can also acquire hearing loss at a young age due to a middle ear infection, a serious head injury, exposure to loud noises over a long period, and many other ways. If this occurs, the same symptoms would occur as they do with congenital hearing loss. If this happens when a child is older, around toddler or preschool age, there are more signs to look for. Signs could include a child not replying when their name is called. The child may pronounce words differently than the rest of their peers. If the child turns up the TV incredibly high or sits very close, this could also be an indication. One of the biggest indications that a child may have hearing loss is when they are having a conversation with someone, they intensely focus on the person's lips and facial expressions to understand what they are saying. If a child has these signs, getting a screening for hearing loss would be the next step. In as recent years as the 1990s, many parents in the United States were unaware that their child was deaf until on average 2.5 to 3 years old, according to the U.S. National Institute of Health. Worse yet, many other children were not identified as having any hearing impairment until they reached 5 or 6 years of age. In 1993, the National Institutes of Health’s Consensus Development Conference on Early Identification of Hearing Loss concluded previous risk-based assessment was not sufficient and that all infants should receive hearing screenings, ideally prior to hospital discharge postpartum. At the time of this decision, only 11 hospitals nationally were performing screening on 90 percent of babies born, according to the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management. Since then, universal heating screening has greatly improved early identification. Language deprivation is defined as lack of access to language during a child’s critical period for language exposure, which begins to taper off precisely around the age of five. Unlike any other population, the vast majority of Deaf and hard of hearing children are at risk of having this type of limited exposure to language in early childhood. Research on language deprivation and early childhood interventions to prevent language deprivation are burgeoning. Language Equality & Acquisition for Deaf Kids (LEAD-K), for example, is a national campaign that aims to ensure that D/HH children in the United States gain the early language foundation necessary to be kindergarten-ready. For D/HH adolescents and adults who have passed the critical period for language acquisition and have experienced language deprivation, the consequences are far-reaching. Delayed age of acquisition of a first language has deleterious effects on all levels of language processing, ranging from syntactic, to lexical, to phonological difficulties, not to mention cognitive delays, mental health difficulties, lower quality of life, higher trauma, and limited health literacy. Additionally, delayed exposure to a fully accessible language (i.e. a natural sign language) in early life not only affects the ability to acquire such a sign language later in life, but 'leads to incomplete acquisition of all subsequently learned languages'. The impact of language deprivation is severe and must be considered in efforts toward early identification of deaf and hard of hearing children as well as intervention. Deaf education programs must be customized to each student's needs, and deaf educators provide a continuum of services to deaf students based on individual needs. For instance, if a student is in a regular class, a note taker or interpreter might be an accommodation provided in their education plan. In the United States, Canada and the UK, education professionals use the acronym IEP when referring to a student’s individualized education plan.