What are the communication considerations in education?
All students need full access to all classroom communication and instruction. For children and youth who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) this situation needs careful attention because communication access can be compromised by poor classroom acoustics, inadequate lighting, teachers who have difficulty projecting their voices, children with little voices, and other classroom noise sources such as fish tanks, pencil sharpeners, overhead projectors, and ventilations systems. For children using sign language, an added barrier occurs if the sign language interpreter is not adequately skilled to fully interpret the instruction and dialogue within the classroom. Since young children’s language skills are not fully developed, they have more difficulty filling in words and information that are not heard, missed or are left out. These gaps start an adverse cycle that impacts comprehension, attention, general knowledge, behavior and ultimately academic performance.
