Sensory Impairments

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Sensory Impairments

• By Jesse Hall
• and Almut Zieher

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Visual Impairments
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Legal Classifications of Blindness

• Assessed by Snellen Chart, the same test you get
  at the DMV.
• Legally Blind-20/200 vision as defined by the
  Snellen Chart person can see 20 feet what a
  normal person can see in 200 feet.
• Partially Sighted- 20/70 vision as defined by the
  Snellen chart.
• (Heyward, 2006)

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Implications of Legal Definitions

• Library of Congress allows those who are legally
  blind to obtain talking books.
• The federal government gives financial assistance
  for each student who is legally blind to get
  access to Braille materials through the American
  Printing House.
• All students who are legally blind must be
  provided resources in Braille.

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Educational Definitions

• Totally Blind- A student who receives no useful
  information through their sense of vision and
  must use tactile and auditory senses to learn.
• Functionally Blind- A student who learns
  primarily through auditory and visual modalities,
  but may use other senses for assistance.
• Low Vision- A student who uses vision as the main
  pathway for learning but may need to learn
  through the tactile and auditory modalities to
  supplement.

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Case Study of Frank

• From ages 4-8, Frank attended a school strictly
  for students with visual impairments.
• Learned to read Braille.
• In a setting with many adaptations.
• As a fourth grader, he started to integrate into
  the sighted community by getting educated in his
  neighborhood school

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Case Study of Frank

• Frank started out in self-contained setting, but
  was mainstreamed for some classes, including PE.
• Frank could participate in jumping rope and
  fitness exercises.
• The PE teacher learned the rules for Goal Ball
  and ways to adapt the playing field to include
  Frank.

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Adaptations for Students with Visual Impairments

• Many technology aids exist to translate the
  written word into Braille!
• Get student acquainted to classroom surroundings
  and encourage mobility!
• Talking calculators and Abacus beads for math.
• Additional Lighting in classroom.
• Multi-sensory instruction- 3-D models.

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Hearing Impairments
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Legal/Medical Definition of Hearing Impairments

• Assessment of hearing loss based on ability to
  hear loudness and pitch
• Categorized as slight, mild, moderate,
  moderate-severe, severe, and profound.
• (Turnbull, Turnbull, Shank, Smith, Leal, 2002)

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Educational Definition of Hearing Impairment

• Hearing impairment effects educational
  performance
• Center around the educational needs that are a
  result of the hearing impairment (I.e. need for
  special education services)
• (Turnbull, Turnbull, Shank, Smith, Leal, 2002)

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Case Study Amy

• Born into a bilingual household (Spanish/
  English).
• Had moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears
  at the age of three due to high fever with
  measles.
• Could no longer hear speech.
• The parents were trying to decide what type of
  instruction would be best oral instruction in
  Spanish or in English or American Sign Language

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Supporting an Individual with a Hearing Impairment

• Assistive Technology such as hearing aids
• Aural Habilitations so child learns to use the
  hearing they have. For example
• Responding to sound
• Responding to the direction of sound
• Noticing differences of sound
• Deciphering others use of speech
• Non-oral communication instruction

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Issues

• Using American Sign Language (ASL) and oral
  instruction
• Because oral language and ASL have different
  grammar patterns
• Because it is more difficult to focus on both ASL
  and oral language skills
• Often teams have to make a decision about what
  communication system will be taught
• (Turnbull, Turnbull, Shank, Smith, Leal, 2002)

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Deaf-Blindness
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• Deaf-blindness means concomitant hearing and
  visual impairments, the combination of which
  causes such severe communication and other
  developmental and educational needs that they
  cannot be accommodated in special education
  programs solely for children with deafness or
  children with blindness
• (IDEA, PL 108-446, Sec. 300.8, 2004)

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Case Study- Helen Keller

• Born in 1880 in Alabama
• As a baby, got an illness that left her without
  the ability to see and hear.
• Her teacher, Ann Sullivan used Kellers sense of
  touch to eventually teach her to communicate with
  the outside world.

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Helen Kellers Beliefs

• Keller was the most famous proponent of the idea
  that societal beliefs on disability were often
  bigger barriers than the disability itself.
• Gave notice to the link between oppression,
  social inequities and historical determinants of
  disability.

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Kellers Beliefs Cont.

• During the early 20th century, many working class
  people, adults and children, died early deaths
  and were maimed as a result of unsafe working
  conditions.
• Lack of health care, living in a culture of
  poverty.

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Keller Quote

• So long as I confine my activities to social
  service and the blind, the newspapers
  compliment me extravagantly, calling me
  archpriest of the sightless, wonder woman and
  a modern miracle. But when it comes to a
  discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is
  as a result of wrong economics- that the
  industrial system under which we live is at the
  root of much deafness and blindness in the
  world-that is a different matter. It is laudable
  to give aid to the handicapped. Superficial
  charities make smooth the way of the prosperous
  but to advocate that all human beings should have
  leisure and comfort, the decencies and
  refinements of life, is an utopian dream, and one
  who seriously contemplates its realization must
  be deaf, dumb and blind (as cited in Kaufman,
  2003, p. 282).