Hearing and Visual impariments

Question 1

How is hearing and visual impariments produced?

Answer 1

Some children are born blind or deaf while other sustain injuries or illness/infections that affect their vision or hearing.

Question 2

Is sensory impairment ( hearing/visual ) detection easy?

Answer 2

The detection of mild to moderate sensory impairment is challenging.

It often goes unheeded and the child may be misdiagnosed as mentally retarded.

Question 3

Which is more common? hearing loss or blindness?

Answer 3

Hearing loss is much common than blindness.

Question 4

What is the difficulties of hearing impaired children?

Answer 4

The most severely affected area of development for a person who is hearing impaired is the comprehension and use of
oral language.

Hearing impaired child will not develop language without extensive training.

Question 5

Why is designing educational programs for hearing impaired difficult?

Answer 5

It is difficulty to measure such children on intellectual abilities which further makes it complicated to design an educational program for them.

Question 6

What are the Five basic educational options available to students with learning impairment:

Answer 6

Five basic educational options are available to students with learning impairment:

i) Full time placement in a regular classroom
ii) Part time placement in a regular classroom and part time placement in a special educational classroom
iii) Special class placement in a regular school
iv) Separate day school placement
v) Separate residential school placement.

Question 7

Is the academic curriculum for hearing impaired same as that of normal hearing children?

Answer 7

Academic curriculum for the hearing impaired may be same as the hearing students.
Teachers can use specific methods to teach them. But, for one reason curriculum may not be the same for such students as they might have started their formal later than the normal students.

Question 8

What are the two educational approaches for hearing impaired

Answer 8

oral/aural approach

manual approach

Question 9

Hearing impairment:

Oral/Aural Approach:

Answer 9

Oral / aural approaches emphasise oral language as a means to transfer information. For the students who are hard of hearing oral language is used and amplification in the form of hearing aids and other sensitive amplification devices are employed. Students are encouraged to use their voices when they speak.

Question 10

Hearing impairment:

Manual approach

Answer 10

Manual approaches rely more exclusively on sign language and non-oral means to communicate information to students. The use of sign languages as a means of instruction is currently being preferred in all educational programs for hearing impaired.

Question 11

What are the other methods used to aid education of hearing impaired

Answer 11

Audio-verbal training is also provided to students to make better use of their residual hearing.

Many students with hearing impairments have more auditory potential than they actually use. Speech reading, cued speech, sign language, finger spelling and total communication are the approaches used.

Technical devices like cochlear implants, computers and assistive communication devices will also prove greatly beneficial.

Teachers after choosing appropriate methods, approaches and technical assistive devices

Question 12

What must teacher keep in mind while educating hearing impaired?

Answer 12

i) If interpreter is used, the general lesson will be discussed with the interpreter before delivery in the class.
ii) Face the student when speaking; don’t speak when facing the blackboard.
iii) Use videotapes and films with captioning
iv) If using sign language, wear clothing that contrasts with you skin colour.
v) Have a system in place for identifying cues in schools that are only conveyed by sounds, such as bells, fire alarms and intercom announcements.
vi) Be aware of the extraneous noises in the classroom that can be distracting for the students with hearing aids.
vii) Allow the students to move freely about the class room so that they can speechread from other students as well as the teacher.
viii) Make sure that the classroom is well lit with the light on your face not behind you.

The most important task for educators is to develop methods to determine which approach may be more suitable to provide the student the best educational opportunity to learn. So far, it has been observed that some students become frustrated with oral
instruction while other students may develop some oral skills with this approach.

Question 13

How do visually impaired students read?

Answer 13

The blind students have severely impaired vision. They must be taught to read by Braille. Partially sighted can use magnifying glass to read print or they can use books with larger prints.

Question 14

Needs of students with visually impaired:
Concept Development and academic
skills

Answer 14

Maximum use of vision, determination of
learning mode, academic support, listening
skills, organisation and study skills,

Question 15

Needs of students with visually impaired:

Communication skills

Answer 15

Handwriting, use of Braille writer, use of
slate and stylus, use of word processors, use
of adaptive equipment, note taking skills

Question 16

Needs of students with visually impaired:

Social/emotional skills

Answer 16

Knowledge of self, knowledge of human
sexuality, knowledge of others, interaction
skills

Question 17

Needs of students with visually impaired:

Sensory motor skills

Answer 17

Development of gross motor skills, fine
motor skills, identification of textures
tactually and underfoot, identification of
kinesthetic sources, identification of
olfactory sources

Question 18

Needs of students with visually impaired:

Orientation and mobility skills

Answer 18

Development of body image, concrete
environment, spatial concepts, directional
concepts, traffic control, use of long cane,
public interaction skills, independent travel
in a variety of environments

Question 19

Needs of students with visually impaired:

Daily living skills

Answer 19

Personal hygiene, eating, dressing, clothing
care, money identification and
management, use of telephone, time and
calendar activities, knowledge and use of
community services

Question 20

Needs of students with visually impaired:

Career and vocational skills

Answer 20

Awareness of works people do, awareness of works that visually impaired can do, laws related to employment, work experience

Question 21

Role of the Teachers for visually impaired students?

Answer 21

i) Teachers should eliminate the clutter in the classroom so that the students can move without hurdles. Make tactile map of the classroom, school and other places so that the student will know how to easily move through the areas.
ii) Allow the student with visual impairment to use a computer with a speech synthesizer. Braille printer may be useful for proof reading.
iii) Teacher should learn some braille. Students do not spell words in letter to letter correspondence with English.
iv) Other students can read assignments for visually impaired that are not available in Braille. Audio tapes can also be prepared for such assignments.
v) Recognize that some vocabulary words mean nothing to a person who has never seen them.
vi) If the student has some vision, use large print with lots of contrasts such as black letters on yellow paper.