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University of the West of Scotland


Support for Specific Impairments

Hearing Impairment

Introduction

Many students have a hearing impairment and in extreme cases may be deaf. These conditions can have a wide range of causes. Some people are born deaf, while others lose their hearing gradually or suddenly. The degree of hearing loss is also subject to wide variation. Very few people have no hearing at all.

An important distinction is between people who are pre-lingually deaf and those who are post-lingually deaf. Pre-lingually deaf people are born deaf or lose their hearing before they learn to speak and read, while post-lingually deaf people lose their hearing some time after learning these skills. Pre-lingually deaf people find it difficult to learn written and spoken language because the ability to hear spoken words is usually a critical element of the learning process. Pre-lingually deaf people often speak with an unusual intonation and can have less well-developed communication skills.

How Hearing-impaired Students Communicate

Each individual hearing-impaired student will have his or her own means of receiving and perhaps delivering communication. For example, the student may communicate by speech or signing and receive communication through:

  • lip-reading
  • signing
  • hearing aids
  • email and textphone
Lip-reading

Lip-reading involves watching the lips of people who are speaking in order to interpret what is being said. It is, in fact very common among students with hearing difficulties. Lip-reading can be a difficult and tiring skill to master but it is made easier if the student has:

  • some level of hearing,
  • some contextual clues to the content of the message.

Where the speaker has an unfamiliar accent or some other unusual form of phrasing, lip-reading becomes even more difficult. In some circumstances, it may be appropriate for the student to be provided with a trained lip-speaker who can relay the messages in a way that the student can interpret and can also set the context for visual input such as OHP slides.

Signing

Many students will communicate through signing, using either:

  • Sign Supported English , or,
  • British Sign Language (BSL) . BSL is not an alternative way of expressing English, rather it is another kind of language and communication, and effectively becomes the student’s second, or perhaps first, language.

If sign language is the student’s principal method of communication, it may be necessary to provide an interpreter to voice the student’s signing communication in situations such as tutorials. The interpreter can also convey the words of the lecturer and other students by signing.

Hearing Aids

Hearing aids amplify sound for people who are hard of hearing. The aim is to make speech easier to distinguish and understand. However, problems can arise when the hearing aid also amplifies background noise. In lecture halls, students with hearing aids can be helped if a loop system is installed. With such a system, the speaker’s microphone transmits radio signals that are picked up by the hearing aid. An individual induction loop (or radio aid) involves the speaker wearing a microphone, which can be troublesome if the class involves several speakers. A room loop system avoids these problems.

Email and textphones

Many hearing-impaired students can use specially adapted telephones, while the more profoundly deaf can communicate using textphones. A textphone is available in the Student Advisory Service at Paisley. The national telephone relay service Typetalk enables textphone users to communicate with hearing people. Increasingly, hearing-impaired people are also using email as an alternative to the telephone.

Helping Students with Hearing Impairments

Whatever means of communication is used and whatever the degree of hearing reduction, the hearing-impaired student is likely to have more difficulty than most in accessing information from lectures. A particular problem is trying to lip-read or to watch a signer while taking notes at the same time. Potential solutions include the following:

  • the student employs someone to take notes,
  • lecturers can provide the students with their notes of lectures.

Where students rely on lip-reading, there are a number of ways in which lecturers can ensure that they provide the students with the maximum opportunity to gain from their classes. As well as speaking clearly, it is important to ensure that the speaker’s face is well-lit so that the students can clearly see lip movements. It is particularly important to bear this in mind when the room is generally darkened, for example, when showing OHP slides. It is also worth noting that a moustache or beard makes lip-reading more difficult. Other points to note when lecturing:

  • written notes and OHP slides complement the spoken input and help to minimise the deaf student’s loss of information.
  • signal to hearing-impaired students when you are about to commence speaking.
  • do not move around too much and ensure that your face is always visible to the students.
  • try to avoid using a room which gives a distracting or confusing background.
  • let the hearing-impaired student know the context of the lecture before it starts. This allows the student to ‘tune in’ to the correct type of vocabulary and makes it easier for students to lip-read the lecturer.

Where the class is likely to involve feedback from students as well as input from the lecturer, in a seminar for example, the seating should be arranged so that the students can see each other’s faces. Ask hearing-impaired students how they would prefer the seating to be set out. Often, lip-readers prefer to sit by the seminar leader, since most speech is directed to the leader.

During the session, speakers should signal when they are about to speak, or alternatively, an object can be passed around with only the person holding the object allowed to speak. Deaf students would also find it helpful if students in small seminar groups could wear name ‘badges’ in the first few sessions. Deaf students have to concentrate intensely to follow what is being discussed and do tend to tire more easily than their hearing counterparts.

The most helpful way of meeting a hearing-impaired student’s needs is usually to speak to them and check what would be most helpful to him or her. Like every other student, hearing-impaired students are individuals with individual needs.

Portable Induction Loop

The Enabling Support Team has a portable induction loop that can be borrowed for use in interviews with people with hearing impairments. The loop is only for one to one interviews and is not suitable for use during lectures or tutorials.

Please phone the Enabling Support Team Reception on 0141 848 3518 or email enablingsupport.paisley@uws.ac.uk   to book this equipment.

For Crichton University Campus please contact Enabling Support Adviser Vanessa Johnston

at: Tel: 01387 702066 or email:

studentservices-dumfries@uws.ac.uk

Helping Hearing-impaired Students in Special Situations

Beyond the lecture room, there are situations in the university where hearing-impaired students may welcome the following assistance:

  • Exams : Pre-lingually deaf students may find it difficult to understand the meaning of questions in a typical examination paper, particularly if they communicate using BSL, which is a non-grammatical language. Questions should, therefore, be phrased clearly and the students understanding of them checked at the outset. Invigilators must also ensure that spoken instructions are available in written or signed form for hearing-impaired students. Where it is deemed necessary for questions to be presented in signed form, arrangements should be made well in advance because this is a highly complicated matter.
  • Assignments : Pre-lingually deaf students, in particular, may have some difficulty with English. For some, sign language may be their first language. Where oral or written communication is difficult, the problem must be regarded as one of understanding. Assignments should be outlined in clear, jargon-free, short sentences.
  • Video material : If this is being used as part of a course a lamp should be made available in a darkened room in order that the deaf student can see the BSL interpreter clearly. Alternatively a transcript of the material covered or a copy of the video could be made available pre or post presentation.
  • Placements and field trips : Off-site visits and activities, depending on their nature, can place hearing-impaired students at a disadvantage. Well in advance of the trip, it is advisable to give the student the opportunity to identify and discuss any likely difficulties as well as possible solutions. These solutions might include additional equipment or lip-reading or signing support. It is worth noting that even hearing-impaired students who cope well within the structured, predictable environment of a lecture room may have difficulty in coping with the quite different demands of placements or field trips.
  • Safety procedures : In many universities, the standard fire alarm is based on sound only. Where hearing-impaired students are present and may be in danger of missing fire alarms or other safety alerts, the situation should be discussed with the student and a representative of Health and Safety.
  • Social events : Outside the classroom and other formal aspects of education, hearing-impaired students may experience disadvantage or difficulty. Even in such a situation as a coffee break, with several people involved in overlapping conversation, hearing-impaired students can experience difficulty.

Case Study

Tommy is completely deaf in one ear. He managed to cope well with his deafness at school and did not see the need to draw attention to it at university.

However, he found the situation at university quite different. ‘Some of the lectures were much in bigger classes than I was used to at found I missed quite a lot. The lecturer should really have worn a radio mike. Obviously, because no one complained, he thought he didn't need to! Eventually, I plucked up enough courage to explain my hearing problem ask him to use a mike. Actually, I think the lecturer was just as nervous about using a radio mike as I was about asking him to use it! But he soon got used to it. In other cases, it's just been a matter of getting there early enough to get a good seat - in tutorials for instance. I haven't had too many problems really. Once I'd asked about the mike, I heard that other students were pleased he was using it too.'

Further Help

RNID

The following factsheets, produced by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) can be obtained from the SAS Information Room (J217):

  • RNID Information Sheet,
  • Points to Aid Communication with Deafened or Hard of Hearing People,
  • Teaching Strategies to use with Deaf Students (Advice for lecturers in higher education),
  • Careers with Deaf People,
  • British Sign Language,
  • British Sign Language Classes,
  • Ordering RNID Fact sheets.

Contact helpline@rnid.org.uk for more advice.

University Loop Systems

The University has produced an information sheet regarding the loop systems that have been placed in the Campuses at Paisley and Ayr. Copies of the leaflet can be obtained in the SAS Information Room.

Loop systems have been installed in the following locations at Paisley Campus:

  • Main Reception
  • Brough Hall
  • R Block
  • Wellmeadow Annexe (ELIM)
  • Rooms G207, G215, D141*, D143* and P118
  • Library: 4 across the counter at issuing counters and one at the Information and Enquiry Desk
  • SAS Reception

Loop systems can also be found in the following locations at Ayr Campus:

  • Reception
  • Main Lecture Theatre
  • Assembly Hall
  • Library: at Issuing Desk

Those rooms indicated by an asterisk (*) have infra-red system in place. Neck loop receivers for the infra-red system and a Portable Induction Loop are available from the Enabling Support Team. The Portable loop is only suitable for one to one discussions and not for lectures or tutorials.

Note that you should use a microphone in large lecture halls because it feeds in to the loop system.

If you need any assistance, contact the Enabling Support Team, or the Centre for Academic and Professional Development (extension 3829).

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