by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A new teacher with a profound hearing loss wrote:
I am a hearing impaired student teacher. I have a profound hearing loss with a speech recognition of 12 percent. I was wondering if you could assist me with some strategies for teaching normal hearing students in a Middle School environment. I would need procedural and instructional strategies that work. Can you assist me with this, as I do not know of any hearing impaired educators locally.
Since your discrimination is so poor, my first suggestion is to consider getting cochlear implants.
As for coping strategies there are many. In truth, many of the coping strategies you used as a student are the same ones you need to use as a teacher. After all, hearing loss is hearing loss.
For example, continue to use your speechreading skills that I’m sure you have used all your life. If you want to improve your speechreading skills, may I suggest the Seeing and Hearing Speech CD program. You can get it at http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/products/seeinghearingspeech.htm.
I assume that you know many of the tricks to help you hear better such as get close, have the light on the speaker’s face, cut out background noise, etc. My short book, “Talking with Hard of Hearing People, Here’s How to Do It Right!” gives a lot of help in this respect..
Do you use any assistive devices? I think you’ll find the super-directional microphone plugged into a PockeTalker, will help you hear your student’s better. In actual fact, this microphone was originally designed for a hard of hearing teacher. I find it most useful. To use the PockeTalker with your hearing aids, plug in a neckloop instead of ear buds.
Another great microphone is the Voice Tracker that was designed to pick up students voices anywhere in the classroom. You could couple it to a PockeTalker, or an FM transmitter and wear the FM receiver such as the Comfort Contego FM system. That way you are free to move around the room and still hear well.
To learn more, read the article I wrote called “Hearing in the Classroom: An Assistive Device for Hard of Hearing Teachers“, and another article along the same line called “Hearing in the Classroom or in Other Noisy Places“.
If you have trouble hearing your student’s replies, then I’d tend more to written answers, rather than verbal ones.
If you can’t hear a student there are a number of strategies you can employ, such as:
1. Arrange your classroom so the soft-spoken students all sit near the front of the room so they are closer to you. That way you can hear them better.
2. Walk down the aisle so you are closer to the student you are trying to hear. That way you can hear him/her better and speechread better too. Combined with the Super-directional mic/PockeTalker combination, this can really work well.
3. Have a student who you can hear well sit at the front of the room and “interpret” what someone said that you just can’tget. At times I do this when speaking to groups. I ask someone that I know I can hear/understand to repeat what someone just said. Don’t do this too much as you are imposing on the goodwill of the person doing the “interpreting”. It is better to learn to cope on your own, rather than “using” other people as much as possible.
4. Pass a wireless FM microphone around and anyone who wants to speak, talks into the microphone. You wear the FM receiver and pipe their voices directly into your ears via a neckloop and the t-coils in your hearing aids.
5. Have a student you can’t hear/understand come up and write key words on the blackboard.
6. Teach your students how to fingerspell so they can fingerspell any key words you miss.
7. Give out a sheet at the beginning of each year that explains your hearing loss and what you need the students to do. One hard of hearing teacher did just that. You can read this sheet in my article, “Coping Strategies for Hard of Hearing Teachers“.
So there are 7 things you can do to help yourself successfully live with your hearing loss in the classroom. They may “prime the pump” and now you’ll think of other things you can also do in addition to using all the assistive devices mentioned above.
I am an itinerant teacher for deaf/hard of heaing students and I have a moderte to severe bilateral hearing loss. With more students with mild losses being identified and receiving services, I find myself unable to trouble-shoot hearing devices. I would love advice for this and for other communication problems that occur from time to time.
1) I am a tenured hearing impaired middle school Social Studies teacher who wears hearing aids. This year I was assigned lunch duty. Another teacher was willing to take the duty because he knew of my problem. I was willing to teach his extra class. The principal was quite mean about it and would not change my schedule and now I have terrible ringing in my ears. Do I have any legal rights?
2) Because of budget cuts and schedule changes, I recently was told that I would be moved from the middle school to the elementary school. I do not feel that I can teach that level/age because of my hearing loss. The older students are much more understanding, mature and can deal with my impairment. Do I have a right to demand an accommodation of staying at the school?
Thank you thank you thank you for helpers like you!! Finally something for the Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing Teachers not just on how to Teach the Hard-of Hearing students…
Thank you for info
I will share more at later time 🙂
LM
I wear two hearing aids and generally cope well but continued changes in my teaching environment have exhausted me and I face a difficult time trying to battle to keep my job. Has anyone else faced this? It is asthough each time I cope the head changes things to try to push me to fail.
I am hard of hearing and have a speech problem due to this. i really find it difficult getting a job due to my problem. i have studies so many courses to get a career and a job in my life but nothing goes my way. i studied accountancy and got a job as a financial manager but i had problem in hearing the phone ring and dealing with people on the phone and i think this may have annoyed my boss. she found some fault in my work and asked me to resign instead of getting fired. then i studied for my honours degree in bioscience but unfortunately am unable to get a job. i ahve always liked teaching but felt that i couldnt become a teacher because of my hearing and speech problem. i decided to do a teaching assistant course but am not sure if am wasting my time in doing this. can anyone tell me is it possible for a hard of hearing and speech impediment person to become a teacher or am i wasting my time ven thinking os leading a career as a teacher
Thank you for your advice. I have been teaching now for five years and I have had ups and downs with my hearing loss. I wear hearing aids in the classroom at all times. In the past I was reluctant and ashamed of my disability and refused to speak about it to staff or students. I would cover my ears with my hair. This was problematic because students were soon frustrated at having to constantly repeat their answers or me misinterpreting answers. As my confidence as a teacher was established I tell students from the very beginning of my hearing loss. I think there are many teachers who suffer, like me, in silence on this issue. I think several teachers struggle with hearing loss and do not speak about it. I find it ironic that the one profession that requires good hearing is the one I chose and challenges me each day. I feel there were many occasions when management could have been more supportive of my needs and I wish that I asked for help instead of suffering in silence. Certain classrooms, class sizes etc do impact on how well I can hear. I think most students are understanding about my hearing but there are times when their frustration is visible. There is nothing more disappointing when I see a student say never mind, and refuse to answer a question. I couldnt survive without my hearing aids but they really only go so far.
I realized last year, as a middle school special education teacher, it was better to just join my kids in the ranks of the disabled. Therefore, at the beginning of the year, I took off the hearing aids and showed them what they looked like, how they worked, why I needed them, and why loud noises hurt my ears and made them ring. They were quite intrigued, because none had ever seen hearing aids or learned about them. Within this lesson I talked about how sound travels, and bounces off the walls, and if they aren’t facing me, then it becomes distorted when sound is making it’s trip around my room. This led to the discussion about facing me always to talk to me, and not looking down or covering their mouth. It is November, and sometimes I still have to cue them with “Please look at me, I didn’t understand you” and they understand. I’m also training my assistant principal, who is getting better at looking at me and speaking to my face. However, I know that there are tasks at school that I’m not doing correctly anymore and this bothers me.
Hi Laura
I enjoyed reading what you wrote here – transparent with a concern for others.
I do branding and marketing for a hearing aid company and we are looking for teacher hearing heroes for 2017. I hope you receive this and we can connect.
Did you compile your teacher hearing heroes for 2017? If so I would love a copy. I am working with a teacher and a school district trying to convince the school district that the hearing loss itself does not prevent the teacher from being successful
Laura and Mia,
My name is Ana Covey from Assist2Hear and I would love to speak with each of you about your struggle with hearing loss. I am working with a university professor and I would love your opinions to help teachers across the country. Please contact me at ana@assist2hear.com and I think together we can make a NATIONAL difference!
I’m a 30 year veteran elementary school teacher and was diagnosed with Sudden Sensorinueral Hearing Loss just today (10/6/17). It started Wednesday. Thursday, I could barely teach because I couldn’t hear my students. I’m really nervous about trying to continue teaching. Am I going to have to go on disability? Help would be most appreciated.
My dream is to become a teacher for the deaf. Since Im hearing imparied and I am planning to do a degree for primary teaching. Does it effect your teaching if you can’t hear your students properly or not being able to pronouce the words you want to say.
Hi Lisa:
I commend you on your dream to become a teacher.
If you are teaching deaf kids, I mean Deaf as in using ASL and not your voice, then it doesn’t matter whether you can speak clearly or not, or whether you can hear clearly or not. You won’t be using your voice or your ears. You’ll be talking with your hands and hearing with your eyes.
However, if you are going to be teaching hard of hearing children, that is a totally different story.
You can use various assistive devices and coping strategies in order to hear your students. So that should not be an insurmountable problem.
However, in my opinion, it is critical that you can speak clearly. Let me explain. I have a severe hearing loss. Because of that, I have GREAT difficulty understanding people that speak with a “deaf” accent like you obviously have, or any accent for that matter. In fact, even when the speech is amplified so it is loud enough, I still can’t understand a lot of what they are saying.
You see, between their distorted speech and my distorted hearing, I’m not understanding enough to do much learning. In order for me to hear and understand the teacher, I NEED a teacher that has clear, unaccented speech. And it sure helps if they know how to project their voice, and are easy to speechread.
I have sat through enough classes and seminars over the years where the speaker didn’t have clear, unaccented speech and I essentially got NOTHING out of the class. Thus, it would be wrong to subject hard of hearing students to these kinds of situations and expect them to learn anything, let alone do well in class.
If your students are old enough to read fluently, then your could use real-time captioning. As long as the captioner can understand what you say, she can project it up on a large screen and everyone in your class can read the words. This works for understanding what you might say. However, it does nothing to teach your students how to speak properly since students learn to speak properly by mimicking their teachers and others around them. Thus you need to be a good role model in your speech.
Regards
Neil
I TOTALLY get this because I have a severe hearing loss and without my hearing aids, everyone who speaks to me sounds like an individual who is speaking deaf speech! Then for me, if they have a beard or facial hair, or an unusual mouth shape and lips, it makes understanding them so much more difficult.
I have total hearing loss in one ear only and cannot wear a hearing aide as it is nerve deafness. As you know, I cannot determine direction of sound. I teach Kindergarten. My class is out of contoll – they are so loud and I cannot determine who is making the noise. In try to get my attention they will repeat my name again & again until I answer. Some one else starts calling me too. When I am working with one or two children and trying to consentrate the rest of the class gets louder. Until everything is out of control. Help!
Hi Susan:
I asked my daughter for help on this issue because she is also a preschool teacher and has a severe hearing loss. She teaches in a Montessori school. She’s had years of experience and has been the principal of a Montessori school too, so you know she’s got it together.
Here is what she wrote.
“I am assuming you are trained only as a public school teacher, not also as an early childhood educator. I have no idea if they teach some of the same material.
For one thing, always have your back to the wall, never the children. I can’t stress that enough. If doing small group work, position yourself (and rearrange the group if necessary) so you are facing towards all the children. Constantly scan the room.
If you have several children who are often disruptive, especially if together and/or if you are busy, split them up and put one in the group you are working with. Then trade and have the other one with you.
Also, in Montessori, you train the children to come to you if they need help. This is what we teach them to do – the child that needs help comes and places their hand on your shoulder and waits silently till you acknowledge them. I teach them this at the beginning of the year.
You may have more success implementing this then, too. But you never know. I talk about it at circle time and role play through with the children. So, talk about how when I (the teacher) am working with someone it is rude and disruptive to others that are working for others to be calling my name and yelling.
If they need help come over and put their hand on my shoulder and as soon as I am finished with the friend I am helping I will be able to help them. At the beginning, keep the time really short before you acknowledge the waiting child – like just a few seconds. Then excuse yourself to the child you are working with and speak to the waiting child.
I usually say something like “thank you for waiting so patiently John. What can I help you with?” As this system begins working I am able to ignore the child who is constantly yelling at me from across the room.
Sometimes I will say something (in a somewhat louder voice) to the child I am working with like “oh, I think John has forgotten to come over to me if he needs me instead of yelling for me”. That will remind the calling child and they usually come right over!
Also, often another child in the class will go over to the child and remind them that they are supposed to go and put their hand on my shoulder and wait for my help.
This is a truly amazing way to have a quiet and controlled classroom and if you invest the consistency, patience and follow-through when you first introduce it you will have a wonderfully peaceful classroom.
It really works! However, public education may be very against anything with a “Montessori” label. Also some people have their own prejudices towards it.
I also talk with the children about how when everyone is all calling for me at the same time it makes me feel frustrated because I can’t help them all at once. Sort of throw the onus back onto yourself and it doesn’t come across to the children that they are always the ones causing the problem [even if they are]!
I also talk about that if I hear someone calling? yelling really loudly it makes me think someone is hurt – because that is what that kind of voice should be reserved for.
I often remind children when it is being one of “those” days that there is only one of me and I need for them to be patient because it takes time for me to help everyone.
I don’t know how many you have in your class but make sure everyone is busy and engaged in what they are doing before you start small group work may help cut down on the number of incidents as well.
You need to control your class. If you can’t control your children everything else fails too.
So much of working with small children is common sense. And no university can teach that if you don’t already have it.”
I hope that helps you both as a teacher and as a hard of hearing person.
Regards
Neil
Wow! I am so very thankful for “stumbling” upon this weblog!
I have sensorineural hearing loss in both ears and have worn hearing aids since early 2001. At the time, I was an elementary music teacher, so I was extremely dependent on my hearing. I continued to lose more and more of my hearing and switched to different brands of hearing aids to help me with music.
Last year, I had the opportunity to move to the middle school to teach art and music. While it has been a blessing to not rely so much on my hearing, I still struggle daily to understand my students and to develop/retain a good relationship with them. Even though I have come to terms with my hearing loss, I have become frustrated and somewhat depressed with my situation.
After reading your blog, I finally feel hopeful that I can make the changes necessary to help with my hearing loss in the classroom and be able to teach effectively:)
Thank you so very much!
Karen Mazzoline
Today is my first day teaching college acctg students and I m so worried..wear hearing aids in both ears…I can hear excellent when close but whispers or called out or when my back is turned ..nothing!! Pls advice i am usin now Starkey hearing aids
I have a device to hear to amplify sound in a room but once I put it in my pocket etc picks up sound as move…pls help. This is a great job and hope to stay there a long time!
I am a certified first degree teacher in primary education and I wear an hearing aid in one ear. It is not functionng so well. I went of do an interview and I was turned down because I have had an hearing problem. At this time I felt embarrassing when I have heard their reply. My question is it really OK to be an hearing impaired teacher in an institution and what can I do help solve the problem. I really love teaching it is my passion. I need an advice about my career.
Hi Nadine:
The best teacher is a person that has a passion for teaching. Don’t let them say that you need hearing in order to teach. That is not so–but it certainly makes it easier. However, you do need certain accommodations for your hearing loss.
You only wear one hearing aid. Why? Is your other ear totally deaf? Or do you have normal hearing it it?
Why is your hearing aid not working well anymore? Maybe you need to have it tuned up, or the programming adjusted, or maybe you need a different hearing aid.
If you are hard of hearing in both ears, you should be wearing hearing aids in both ears–if they will help you.
If nothing will help you hear better, perhaps you can modify your career–not give up teaching, but perhaps be a tutor and teach one-to-one. Often you can hear better that way. Or you could design courses for others to teach.
There are a lot of options and possibilities. I don’t know enough about your situation to really help you at this point. But don’t give up your vision of being a teacher.
Cordially,
Neil
I am returning to public education after a two year break. I taught in public education with a “cookie-bite” hearing loss for 22 and a half years. It was exhausting at times and very frustrating. I wore hearing aids, but found they only helped so much. Is there any good assistive technology or a particular hearing aid you would recommend? While I know students are talking, and responding to me, I often can’t make out what they are saying. This is the first site I have found that specifically deals with helping teachers and I am incredibly grateful to have found it. I would love any advice you could give me.
Hi Lynn:
Reread this article again in the section about the PockeTalker and the super directional microphone and the paragraph below it about the Voice Tracker microphone and Comfort Contego FM system (I just updated it for you).
That is the technology I’d use if I were teaching in a classroom. But I use other strategies in meetings as well. For example, I might walk down the aisle so I am close to the person asking a question, or I might ask a person in the front row whom I know I can hear to repeat the question the person in the back of the room asked. And of course, I always depend on my speechreading skills as well.
Cordially,
Neil
I am a forty six y/o, with both, it’s so good to know I’m not the only one with speech/hearing, but it is a pain in the a–. There are so much I wants to do but my speech is keeping me from doing some, because there are not a lot of people that understand having both is not easy and are not easy or good to work…I am still trying to find SOMETHING to do for a career before I hit fifty which is right around corner…this SUCK
Hi Tamiaj:
What you need to do is find a career that doesn’t require much talking or listening. Working in certain kinds of research might be the ticket. For example, writing–whether books, textbooks, courses, articles, etc. is one area where you don’t need a lot of interaction with people–and yet at the same time you can be a teacher–and teach people through your writings.
The same is true if you become the “help desk” for your company–the person with all the answers to customers/clients problems. Do all you interaction via email or texting. Then neither your hearing nor your speech is a problem.
Cordially,
Neil
I am a longtime
English language teacher for adult learners and former K-2 after-school program teacher. I am deaf in one ear (which also has no clarity) and have moderate loss in my other ear. I use a cross-over hearing aid with a ComPilot for manually adjusting room sounds and for connecting to a wireless loop system (mobile phone blu-tooth, Roger pen, loop system or devices with a T-switch). The Roger pen enables me to isolate sounds so I can hear one person, two persons or a whole room of people based on how I hold it program it using toggle buttons on the device. Students are VERY accommodating when I ask for them to speak into it or to tell me what someone further away from the device said if in a noisy room. Students can serve as co-teachers and “helpers”, depending on their age and ability, and student-centered teaching methods are work well to support my and students’ needs in the classroom. They reqire students and teachers to work collaboratively on the students’behalf, and naturally encourage active learning and full engagement. This is the best way to teach–with and without a hearing impairment.
I am so glad to have found this site. I have been an instructional coach at an elementary school for the last 10 years and it was during this time that I discovered I have hearing loss. I have worn 2 hearing aids for the last 7 years and it has been very helpful in working with adults. My main issues are that I can’t always tell what direction sound is coming from and I can’t hear whispering at all. I will be going back into the classroom this fall and I’m nervous about hearing my students. It is very hard for me to hear little voices that are so soft. I am going to look into the PockeTalker that was referenced.
Thank you for suggesting possible technological solutions. I am teaching high school and I have hearing loss in both ears. I’ve been wearing hearing aids since 1989. I’m stressed by the high percentage of spoken communications that I’m receiving neither accurately nor quickly enough from my students and colleagues. I reached out to the ADA Compliance office of our school district last year but the person in charge did not understand at all what I needed. This year I am going to try again to get support because it is exhausting and demoralizing for me to struggle to understand everyone all day long. I feel it undermines building relationships with my students as well. I have some very soft-spoken students this year – communication can be so frustrating for both myself and for them.
I am so excited to find this information! I am an elementary teacher and was just diagnosed with a hearing loss requiring hearing aids. I am at the point where I can’t hear my students so I asked for an audio eval so I could address this. I am worried about parent reactions to my hearing aids and challenges with the aids picking up background noises in the classroom. It is just so nice to see that there are other teachers out there working through this!
Dear Dr. Neil, Hi my name is April. I am a surviving cancer patient who has never let my illness take me away from the only thing that gets me out of reality; teaching. Due to the level of radiation needed to survive, my ear nerves are both damaged. So damaged that I might have to stop teaching all together. the strive and fright of other educators catching on to this is something too much for me. what do I do?
I have a question. I am getting new hearing aids on Friday next week that are Bluetooth and have a built in TCoil. But I want to get one of those directional microphones. Is the only way to incorporate it through the pocket talker or is there some way to connect it through my cell phone?
Hi Tammy:
In order to use a shotgun microphone (or any other corded microphone) with your hearing aids, you plug it into your hearing aids directly or through a remote if your hearing aids have one. This is called Direct Audio Input (DAI). In your case, you want to use your cell phone. So, for it to work, your cell phone needs a microphone jack. I don’t know of any phones with a built-in microphone jack, but you might be able to get an adapter to plug into your cell phone’s universal charging port that will accept a corded microphone’s plug.
For this to work, you have to be sure your cell phone will allow a microphone level input. If it requires a line level input, then you could use the PockeTalker to boost the signal to line level and plug the microphone into it, and then use a patch cord from your PockeTalker’s earphone jack (which has line level output) and plug that into your cell phone’s input.
If your cell phone has a special headset jack, then you could get an adapter to allow a microphone to be plugged into it.
So it all depends on exactly which cell phone you have as how you could do it.
Cordially,
Neil
Do you have suggestions for coping strategies or accommodations for hearing impaired teachers during COVID-19? Special needs teachers of kindergarten thru 2nd grade typically work in close physical proximity but not during COVID. Understanding students in the classroom with muffled sounds thru masks and shields is more problematic as these kids need constant reminders to look at someone when speaking to them. Remote learning is even worse, they’ve never been asked to talk to the computer. While I’ve not heard of schools paying for live transcription on Zoom, I’m not sure how that would work as I’ve seen kids spinning around their rooms, jumping on the beds, and for the quiet ones: prominently displaying the underside of their chin as they try to do the work. Looking for advice to plan for the 20-21 school year.
Hi Helen:
I feel for you. Since I’m a native speechreader, I can’t comprehend working with students that are wearing masks, nor the teacher wearing a mask so the students can’t see her face. The best solution is to have clear masks or just use clear face shields so you can speechread.
Another solution is to use a remote microphone and have the students speak into it so you can hear via an FM or RF receiver.
With remote learning, the students don’t have to wear masks so you should be able to speechread them fine IF they will get close to, and look at the camera, instead of bouncing off the walls.
And finally, do more written communication and exercises rather than verbal.
Cordially,
Neil
This site has provided great reading! I am a Visual Art Teacher with significant hearing loss teaching in a studio classroom with three story high skylights. I have been struggling to hear in the room even though I have excellent hearing aids.
My question is this; would a loop system be beneficial to my hearing in my classroom? It seems that the loop systems designed for classrooms are intended for hearing-impaired students to hear a teacher speaking into a microphone. I need to be able to hear the students questions and commentary yet they won’t each have a mic.
I use many if not all of the coping strategies already discussed above (although I have not tried linking a pocketalker to my aids which are bluetooth enabled.)
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Carolann:
The problem with loop systems and other assistive listening systems is that when you are the teacher, you need the students to speak into a mic. When you get a clear signal into the mic, then pretty much any ALD system will work very well.
Since you have bluetooth hearing aids, one solution is to use one of the VoiceTracker microphones mounted at the front of your classroom and facing into the student areas. The output of this microphone needs to be fed into a bluetooth “gizmo box” that accepts microphone level inputs and outputs a bluetooth signal that your hearing aids can pick up.
If your hearing aids have a remote mic gizmo that has an external mic jack on it, then you could plug the VoiceTracker into that unit and hear that way.
The VoiceTracker microphone was designed to work in classroom settings and indeed many schools and universities use it for such purposes. You can see/get the VoiceTracker microphone from our website at https://hearinglosshelp.com/shop/voice-tracker-i-array-microphone/.
Let me know what you think of this possibility.
Cordially,
Neil