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WHICH SCHOOL WOULD YOU CHOOSE?. IOA: Speech and Hearing in the Learning Environment. A Case Study of the Acoustic and Auditory Environment of Two Possible Mainstream Placements for a Child with a Profound Hearing Impairment. David Canning University College London d.canning@ucl.ac.uk. Outline.
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WHICH SCHOOL WOULD YOU CHOOSE? IOA: Speech and Hearing in the Learning Environment A Case Study of the Acoustic and Auditory Environment of Two Possible Mainstream Placements for a Child with a Profound Hearing Impairment David Canning University College London d.canning@ucl.ac.uk
Outline • Consider the question of speech and hearing in the learning environment. • Refer to legislative & educational context of deaf children in England. • Look at the case history of child E and see how the guidance in BB93 helped to identify an appropriate learning environment. • At the end of this presentation I hope you will be able to decide not only which school to choose for this particular child, but how to use the guidance to create appropriate learning environments for all hearing impaired children.
Hearing Impairment in UK • There are approximately 34,000 moderately to profoundly deaf children in the UK (RNID 2007) • About 75% of deaf children are educated within the mainstream school system.
Profoundly Deaf • About 350 children are born with so little hearing that they gain little benefit from hearing aids and will be eligible for a cochlear implant. • A further 100 children will loose their hearing and will also be eligible for cochlear implants.
Cochlear Implant and Hearing Aids • A Cochlear Implant is good at providing ‘envelope’ information of a sound but very poor at providing ‘fine structure’ information. (Taken from Delgutte Smith & Oxenham 2006)
Education of Children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) • The Education Act 1996 says that 'a child has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her. • ‘Where a child has a special educational need then LEAs must make decisions about which actions and provision are appropriate for which pupils on an individual basis. This can only be done by a careful assessment of the pupils’ difficulties and consideration of the educational setting in which they will be educated’. DCSF formerly the DfES
SEN continued • “The real question ... is whether [the statement] is so specific and clear as to leave no room for doubt as to what has been decided and what is needed in the individual case.“ L v Clarke & Somerset County Council It would be helpful for the professional specifying classroom acoustics for a particular child to have available measures of the aided hearing, including acceptable levels of noise, desirable reverberation times and required signal to noise levels. (BB93 p77)
Case Study Child E: • Normal birth • Hearing tested soon after birth and found to be profoundly deaf • No other impairments or difficulties • Hearing aids fitted at 5 weeks after birth • Cochlear Implant fitted at 3 years
Hearing Impairment • Audiogram representation of unaided hearing threshold and Cochlear Implant Aided in Left Ear Right Ear Left Ear
Hearing Abilities • At 3 year following her implant fitting E is able to do the following in quiet: Listening seldom takes place in a quiet environment
Impact of Noise on Listening • Several age appropriate activities were used to determine the impact of noise on hearing:
Signal to Noise Level High Quality Ear Level Recordings were used to determine signal to noise levels after the event
Multiple age appropriate activities Different ‘games’ were used to determine: • Effect of Noise - the point at which tasks could not be carried out • Effect of Noise – on the E’s performance • Use of Lipreading
Classrooms School 1 • School 2
Functional Acoustics: • Occupied sound levels in school 1
Functional Acoustics • Occupied sound levels in school 2
Signal to Noise levels and Classroom Communication: 60% of school day
Comparison of findings: Teacher talk School 1
Comparison of findings Teacher talk: • School 2
Group work • School 1
Group Work • School 2
Comparison X X
Decision: Group work is central to learning in schools. If the child E is expected to spend 60% of the day is in a situation where speech is inaccessible then is the LEA meeting it’s legal duty? School 1 School 2 Max 12 children in room during group work Max 30 children & 6 adults in room during group work
Finally • What School would you choose? • What implications does this have for design of learning spaces for hearing impaired children? • Thank you for you attention