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Impairments of hearing are quite common in adult/continuing education programs. We use the term "deaf" if someone cannot understand the spoken word through the ear alone, no matter how much amplification is used; the term "hard of hearing" applies if people can understand some things through the ear alone, with amplification. Hearing loss is much less frequent in K-12 or college classes. The way we traditionally have delivered education--a teacher lectures to a class of note takers--places these people at a disadvantage. It only takes one missed word, or a few, to alter the entire meaning of a sentence. (Consider, for example: "Character was central to Henry James's narrative technique" v. "Character wasn't central to Henry James's narrative technique.") For students with more severe hearing losses, particularly those that occurred early in life, a second, educationally significant, limitation is one of not having mastered the English language. When one is deaf or severely hard-of-hearing from early in life, learning language is extremely difficult.
Teachers having hard-of-hearing or deaf students in their classes should make material that is delivered auditorially also available visually. An educator can give the student a disk or a printout containing that day's lecture as prepared for delivery; this greatly reduces the amount of note-taking needed, a big help because one cannot simultaneously look down to write notes and look up to lipread or watch an interpreter. Teachers should also take care to face the class when speaking; avoid speaking to the blackboard. Also stay way from bright windows or other light sources (when strong light is behind you, it casts your face into shadows, making it almost impossible for anyone to lipread you). If you show a video, use a captioned one. (The Resources section, after Chapter 9, has information on six captioning organizations.)
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