All Children with Hearing Aids should be Given Special Attention - Term Paper Example

POP Where A Sunday school in a Jewish church that is located in a small town in the Northern side of the country. Who Ten children aged between the age of three and eight years. One teacher (me), having experience with early childhood education after being a voluntary helping teacher in a kindergarten class. Parents: All of the children have Jewish parents who always consult me after every Sunday school class to check on the general progress of their children Education director: he provides the required curriculum and guides me on how and what to teach the children. He gives me the way forward in each and every problem that I encounter. Problem Amongst the ten children, there is an eight year old boy who has a hearing problem. At first I had not known about his condition but continued assessment on him made me realize it. The boy struggles to talk; he cannot pronounce most words in the right way. When spoken to, he does not respond and seems not to notice that someone is talking to him. He always asks me to repeat the things that I say to him, and when I call his name away from him, he searches around trying to figure out where the voice came from. He rarely participates in the class and is always dull and withdrawn to himself. I asked his parents about his condition, and they said they were aware of it, and they wanted me to assist them in helping the little boy. Data According to health researchers, hearing loss in children can be caused a condition called otitis media. This is the inflammation of the child’s middle ear normally due to building up of fluid. This disease is diagnosed frequently in conjunction with children with hearing impairments (Hockfield 68). It is not permanent, and the hearing losses caused by it are mild, though if it occurs repeatedly, it can cause severe damage to the eardrum and the hearing nerves and hence leading to permanent hearing loss. Congenital causes are also a factor to hearing loss. Here, the child suffers from the problem from birth. It can be hereditary or be caused by a condition during child birth. Genetic factors are said to contribute to more than 50% of hearing problems caused by congenital factors. A parent carrying the dominant gene for loss of hearing passes it to the child. The probability of the child getting the condition from the parents is higher if the dominant gene is present in both parents. Some genetic syndromes have hearing loss as one of their characteristics (Canalis and Lambert 108). These syndromes include Down, Usher, Treacher Collins, Crouzon and Alport syndrome. Some congenital causes in which the child does not inherit from parents include harmful chemicals taken by the mother during pregnancy, illnesses and prenatal infections. There are also acquired factors which lead to hearing loss of a child. These occur in a child’s life after birth due to ailment, injury or other conditions. The conditions causing hearing loss through acquired causes include injury of the head, measles, meningitis, ear infections, chicken pox, influenza and mumps among others. In August 2008, a research carried out by the Better Hearing Institute found out that, children with hearing problems are not the given adequate attention and help they ought to have. This is due to parents being so busy doing other things while viewing the problem as a less serious one. The study blamed the government on dwelling so much on elections and politics, paying less attention to these children who need help. It argued that children need to hear both in and outside the classroom so that they may develop in their language, their social and their emotional well-being (Jack Snowman 93). According to the research, many educators and health observers usually underestimate the effects of hearing impairment. Parents, on the other hand, do not detect the problem in their children early enough, and when they do, they do not take immediate action so as to minimize it. Others are given the wrong information on how to deal with the problem of hearing loss in their children, leading to deterioration of the condition. A national study was recently done to find out if children with hearing problems are lagging behind others. According to several parents that were interviewed, it was found out that hearing impairments makes the children prone to many problems, for example, low self-esteem. These children are being left behind because they seem not to fit in the overall paradigm which entails hearing disability. Intervention The Jewish education has based its roots from the ancient Jewish education which consisted of beliefs, principles and Judaism religious laws. It is based on biblical times where a child is mold to be upright and knowledgeable in the Jewish cultures and beliefs. It offers education to young children extending up to adults with no age barrier. Jewish education has come a long way. It had evolved from the times when girl education was only offered at home and not in schools. Only boys were the ones who were allowed to go to school. At present, Jewish education is not only concerned with a child gaining knowledge but also in developing the social and physical growth of a child. It also involves parents so that the children may learn a lot both on school and at home with their parent’s aid. I believe this network between parents and teachers is very effective concerning the child’s learning ability as the teachers will be able to know each and every child in the class very well. This helps the teacher to look for a convenient way to help a child, knowing where and what the major problem is. The parent-teacher network includes one-on-one meetings, discussing a child’s problem and suggestions of a way forward to curb the problem. Here, parents have an opportunity to open up and discuss various issues that they think might be affecting the overall performance of their children. The teacher is informed of any abnormalities or impairments that the child has and also the teacher can give any serious observations that have been made on the child in case the parent was not aware of them. In conjunction to this, I believe that a child with hearing loss can be able to be identified in this parent-teacher network and together, both teams can work towards helping the child. The teacher can know from the start that the child should have special treatment from the rest and a lot of attention should be paid on him or her. Together, both parents and teachers can discuss on the best hearing aid to assist the child in learning in class without him or her feeling alienated. In this way. I believe that the child would not be left behind academically and will be able to perform as well as other children who have perfect sense of hearing. Some theories in the 21st century help educators who deal especially with children with problems such as hearing loss. One of them is the theory of engagement. Before getting into deep understanding of this theory, the key word here is engagement. A brief definition can be said as the act of being involved or getting occupied in something. In this theory, a student becomes involved and participates actively during learning so as to make the learning ability effective. Here, both the teacher and student should engage themselves wholly for better performance. Based on this theory, I ought to make the little boy in my class to participate as actively as possible in all the activities that take place so that he may be able to learn effectively. The theory of engagement states that the approach and understanding of the teacher on learning greatly affects the learning ability of the students. It also explains various techniques in which the teacher can use so as to make the learning process effective. It is said that technology can be used in circumstances where achieving engagement is rather difficult. These techniques can also be incorporated to help the child with hearing problems as learning does not only involve writing in books, but it also involves a wide range of activities. In comparison to earlier theories, which focused a lot on knowledge management, the theory of engagement pays attention to how the student interacts with the outside world and how to create meaningfulness out of their lives. With basis on this theory, effective learning can be achieved to the general child, whether with impairments or not. A child with hearing problems is able to mix with other children and get the same quality of education just like the others. Technology Thanks to technology, tools have been invented which help not only children but also adults with hearing impairments. Hearing aids are one of the tools used to help children with this problem. An ear mold is placed in the child’s ear, and a compartment that consists of a microphone battery is placed at the back of the child’s outer ear. There is an electrical wire that sends the signals of sound in the ear so that the child hears effectively. These hearing aids have recently adopted technology that aids in removing most noise from feedbacks. They have volume control so that the sound signals are prevented from getting too loud causing further damage to the ear. Since they also come in a variety of colors, they are attractive to the child’s eye, and he can be able to choose the color he prefers (Hockfield 132). One of the latest hearing aids is the wireless one which consists of a Bluetooth hearing aid. Most hearing aids are nowadays Bluetooth enabled. These hearing aids are small and have a controller that transmits signals and receives them from other devices that are also Bluetooth enabled. It shuts the microphone that is in the hearing aid and uses wireless media to transmit the signal, and as a result, there is a very good quality of sound waves produced in comparison to the transmitted airwaves. Bluetooth enabled hearing aids can be hooked on television sets and they have a mechanism in which one can manually control the audio. They can also be used as headsets as they can be connected to various music players and car stereos. All of these hearing aids can be used together with the theory of engagement since the children are able to involve and participate in various classroom activities without any difficulty. The child is able to hear sounds and can distinct where a voice comes from and hence making the learning process effective. This boost the child’s overall performance despite the problem and the child does not have self pity on himself or herself. Bluetooth enabled hearing aids can enable the child to stay connected to the computer as he stays connected. The child can hear easily and listen to his favorite program. This also enables the child to link to project based learning (PBL). Through projects, the child is able to have a deeper understanding of what is taught in class, and there is an improvement of skills. They help one to familiarize with issues in the community and find a way to solve problems through technology and enable one to present the work to people not only in the classroom but also an outside audience (Dillon 46). I can also use power point as a teaching aid. This technique is a versatile tool used for presentations and conveys very powerful information to children. Using Power Point I can create animations to present to the class such as bible stories and holidays in different times of the year. It is one of the best tools because it draws a lot of attention from the children and it is fun to learn with. It ensures maximum engagement as the child will be able to read and learn a lot of things at the same time. An interactive way of presenting my lessons is using the Ludia Ebeam. This is an interactive and small whiteboard device that enables one to convert any surface available into a an interactive surface. I can create the whiteboard at a level where the children can reach so that they may be able to engage themselves in activities such as writing and drawing on the surface. Using YouTube, I can post pictures of the children reading the bible of which this can be accessed both at home with family and in class. Since children are thrilled to see videos and pictures of themselves, the child will use language to explain different scenes on the video to his parents or whichever audience. Outcomes Basing on the above researches and theories I have found out that children with hearing problems usually lag behind academically and that is why they have to be helped out. I have also found out that most parents and teachers do not take the hearing problem seriously which lead to severe consequences ahead. In conclusion, all children with hearing aids should be given special attention. Ear screening should be done at childbirth so as to detect the problem early and deal with it as fast as possible. Since nowadays teachers spend more time with children than their parents do, they tend to know the children better and are able to notice behaviors that the parents are not aware of. Due to this, teachers should observe the children in their classroom closely and not down any unusual characteristics which may help to discover problems such as the one of the hearing. The parents should then be told, and immediate action should be taken so solve the problem. The government should also set a curriculum that entails maximum engagement of the child and the teacher to the advantage of children with impairments. Works Cited Canalis, Rinaldo F. and Paul R. Lambert. The Ear: Comprehensive Otology. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2000. Print. Dillon, Harvey. Hearing Aids. Thieme, 2001. Print. Gargiulo, Richard M. Special Education in Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Exceptionality. London: SAGE, 2010. Print. Hockfield, Victoria. Hearing Impairment: Classifications, Causes, and Management. New York: Websters Digital Services, 2010. Print. Jack Snowman, Rick McCown, Robert Biehler. Psychology Applied to Teaching. New York: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print. 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