Educating Deaf Students: Global Perspectives

The Power of Hearing, Habilitation,and the Home

The Power of Hearing, Habilitation, and the Home JUDITH SIMSER
The fundamental premise of this chapter is that the majority of deaf children have hearing and speaking potential. From this premise, it follows that • To develop spoken language, habilitation must emphasize hearing, • Parents are a critical component in habilitation to develop their child’s hearing, and • A hierarchy of targets will build upon success. As a result of all the above, expectations for listening and speaking must be raised for our children with hearing impairment. Changes in Technology There are two main changes that have impacted upon the education of children who are deaf and hard of hearing: the advent of the Universal Newborn Infant Hearing Screening Program and incredible advances in technological devices. Yoshinaga-Itano, et al. (1996) studied two groups of infants with hearing loss. They compared babies who were fitted with hearing aids before and after 6 months of age. Results revealed that the children whose hearing loss was detected before 6 months of age entered into parent–infant programs and attained close to normal speech and language scores by the age of 3 years. Those aided after 6 months of age did not, at any stage during the testing , reach the same levels. Infants whose hearing impairment is detected early (i.e., during the period of high neural plasticity) have every opportunity to develop the auditory areas of the brain in the process of interacting with parents/caregivers. 94 Due to technological advances, never before in the history of deaf education has there been such access to sound for children whose hearing is impaired. Most children—even those who are totally deaf, can now acquire much, if not all, of their spoken language through the use of hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. However, technological and medical devices only give children access to hearing. Whether or not children learn to use this hearing depends on the intervention program that follows and the vital partnership of parents and therapists. An auditory-verbal approach emphasizes the development of spoken language through listening with hearing aids and/or the use of hearing potential from a cochlear implant. In auditory-verbal practice, there is an expectation that young children who are deaf and hard of hearing can use technologically assisted hearing to learn to listen, process verbal language, and speak. The goal is that children with hearing loss can grow up in regular learning and living environments that enable them to become independent, participating , and contributing citizens in mainstream society. Auditory-verbal practice supports the basic human right that children with all degrees of hearing loss deserve an opportunity to develop the ability to listen and use verbal communication in their daily lives (Auditory-Verbal International, 1991). Ideally, children should learn to listen and speak while in the stimulation and security of their own homes. This occurs by interacting with significant others in a similar way to typically hearing children. Flexer (1999) emphasized important reasons for developing the auditory centers of the brain via very early listening. It is critical to note that as human beings we are neurologically “wired” to develop spoken language (speech) and reading skills through the central auditory system. Most people think that reading is a visual skill, but recent research on brain mapping shows that primary reading centers of the brain are located in the auditory cortex—in the auditory portions of the brain (Chermack & Musiek, 1997). That’s why many children who are born with a hearing loss and who do not have access to auditory input when they are very young (through strong hearing aids and auditory teaching), tend to have a great deal of difficulty reading even though their vision is fine. Therefore, the earlier and more efficiently we can allow a child access to meaningful sound with subsequent direction of the child’s attention to sound, the better opportunity that child will have of developing spoken language , literacy, and academic skills. (p. 7) The Power of Hearing, Habilitation, and the Home 95 The Power of Hearing, Habilitation, and the Home A case study demonstrates the importance of habilitation and the role of the family in developing hearing potential, both of which are essential for a child to learn to listen and speak. Children who have poor hearing potential do not learn to listen and therefore , by necessity, become visually dependent in order to obtain information . Michael was one of...