Course Introduction

This self-paced course provides background and introductory material on working with students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) in an inclusive setting at community-based schools. This course is focused on students who utilize hearing assistive technology to access speech, sound, and the curriculum.

This course will include four self-paced units focused on introductory legislation, audiology, hearing assistive technology, and accommodations/modifications for children with hearing loss.

This course is meant to function as an introduction to the basics of deaf education and does not replace the need for a deaf educator and educational audiologist on a student's IEP team. The material in this course also uses generalizations for children with hearing loss. If you have specific questions for particular students, you should reach out to a teacher of the deaf or an educational audiologist.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, particpants will achieve the following learning objectives in each module:

• Learn special education law for students who are DHH and provisions of IDEA that apply to children who are DHH, and apply information from IDEA and Indiana State laws to their practice with students who are DHH, as needed.
• Introduction to audiology and basic acoustics and identifying the basic parts of the ear and how hearing works, recognize an audiogram and its importance for children with hearing loss, name the "Big 3" reasons that hearing is so difficult in the classroom and three ways to combat them.
• Learn basics of hearing assistive technology (HAT), name three types of personal amplifications students may be utilizing and at least two options for school purchased HAT. Accommodations and modifications to iterate why accommodations and modifications may be necessary for children with hearing loss.
• Critically analyze the climate in which you are working as an educator.