Hi, I'm Gayle Flood
I am an educational audiologist from The Learning Center for the Deaf
with the Public School Partnership program.
Today i'm going to be talking about educational considerations
for students who are deaf and hard of hearing during COVID.
With the return to school in the new norm
we will encounter new obstacles for hard of hearing students and their teachers.
Factors to consider
with our return to school:
face masks and social distancing which brings about new challenges
Two important health and safety recommendations according to the CDC
are face masks and social distancing of six feet or greater, to reduce the spread of the virus.
Both of these bring additional challenges and barriers to students and teachers
especially for those who are hard of hearing.
Cloth face coverings
present difficulty for all students.
They will miss learning and social opportunities
because of the degraded speech signal that occurs
from the mask covering the face.
Some of the sound is going to get dampened into the mask
and some of the sounds will become distorted.
The mask also impacts speechreading,
The ability to see the face and the expressions of the speaker,
which leads to (misunderstanding) of the intent
versus content of a message.
Teachers will often experience vocal strain
as they need to now talk louder
to compensate for the mask.
Transparent or clear face masks provide better visual cues to help intelligibility
by aiding speech reading and facial expressions.
Although clear masks tend to fog up and dampen sounds
studies with hard of hearing adults
have shown an overall increase in speech intelligibility
a,nd is a preferred listening experience.
This must be considered as an alternative for young students and hard of hearing students.
For young students who are learning phonemic awareness
and learning sounds that make up the words for reading readiness,
it is important that they can both see and hear the sounds.
For students who are hard of hearing,
it is also important that the students are getting
alll of the correct sounds
and not filling in what they *think* they may be hearing.
So for example in science,
the students are making a volcano
and the teacher tells them
they will need "baking soda"
However, the student hears it as "bacon soda,"
a completely different ingredient.
Keeping socially distant as we go back to school
will bring about new challenges.
It is important to remember the limitations of
hearing aids and cochlear implants.
Speech that is more than five feet away
from the hearing aid or cochlear implant
cannot be understood as clearly as speech
that is in closer range.
With social distancing being greater than six feet,
based on the CDC guidelines,
this presents a significant problem to our students.
See the bottom right hand side of my screen  - it says
"This is what deaf or hard of hearing people feel when hearing people speak to them. It is hard work"
We are filling this in because
we are able to predict what this is going to look like,
but imagine a young student
who may not be able to predict
the words, when they are distorted or when they reverberate.
It becomes a lot more work and a lot more fatiguing.
Social distancing decreases the decibel level
of the signal reaching the listener,
resulting in reduced access to the critical speech cues.
Audiologists refer to the best range of hearing
as the "listening bubble."
Speech that is within the bubble, (or)
speech that is within five feet of the student
will be perceived best.
Sounds outside of the bubble, (or)
sounds greater than five feet away
will be too soft or inaccessible
and have a significant impact on learning.
The use of a microphone  headset
will increase the strength of the signal
to help make up for what will be lost
in the mask and decreased vocal strain on the teacher.
What about assistive technology?
We've used in the past. Are we still doing this?
Yes! We most definitely are - especially now.
As you can see there are several types of hearing assistive technology.
We have personal systems
that couple to
the students hearing aids
or cochlear implants.
And then we have sound field systems
That are speakers situated within the classroom.
With personal ear level assistive technology
the teacher wears a microphone
and the student has a receiver,
which connects to their hearing aid or cochlear implant,
that picks up the teacher's voice
directly into the hearing aid.
With soundfield technology,
the teacher wears a microphone
and speakers are placed in the classroom.
The teacher's voice is able to be amplified louder
and above the noise levels
throughout the classroom.
This will improve the listening environment
for all students in the classroom.
What do we do with the microphones
that are going from one teacher to another?
Disinfecting/sanitizing the transmitters is recommended
using a water-based solution.
Bleach, containing chlorine  or peroxides,
is not recommended
as this may damage the microphone.
How to clean:
Wipe the device with a disposable towel soaked with the disinfectant.
Never spray the disinfectant directly onto the device.
Never immerse the microphone in disinfectant.
Discard the towels in the
waste paper basket with a lid, preferably.
Make sure the microphone openings
are never in contact with the liquid,
as this may damage the electronic components inside.
The COVID pandemic has forced many schools
to provide educational services through remote learning.
Remote learning has its own challenges
for students who are hard of hearing.
When remote teaching for best hearing access it is recommended
that a microphone or headset are used,
so it will bring the teacher's voice
closer to the microphone for greater clarity.
Be mindful of the rate and intensity of your speech,
speaking naturally, but clearly.
Keep background noise to a minimum when teaching.
Repeat peers comments and questions for everyone at home to hear.
For best visual access while teaching remotely
speak with full face view to the camera.
Avoid looking down.
Avoid having your hands near your mouth.
Be sure your face is well lit.
Avoid sitting or standing
where the light is at your back.
Provide visual cues to supplement auditory information.
When reading a book aloud to younger children, use a split screen mode.
This will allow students to see the teacher's face for speech reading and the book to follow along with.
For older students, in a more lecture-style learning environment,
it's still important to use a split screen.
this way the students can access the information that you are sharing
but they can see your face for speechreading cues.
Audio access etiquette:
Have students mute their microphones
and unmute their microphones only when they are speaking to the class.
Facilitate a one-talker-at-a-time rule.
Encourage students to use a signal, for instance hand raising,
and wait to be called upon before they unmute.
Teach students to be mindful of the background noise
in their own home environments.
Provide videos with closed captioning whenever possible.
Learn to add captions to your own videos.
There are third-party captioning services
that provide the most accurate captions
and may be necessary for some hard of hearing students.
Automatic captions are imperfect and may contain errors.
Google Hangouts, and Google Meet provide automatic captioning in real time.
Zoom does not however, it may be necessary
for you to help your student obtain
captioning through a separate platform,
such as Web Capture, at their end during video instruction.
School equipment can be used at home.
Hearing assistive technology (HAT) can be sent home
and can be plugged into the student's computer or tablet
using a 3.5 millimeter male to male cable.
This may mean that the school's equipment is sent home
for the student to use to stream to their hearing aids or cochlear implants.
if the student's equipment is going to be sent home
Please check with your educational audiologist
that all of the needed parts are sent home with it.
If the students hearing aids or cochlear implants
have Bluetooth capability,
you can pair the hearing aids directly to the computer or tablet at home.
Families can check with their dispensing audiologist to ensure that (the hearing aids) have this capability.
If this capability is not available,
then the school equipment would be the next best (option).
The educational audiologist can connect to students and their families remotely to assist with technology.
The audiologist can also connect remotely with teachers
to assist with any technology questions or issues at their end.
We can also observe the classrooms remotely
so that we could provide feedback in real time to best assist
each individual child and teacher.
Please remember that these won't be "one size fits all" (recommendations)
This is a work in progress.
Remain flexible.
Consult your educational audiologist for specific suggestions
on how to optimize communication for all your students
for all your teaching platforms.
Thank you, I look forward to supporting all of you throughout this new norm.
