Read the text. Hearing impairment can have profound consequences for some aspects of a person's behavior and little or no effect on other characteristics

Hearing impairment can have profound consequences for some aspects of a person's behavior and little or no effect on other characteristics.

By far the most severely affected areas of development in the person with a hearing impairment are the comprehension and production of language. In other words, people who are hearing impaired are generally deficient in the language used by most people of the hearing society in which they live. The distinction is important, because people who are hearing impaired can be expert in their own form of language: sign language.

Nevertheless, it is an undeniable fact that individuals with hearing impairment are at a distinct disadvantage. This is true in terms of language comprehension, language production, and speech. Speech intelligibility is linked to (1) degree of hearing impairment and (2) the age of onset of the hearing impairment. Even after intensive speech therapy, it is rare for children with prelingual profound deafness to develop intelligible speech. Infants who are able to hear their own sounds and those of adults before becoming deaf have an advantage over those who are born deaf. Children who are deaf are handicapped in learning to associate the sensations they feel when they move their jaws, mouths, and tongues with the auditory sounds these movements produce. In addition, these children have a difficult time hearing the sounds of adult speech, which nonimpaired children hear and imitate.

For many years, professionals believed that the conceptual ability of individuals who are deaf was deficient because of their deficient spoken language. As was noted earlier, however, we now know that they might not have a spoken language, such as English, but if they use American Sign Language, they are using a true language with its own rules of grammar. Any intelligence testing that is done with people who are hearing impaired must take their English language deficiency into account. Performance tests, rather than verbal tests, especially if they are administered in sign, offer a much fairer assessment of the IQ of a person with a hearing impairment. When these tests are used, there is no difference in IQ between those who are deaf and those who are hearing.

Unfortunately, most children who are deaf have extreme deficits in academic achievement. Reading ability, which relies heavily on English language skills and is probably the most important area of academic achievement, is most affected. For example, the average 18-year-old student who is hearing impaired has a fourth-grade reading comprehension level. Even in math, their best academic subject, students with hearing impairment trail their hearing peers by substantial margins.

Several studies have demonstrated that children who are deaf who have parents who are deaf have higher reading achievement and better language skills than do those who have hearing parents. There is not universal agreement on why this is the case. However, many authorities speculate that it is because of the positive influence of sign language. Parents who are deaf might be able to communicate better with their children through the use of ASL, providing the children with needed support. In addition, children who have parents who are deaf are more likely to be proficient in ASL, and ASL can aid these children in learning written English and reading.

A supportive home environment is associated with higher achievement in students who are deaf. Families that are more involved in their child's education, seek knowledge about their child's condition to provide guidance, have high expectations for achievement, do not try to overprotect their child, and participate along with their child in the Deaf community are likely to have higher-achieving children.

Social development and personality development in the hearing population depend heavily on communication, and the situation is no different for those who are deaf. The hearing person has little difficulty finding people with whom to communicate. The person who is deaf, however, can face problems in finding others with whom he or she can converse. Studies have demonstrated that many students who are deaf are at risk for loneliness. Two factors are important in considering the possible isolation of students who are deaf: inclusion and hearing status of the parents.

Researchers have shown that in inclusionary settings, very little interaction typically occurs between students who are deaf and those who are not. Furthermore, in inclusionary settings, students who are deaf feel more emotionally secure if they have other students who are deaf with whom they can communicate. This is not always possible, however, because of the low prevalence of hearing impairment. Some interventions using cooperative learning have been successful in increasing the interactions between students who are deaf and their hearing peers.

Some authorities believe that the child who is deaf who has hearing parents runs a greater risk of being unhappy than the child who has parents who are deaf. This is because many hearing parents do not become proficient in ASL and are unable to communicate with their children easily. Given that about 95 percent of children who are deaf have hearing parents, this problem in communication might be critical.

The need for social interaction is probably most influential in leading many people with hearing impairment to associate primarily with others with hearing impairment. If their parents are deaf, children who are deaf are usually exposed to other deaf families from an early age. Nonetheless, many people who are deaf end up, as adults, socializing predominantly with others who are deaf, even if they have hearing parents and even if they do not come into contact as children with many other children who were deaf. This phenomenon of socializing with others who are deaf is attributable to the influence of the Deaf culture.

In the past, most professionals viewed isolation from the hearing community on the part of many people who are deaf as a sign of social pathology. Now more and more professionals agree with the many-people who are deaf who believe in the value of having their own Deaf culture. They view this culture as a natural condition emanating from the common bond of sign language.

The unifying influence of sign language is the first of six factors noted by Reagan (1990) as demarcating the Deaf community as a true culture:

1. Linguistic differentiation is at the heart of Deaf culture; many within the Deaf community view themselves as bilingual, with individuals possessing varying degrees of fluency in ASL and English (Ladd, 2003). People who are deaf are continually shifting between ASL and English as well as between the Deaf culture and that of the hearing (Padden, 1996).

2. Attitudinal deafness refers to whether a person thinks of himself or herself as deaf. It might not have anything to do with a person's hearing acuity. For example, a person with a relatively mild hearing impairment might think of herself or himself as deaf more readily than does someone with a profound hearing impairment.

3. Behavioral norms within the Deaf community differ from those in hearing society. A few examples of these norms, according to Lane, Hoffmeister, and Bahan (1996), are that people who are deaf value informality and physical contact in their interactions with one another, often giving each other hugs when greeting and departing, and their leave-takings

often take much longer than those of hearing society. Also, they are likely to be frank in their discussions, not hesitating to get directly to the point of what they want to communicate.

4. Endogenous marriage patterns are evident from surveys showing" rates of ingroup marriage as high as 90 percent. The Deaf community tends to frown on ''mixed marriages" between people who are deaf and those who are hearing.

5. Historical awareness of significant people and events pertaining to people who are deaf permeates the Deaf community. They are often deferential to elders and value their wisdom and knowledge pertaining to Deaf traditions.

6. Voluntary organizational networks are abundant in the Deaf community. Some examples are the National Association of the Deaf, the World Games for the Deaf (Deaf Olympics), and the National Theatre of the Deaf.

 

III. 1. Answer the questions:

1) How do professionals define and classify individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing?

2) If you were forced to choose, which would you rather be—blind or deaf?

3) “If he can’t hear me, how can I teach him? ” – What does it mean to be a teacher of students who are deaf or hard of hearing? What can you do when you're working with children with hearing impairments or hearing loss?

4) What are some psychological and behavioral characteristics of learners with hearing impairments?

2. Make the plan of the text. Here are the titles in the wrong order. Make the order correct:

1) Spoken language and speech development

2) Social adjustment

3) The Deaf Culture

4) Academic achievement

5) Intellectual ability

 

3. Say whether the following statements are true or false:

1) Hearing losses and or hearing impairments are often caused by genetic factors, illnesses, accidents, problems in a pregnancy, (rubella for instance) complications during birth or a variety of early childhood illnesses such as mumps or measles.

2) Hearing loss or impairment affects a child's intelligence.

3) Deafness is a condition wherein the ability to detect certain frequencies of sound is completely or partially impaired school

4) Everyone who is deaf or hard of hearing uses sign language

5) All deaf people want to be hearing.

6) Most deaf people have deaf parents.

7) Everyone who cannot hear can lip read.

 

4. Find the synonymous words in the text:

- normal children;

- to unite;

- to separate;

- to be an expert in;

- to be open-hearted;

- abundance;

- incontestable fact.