Rural Perspectives of Models, Services, and Resources for Students with Hearing Impairments

Due to the No Child Left Behind Act (2002), as well as co-occurring increases in universal newborn hearing screening and cochlear implantation, there have been dramatic shifts in how students with hearing impairment (HI) are educated (Blackorby & Knokey, 2006; Mitchell, 2004). We use the terms hearing impairment (HI) and deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) interchangeably to reflect personal and regional differences among participants. How individuals with hearing loss label themselves is a personal decision that may reflect identification with the Deaf and hard of hearing community, the degree to which they can hear, and/or the age of onset.Many students with HI are integrated into the general education classroom, are taught the same curriculum as their peers, and receive special education services from an itinerant teacher (Luckner & Ayantoye, 2013). The percentage of DHH students who attend special schools has been declining (Gallaudet Research Institute, 2002; Mitchell & Karchmer, 2006; U.S. Department of Education, 2002). This increased dispersion of students with HI into general education classrooms has resulted in a lack of generalizable information regarding their educational experiences (Cawthon, 2011; Mitchell, 2004). Implementing and defining evidence-based practices is further limited by the low number of students with HI, the lack of well-designed studies of evidence-based practices in education of the Deaf, and a lack of support for research in this area (Luckner, 2006).Challenges in Serving Students with HI in Rural CommunitiesA survey conducted by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (2011) found that one common challenge in delivering services to students with HI in rural communities is the limited availability of resources and personnel (Bowen The National Association for State Directors of Special Education (2011) also found that students in rural areas who are DHH spend more than 60% of their time in mainstream classrooms immersed in curricula for hearing students, which may not explicitly address their specific language and literacy development needs. Humphries et al. (2013) noted that, especially for children with cochlear implants, "exposure to spoken language alone does not result in language fluency ... That is, spoken language cannot be counted as an accessible language for children who are DHH, and without an accessible language, these children experience linguistic deprivation" (p. 873). The fact that students who are DHH comprise only 1% of the school population, presents logistic and resource challenges that affect the quality and timing of interventions. It is common in rural communities to group all students who are DHH into multi-age, multi-grade interventions, making child-centered, differentiated instruction difficult and limiting early intervention and identification (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2011).Although the shortage of teachers to the DHH is a nationwide issue, rural communities are more likely to report shortages of qualified personnel, quality instruction, and appropriate interventions (Griffin & Galassi, 2010). Rural settings create a unique set of barriers as distances from homes and schools are usually great, families of students who are DHH commonly reside far away from each other, and public transportation to remote communities is either limited or absent. These obstacles affect parental involvement, which is directly related to student social and academic success, reduced problem behavior, and positive self-esteem. Rural schools must be creative in overcoming the lack of services to support student success before and after school, inconvenient meeting opportunities, reduced meaningful parent networking, and challenges in transportation to school events (Griffin &. …