Hearing Impaired / Deaf Children

I am a HI SLP, and I have worked with mnay kids who are normal and HI with CAPD and reading difficulty. I have used PG/LMB/OG based programs in remediation of children with HI. The length of remediation really depends on the cognitive level of the child, and their level of Hearing loss. I personally would use an Auditory trainer to enhance their auditory discrimination and processing skills. I would show them the “sound” picture and then show them what their mouth looks like when they say it trying to use as many modalities as possible to help them make the connection. I would also incorporate lots of expressive and receptive tasks with the words, through dictation and having them reading along and with fluency drills such as Read Naturally and Great Leaps.

I can’t give you an exact time frame because it depends on the different variables, cognition, level of impairment, attention span. Vocabulary is usally lagging with HI kids and one must always tie in new vocabulary with things they already know.

Hi, EA and Patti,

I also teach hearing impaired children. I am just beginning to use PG with my students, so I can’t give you detail on how long it takes, etc., other than to say 12 hours will be just the beginning. I also just took Visualizing and Verbalizing by Lindamood Bell, and I think that will be a key follow-up to PG. I will say that deaf children may benefit form LiPS, but my hard of hearing kids with amplification should do fine with PG.

EA, I do have a research article about PG being used with two HI kids in England. I met the professor at the PG convention a year ago. If I can locate it, I could email it to you. Michelle knows how to reach me.

Janis

Janis,
Yes, if you can find it do email it to me if you can. EA will be back in a few days but I know she’d love to hear more about it. She is pretty amazed at how PG has worked with her son. Seeing is believing. (I can’t wait to see her husband’s face when he sees their son reading books after 2 weeks of PG.) He has only heard about his reading over the phone and is skeptical that we are exaggerating. He will be here later in the week. He could not read or sound out a word 2 weeks ago.(he could recognize things like McDonals, his name etc… but no words in isolation) He has now read 2 levels of the BOB books and other easy readers with expression and not memorized. It has been fun sharing PG with EA as she had not heard about it and she is weeks away from a doctorate degree.

I told her you’d post and here you are. lol. She will tell others about PG. She is already sold because her son is a READER. My sister had the same experience. She heard Briana read. I told her that her son would be there soon. She kind of looked at me funny and never dreamed it could happen so fast thinking he might not be ready etc… Then, what do ya know, …… he is not far behind. By the time they leave he will be reading simple, harder books.

Yeah!!!!!

Michelle AZ

That’s fabulous, Michelle!!! That is super you were able to help that little boy early before he got further behind!

I have searched the files on my home computer and I can’t find the research article. I think a copy is on my work email, but their server is down, so I can’t access it now. I know I have a print copy at school if I can’t access the online one. So just remind me if I forget.

Janis

I would like to know more about this reading program. I am working with a 9th grader who is deaf and has a very low reading level. I am working on his vocabulary and site words right now. If there is a program that can help him improve greatly, we need to try it. I would appreciate any help I can get. :?:

Leslie,

Does he communicate orally or with sign? Does he have any usable hearing at all? A cochlear implant or hearing aids?

Phono-Graphix has been used with hearing impaired children but I am going to go out on a limb and say that I think there needs to be a little hearing or else it’ll be VERY hard to get it to work.

Janis

What kind of reading program works with students who are born profoundly or totally deaf?

Kathy G.

I’d be interested in that question too, if more for academic reasons. I was in deaf ed back in the early 70s, back when there was the big oralism thing. (No signs just speech reading and speech). The reading methods were all sight reading. And the profoundly deaf didn’t historically read too well (and no wonder). I wonder how/if LiPs or the Associative method (think if was developed for hearing impaired) would work. LiPs looks to me a lot like there is heavy speech pathology influence in it.

I don’t know how PG would work for a profoundly deaf kid, you would have to know the sounds to get a sound picture. Hearing impaired short of total deafness, that would be different. And of course the cochlear implanted kids would be different as well.

—des

des pretty much hit the nail on the head. In the past, profoundly deaf children with no residual hearing usually didn’t get much beyond third grade level reading because sight word reading only limits one’s reading ability. However, in this day and age, there is rarely a case of a deaf child with no hearing! Children with no residual hearing SHOULD be getting cochlear implants with very intensive auditory verbal therapy early, and then programs like LiPS and even PG can be used with them. Severe loss children should be able to do those programs with powerful digital hearing aids.

Hearing is the key to reading. Our alphabetic code is based on a sound/symbol relationship. Sight readers will always be poor readers because there is a limit to how many words can be memorized. New words must be decoded. Hearing Impaired children should have their hearing maximized at all times to gain both language and reading skills.

Janis

Of course you know quite a few deaf parents of deaf children will not get the kids implanted. I saw a very interesting tv show (on PBS ) on this. They were opposed it as they felt that by doing this that deaf culture would be destroyed. As someone who has been experienced deaf culture rather first hand, I can understand this. They have their own rich language and traditions.

However, I also feel it is somewhat inevidetable that at some point there will not be a deaf culture any more. Hearing parents of deaf children will have them implanted and the actual number of deaf children from deaf parents will become very tiny. They may not even make the same choices their parents made, as deaf culture will become much smaller.

Also some of the traditional fields of employment for deaf people (print shop work) are replaced by computers pretty much entirely. There are still people doing this but they need to be capable on computers, ergo they have to read.

—des

I’m told Cued Speech is an important tool for teaching reading to HI/deaf children, even though it wasn’t developed for that purpose. It is also helpful for children with CAPD.

— Pam

http://www.cuedspeech.org/Research.html

Reading

CS enabled profoundly deaf students to read as well as their hearing peers and better than similarly impaired children educated without cueing in oral or in total communication programs.
Wandel, Jean E. (1989) “Use of Internal Speech in Reading by Hearing and Hearing Impaired Students in Oral, Total Communication, and Cued Speech Programs.”
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York.

CS develops, in a deaf child, an internal phonological model of the spoken language that can prime the whole process of reading acquisition.
Alegria, J., Dejean, C., Capouillez, J. M., & Leybaert, J. (1989, May)
“Role Played by the Cued Speech in the Identification of Written Words Encountered for the First Time by Deaf Children.”
Presented at the annual meeting of the Belgian Psychological Society, Louvain-la-Neuve. (Reprinted in the Cued Speech Journal,4,1990)

CS improves reading and this paper analyzes how and why it does.
Alegria, J., Lechat, J. & Leybaert, J. (1988)
“Role du LPC dans L’Identification de Mots chez L’Enfant Sourd: Theorie et donnees preliminaires” [ Role of Cued Speech in the Identification of Words in the Deaf Child: Theory and Preliminary Data].
Glossa, 9, 36- 44. (Reprinted in the Cued Speech Journal, 4, 1990)

Deaf children exposed to CS at home at an early age rely on inner speech for rhyming, remembering, and spelling similarly to hearing children but differently from deaf children not exposed early to CS.
Leybaert, J. & Charlier, B. (1996) “Visual Speech in the Head: The Effect of Cued Speech on Rhyming, Remembering, and Spelling.”
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Vol. 1, #4, pp. 234-248.

I’m told Cued Speech is an important tool for teaching reading to HI/deaf children, even though it wasn’t developed for that purpose. It is also helpful for children with CAPD.

— Pam

http://www.cuedspeech.org/Research.html

Reading

CS enabled profoundly deaf students to read as well as their hearing peers and better than similarly impaired children educated without cueing in oral or in total communication programs.
Wandel, Jean E. (1989) “Use of Internal Speech in Reading by Hearing and Hearing Impaired Students in Oral, Total Communication, and Cued Speech Programs.”
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York.

CS develops, in a deaf child, an internal phonological model of the spoken language that can prime the whole process of reading acquisition.
Alegria, J., Dejean, C., Capouillez, J. M., & Leybaert, J. (1989, May)
“Role Played by the Cued Speech in the Identification of Written Words Encountered for the First Time by Deaf Children.”
Presented at the annual meeting of the Belgian Psychological Society, Louvain-la-Neuve. (Reprinted in the Cued Speech Journal,4,1990)

CS improves reading and this paper analyzes how and why it does.
Alegria, J., Lechat, J. & Leybaert, J. (1988)
“Role du LPC dans L’Identification de Mots chez L’Enfant Sourd: Theorie et donnees preliminaires” [ Role of Cued Speech in the Identification of Words in the Deaf Child: Theory and Preliminary Data].
Glossa, 9, 36- 44. (Reprinted in the Cued Speech Journal, 4, 1990)

Deaf children exposed to CS at home at an early age rely on inner speech for rhyming, remembering, and spelling similarly to hearing children but differently from deaf children not exposed early to CS.
Leybaert, J. & Charlier, B. (1996) “Visual Speech in the Head: The Effect of Cued Speech on Rhyming, Remembering, and Spelling.”
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Vol. 1, #4, pp. 234-248.

After working with this student and being able to read his paperwork, this student has a moderate to severe hearing loss in one ear and severe to profound in the other. Although he doesn’t want to, he does wear one hearing aide. He does verbalize and speech reads some, but he mainly signs. He needs to improve his sign vocabulary as well as his written vocabulary. This, of course, makes it difficult when studying voc. in other subjects.

My son has a high fequency hearing loss and learned to read with PhonoGraphix. I am convinced it is the most effective way to teach HI kids to read.

In response to the question about cued speech, I know that several years ago, I read a post here or on the Read America board from a teacher or SLP who was using cued speech with Phonographix. That makes sense to me.

I have a friend who teaches at the model highschool that is affiliated with Gallaudet. She says they still can’t claim success at teaching a high percentage deaf kids to read (they don’t use PG!).

I do know an SLP here in the DC area who specializes in teaching deaf and HI kids to read using PG. You can find her on the Read America website under referrals in Silver Spring, MD or you can email me privately for more info. [[email protected]]

I do want to e-mail you to find out more info., but my e-mail is down right now. Thank you for your response. :)

Leslie,

With the hearing aid, he should be hearing a good bit in that better ear. I’d for sure try Phono-Graphix and if he has too much difficulty you should try Lindamood Bell LiPS and then go back to PG later.

Why is he not being served in the hearing impaired program?

Janis

He moved here (Kentucky) from California and the closest school for the deaf is about 3 hours away. His mom doesn’t want him to have to travel anywhere. There are some surrounding counties that have HI programs in their schools, but the mother wanted him to be able to stay here. I am emergency certified. Although I do know sign, I find myself searching for vocabulary words in some subjects (such as inertia). If anyone knows any good books/websites that deal with Science or Government terms, I would really appreciate them.

Most hearing impaired children are served in their home school districts now. I would never send a child to a school for the deaf 3 hours away. So are you saying there are NO trained hearing impaired teachers in your whole school district? If so, that is really bad. But I salute you for trying! Good luck!

Janis

There is no one trained in this county. I have a deaf cousin so I learned sign language while I was young. I then went to college majoring in HI for 2 years, but did not complete my degree. I later completed my degree in Elem. Ed. In order for me to get my masters in HI I would have to take 49 hours and most of those would be at a school 3 1/2 hours away. :?