Download Hearing and Vision Impairments

Hearing and Vision Impairments
Spring 2010
Defining Hearing Loss
• Dear and hard of hearing describes hearing loss
• Unilateral or bilateral
• IDEA defines deafness as a hearing impairment that is so severe
that the student is impaired in processing linguistic information
through hearing, with or without amplification and that adversely
affects the student’s education performance
• The severity of hearing loss is measured through decibels (dB)
– Deaf=70-90 dB
– Harding of hearing =20-70 dB
• Congenital deafness is a rare condition
• Deaf community prefers term “deaf child” to hearing impaired
Prevalence of Hearing Loss
• Low incident disability
• In 2006, 71,589 students with hearing loss
between the ages of 6 and 21 received some
type of special education services
• Preschool programs (ages 3 to 5) served
another 8,123 children, about 1% of the total
number of young children in preschools.
Determining the Causes
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Congenital
Acquired
Genetic causes
Prenatal causes
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Hypoxia
Rubella
Other illnesses
Premature infants
• Postnatal causes
– Bacterial meningitis
– Acute otitis media (ear infections)
• Postlingual casues
– Trauma to skull, excessive noise
Determining the Presence
• Diagnostic Assessment
– Screen all newborns for hearing loss before 1 month
of age
– Evaluate all infants who screen positive before 3
months of age
– Early interventions (initiated before 6 months)
• Medical personnel
– Otologist (physician)
– Audiologist (measures hearing)
• Hearing aides Cochlear implants
Big Issues
• Cochlear implant
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECT6FY4cby0
&feature=related
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pfQhyy6c7Y
&feature=related
Determining the Nature of Specially
Designed Instruction and Services
• Educational evaluation
• How hearing is tested
– Audiometer
– Audiogram (behavioral
– Typanograph
– Speech audiometry
Vision Impairment
• Defining Visual Impairments
– Two different definitions
• Legal definition
– Based on acuity and filed of vision
– IDEA definition
• Low vision
• Functionally blind
• Totally blind
Prevalence of Visual Impairments
• Various measures are used, so it is difficult to
get an accurate count
• In 2006, 25,661 students of the special
education population
Characteristics
• Incidental Learning
– The way sighted children naturally learn about their
environment
– Lack of incidental learning skills can impact the
development of motor, language, cognitive and social
skills
• Limitations in range and variety of experiences
• Limitations in the ability to get around
• Limitations in interactions with the environment
Determining the causes
• Congenital vision impairments
– Occur at birth or before vision memories have
been established
• Adventitious vision impairments
– When a person has had normal vision but then
acquires a vision loss
Determining the presence
• Determining how a student uses vision
– FVA
– Provides more concrete information about a student’s
vision that may help in making IEP decisions
• Determining the appropriate reading medium
– Finding the appropriate learning medium (learning
medium assessment)
• Braille, print, audiotapes, and access technology
– Allows the IEP team to know needed accomodations
Determining the Nature of Specially
Designed Instruction and Services
• Expanded Core Curriculum
– Compensatory and Communication Skills
– Social and interaction skills
– Orientation and mobility skills
• Informal assessments should include the student’s ability to
function independently
• Assessments should include the age-appropriateness of
tasks
– What are the student’s peers doing?
– Determine skills typically learned through incidental learning,
analyze task involvement, and begin teaching these tasks earlier
• Avoid making assumptions about a student’s previously
acquired learning