Deafness & Hearing Impairment - Special Topics

The ERIC digests contain a very complete set of explanations of several different communication strategies for students who are deaf or hearing impaired. While most of these are written for a professional audience, parents may also find many of these documents useful. The references at the end of each digest provide valuable starting points for additional reading or research.

Selected ERIC Digests:

Educating Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: Overview - A look at hearing loss an communication stratgies for those with hearing loss.

Educating Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: Assessment - This digest examines the issues surrounding assessement (intellectual and achievement) of students who are deaf and hearing impaired.

Additional Learning Problems - This digest introduces strategies for indentifying and managing learning disabilities that may also be present in students who are deaf or hearing impaired.

Digests Dealing with Communication Strategies for deaf or hearing impaired individuals:

Total Communication - This digest presents total communication as a communication philosophy.

Auditory - Oral Approaches - A discussion of communication strategies which focus on helping deaf or hearing-impaired students acheive a level of fluency at spoken language.

Auditory - Verbal Approaches - A review of communication strategies to help deaf or hearing-impaired students develop their hearing and verbal abilities as fully as possible.

English-Based Sign Systems - An overview of the issues surrounding use of English-based sign systems, and questions to ask when considering the use of these systems.

Inclusion - A discussion of the issues that can come into play when including deaf or hearing-impaired students in regular classroom settings.

Bilingual-Bicultural Education - An overview of the bilingual approach, which has its basis in the definition of deafness as primarily a cultural, not medical, condition.

Cued Speech - A look at the use of sound-based hand supplements to speechreading and their role as a communication strategy.

Residential Education and Deaf Culture - A discussion of residential schools, deaf culture, and their role as an educational option.