Self-advocacy means standing up for your needs and requires both knowledge of your hearing health and may require some new communication skills. Children with hearing loss will need to develop these skills early so that they can request accommodations or assistance when parents or guardians are not present.
This checklist has suggested skills relating to personal health and medical information, hearing and other assistive technology use, and accommodations.
For all students, from children to teens to young adults at university, for those with hearing difficulties, it’s important to hear well at school. Classrooms are a dynamic place for interaction and of course learning. In order to fully participate, every child needs to hear not only the teacher, but also classmates and multimedia devices within the classroom.
A classroom resource that empowers kids and teens of different ages to talk about their hearing loss. This PowerPoint template consists of approximately 30 slides that students with hearing loss can choose from to present to their classmates.
The template is filled with fun facts, animated images and videos highlighting relevant topics such as
Within the template, children upload photos of themselves, their hearing technology and even their audiogram to personalize it.
There are 2 versions of the template. A version for younger children (5-10 years old) and a version for older children and teens (11 years old and above). Both versions have the same content but images of children in each template reflecting the different age groups.
As a teacher who may have students with hearing-related challenges in your classroom, here are some tips for accommodating those with hearing loss and use Phonak devices, like hearing aids and Roger Technology.
Here are some good tips to remember when using hearing technology in your classroom:
As a teacher, you will encounter students with hearing loss. Here are some tips for establishing and promoting an inclusive classroom where those with hearing loss can thrive:
Some students you encounter may have Unilateral Hearing Loss (UHL) – permanent hearing loss in only one ear, while the opposite ear has normal hearing. Those with unilateral hearing loss can experience difficulties knowing which directions sounds are coming from, being less aware of sounds on the side with hearing loss and struggling to understand in noisy environments.
To understand what a student with unilateral hearing experience hears, you can experience UHL with these classroom activities – listening with only one ear to understand Unilateral Hearing Loss
As children with hearing loss grow into their tween or teenage years, their perspective of needs change. They may become more independent, start to advocate for themselves and may have different ideas for their hearing health care. Together with their parent or guardian as well as hearing care professional, teens with hearing loss can find hearing devices that will help them to continue to create connections at home, at school, at work and with friends. As teens begin to juggle school and part-time work, advocating for themselves becomes more important.
HearingLikeMe is an online community for people whose lives are affected by hearing loss. It works to inspire hope in the face of almost any hearing loss situation through incredible stories and personal anecdotes.
The community brings people together from around the world and includes a No. 1-rated news and lifestyle website, a YouTube channel and more.
It was created for a simple reason: sharing stories with each other is a powerful thing. Together, we can learn to live with hearing loss in better ways, and together we can advocate for more meaningful change.
The HearingLikeMe.com website is an excellent forum for thoughtful columns, informative articles, great stories, videos, tips on hearing aids for teenagers and more.
This guide is for teenagers and young adults with hearing loss and was put together by a team of audiologists and deaf educators. It provides information and tools to help increase your communication and participation in school and other activities. If you are a student, it will also help in planning your transition to university and the workplace.
Complete these assessments and learning planners to identify your skills and those you still should learn to become an advocate for your communication needs.
This checklist looks at several areas that are important for self-advocacy and personal responsibility.
This helps organize the learning goals that you identified through the Transition Checklist. It includes your goals, needed resources and who will help you in reaching those goals.
This assessment specifically addresses your understanding about your hearing, hearing loss, technology and rights as a person with hearing loss.
This helps organize the information on which you will be working. It is important that you identify your goals, the needed resources, the persons who will assist you in achieving those goals, a timeline, and an evaluation.
These assessments were made to identify communication difficulties associated with your hearing loss. There are two checklists: one for you and one for a friend to complete.
Funding resources for university, assistive technology and other services are important to check out. Each agency has guidelines that must be followed. Make sure you complete all of the paperwork. Frequently, funding requests are denied. Don’t be afraid to try again. You should contact your local Vocational Rehabilitation office to discuss benefits for personal hearing instruments, assistive technology, college and job training as well as other services.
When asked what type of challenges might present themselves, Rakita listed some of the most common. “There’s a difference between asking someone to repeat themselves, because you didn’t hear or understand them and asking them to repeat because you didn’t fully grasp the point they were making,” she said.
Many times, patients explain that they know someone is talking and they can make out some of the words but not enough of them to get full understanding or comprehension of what is being said.