Wednesday, December 9, 2015

ELEMENTARY STUDENT SIGNS THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in ASL


Elementary Student signs the Pledge of Allegiance for the morning announcements!!! 
Awesome job Kayla!!! 
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(If you are not able to view the above "Pledge in ASL" due to YouTube School restrictions; double click on the US Flag in the right hand margin of this blog.) 

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

"I HATE MY HEARING AIDS!!!!!"

There is no magic single solution to keeping hearing aids on students as they enter the tween/teen years.
Why do kids reject their hearing aids – when they help them so much?
*PARENTS - Click on this link to discover - WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE about HEARING AIDS!!!
Is this what your Child feels like??
It is ‘normal’ to want to ‘be normal’. All children struggle with this to some degree. Rejecting hearing aids is usually an emotional reaction to wanting to fit in. As children approach adolescence, how they view the acceptance of their peers is very powerful. Being an accepted member of the social group becomes increasingly important.  Taking off the hearing aids, saying they don’t need hearing aids and pretending to ‘be normal’ are all emotional reactions to trying to ‘solve the problem of fitting in.’ To the child, not wearing hearing aids is a solution to an uncomfortable social/identity situation. Ironically, it is the students with mild and moderate hearing loss – those who can hear closest to ‘normal’ with amplification – who are at highest risk for rejecting their hearing aids because they can ‘hear’ and are willing to try to ‘get by’ with the hearing that they have.
Self-esteem is an important contributor to school success and the confidence needed to function well in the mainstream setting.   Without a strong, positive self-esteem our students with hearing loss are at risk for rejecting their hearing devices, just so that they can feel as though they ‘fit in.’ Sadly, many students have actively made the choice that they would rather have peers and teachers believe that they are not smart, than admit that they have a hearing loss. Only actively talking about the issues and preparing students with resilience and appropriate advocacy skills from an early age will address this issue.
Copied from - Addressing Self-Esteem and Issues of Fitting In-


WHAT CAN I DO???
Ellen Rhodes, in the Nov/Dec 2014 Volta Voices issue described her framework for working on psychosocial issues with tweens and teens:
Help students to actively reframe situations in a positive light (the glass is half full rather than half empty) glass is half full. In that same vein, take turns playing fortunately-unfortunately with one person being the optimist and the other being the pessimist in describing situations specifically from a positive and a negative perspective.
Actively discuss how everyone can make mistakes, have failures, and experience embarrassing moments and that we can learn much from these experiences. Focus on generating a vivid positive mental image of how challenges can be handled well in the future.
Discuss that self-identity (how you see yourself as part of the world) can change based on the situation. Under easy listening conditions they may view themselves as no different from a student with typical hearing. Under challenging listening conditions they may view themselves as hard of hearing, hearing-impaired or Deaf. It is important to help students explore their feelings about each of the labels and recognize the aspects that make them feel more/less “impaired” and that they can take action to deal with the challenges (self-advocacy).
http://hayleighscherishedcharms.com/
Belonging
Each individual needs to feel as though they belong to one or more groups. Our identities are defined by the groups to which we belong. If a student never interacts meaningfully with other students with hearing loss, it is not surprising that he or she may reject the part of themselves that does not ‘fit in’ with the rest of the group. Whether it is face-to-face or through media, children with hearing loss need to connect!
Encourage students who are feeling isolated to ‘take the extra step in kindness.’ By offering to help others, using their unique and positive attributes, they can realize that they are valued as group members. Often it is the students with the weakest social communication (pragmatics & theory of mind skills) who are at greatest risk for feeling isolated.
Hayleigh sells Hearing Aid Jewels-
 http://hayleighscherishedcharms.com/

START EARLY
An excellent article by Jay Luckner and Anne Molloy in the Nov/Dec 2014 Volta Voices addressed the challenge of overcoming group conversation issues. Some specific suggestions applied to what we can teach children, even starting from preschool:
Throughout early intervention and into early childhood, parents typically adjust their communication dynamics so that they face the child and stand close when communicating. The child with hearing loss may not realize that age-peers and other adults have no understanding of hearing loss and what they might need for successful communication.
Raise the child’s awareness that most people they meet will not understand that they have a hearing loss. The child, from a young age, needs to be able to simply explain to others that they have a hearing loss and may not always understand what is said.
The child needs to learn how to explain some strategies for successful communication such as, “Please look at me when you talk. I need to see your face when you talk so I can understand you.”
A strategy to learn in early elementary is to listen carefully and then summarize what people say. “You want me to get my coat and boots and meet you by the car.”  “Oh, you saw the movie Frozen and thought Olaf was funny too.”
A strategy to learn later in elementary is to practice ways to remind friends and classmates that the student wants to be included in the conversation such as, “Did you just change topics? I really want to follow what you are saying and it’s kind of noisy here. Let me know when you change topics so I can follow along.”
The major theme to get across is to teach the child that people will be more likely to accommodate their needs if the child focuses on sharing how much they want to be able to understand what the other person is saying.
If these skills and strategies can be taught before the age of 10, then the child will have a way to deal with challenging conversation situations as a tween and teen.


http://www.terracehearing.com/index.php?p=1_2_Hearing-Aids

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

INTERACTIVE ACTIVITIES - DANGEROUS DECIBELS-



How much do you know about your ears and hearing???
This is a Virtual Exhibit by OMSI/OHSU,
 which will challenge you with interactive activities!!
The categories are-
WHAT'S THAT SOUND?
HOW DO WE HEAR?
HOW LOUD IS TOO LOUD?
WHAT IS SOUND?
SAVE YOUR EARS!
MEASURING SOUND
ROCK YOUR WORLD
WHADDA YA KNOW?  

Click here to begin your--> 
ADVENTURE!

found at - http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/virtualexhibit/index.html
on Feb. 4, 2015