mild hearing loss accomodation in elementary school?

[Anonymous]

I posted this in special needs without any response, I think because the need is relatively mild, and I'm hoping there might be more response in this wider forum.

My child has recently been diagnosed with a mild sensorineural hearing loss. He is currently in a private pre-school and doing well, bu it is clear to me that his hearing loss does cause some mild learning obstacles. Our plan was to keep him in the private school for K, but we are eligible for public K and will have to sort out in light of this new information what will be the best environment. We are still going thru the speech/language/hearing evaluation/treatment process, but I'd appreciate hearing from similarly situated parents.

Does anyone have experience with accommodations in school for mild hearing loss? What type? FM assisted speech? Other accommodations? Do you have a 504 plan or an IEP? What are the implications of one over another?

We live in MoCo.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

My DD is 13 and has a very mild (~25db) conductive hearing loss due to scarring. She's in private school and she does not use hearing aids. When this was discovered at age 9, I bought an FM system and the school was very amenable to using it (although, being a church-based school, they are not subject to ADA or IDEA and not required to do so). After trying it intermittently for a year, ultimately it seemed that preferential seating alone was fine for her--she's a straight A student so I don't think it is affecting her learning. I still do have a chat with her teachers in every year and explain that it's something they should be aware of, particularly if their class tends to have a high background noise level and she looks clueless. Class sizes are tiny so that probably also helps with the background noise issue. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Thank you. This is very helpful. I didn't know that you could by FM systems yourself; are they terribly expensive? It's nice to know that this has not significantly impacted your child's academic performance. Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

14:02 here, I wanted to clarify that my DD did have a speech delay as a preschooler and was in speech therapy for about 7 years (the latter part of which may have been because I couldn't bear to give up her wonderful speech therapist). As a baby she did not quite meet her speech milestones although it was arguable. After bugging her pediatrician from about her 12 month visit to her 36 month visit, he finally agreed she should have a hearing test, which showed fluid in her ears and a 30-40 db loss. She got tubes which solved the fluid issue, but both the fluid and the tubes cause scarring of the eardrum which is why she has a small hearing loss today.

The rough years were pre-K, K and the beginning of 1st. Her pre-K teacher in particular was always on her case for being inattentive. Starting in K we did a lot of work with her on phonemic awareness, plain old phonics, ear training, etc., which helped her to learn to read. Once she was reading well she had an alternative way of learning other than listening, which paradoxically improved her listening, and every year has gone better than the last.

I wasn't willing to pay the price of a new FM system, and it definitely was not in the school's budget, so I bought a school surplus one on Ebay. There are various people who also sell non brand name FM transmitters and receivers on Ebay intended for tour guides. My only advice about Ebay is to be sure to check that transmitter and receiver are set for the same frequency.

There's a lot out there on classroom FM for minimal hearing loss. Here's a link I found helpful.

http://www.audiologycentre.com/child_faq_management.htm

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Thank you. Your link is very helpful. It's interesting that you mention the prek/K period as that is just where we are. DS meets major speech and language milestones, and yet clearly demonstrates to me odd patterns of language and mishearings that I don't consider normal for his age. Hopefully the speech/lang evaluation will make it more clear whether he is meeting milestones or missing some things. In any case, I am worried about the reading/phonics piece as it is clear to me that he can't actually consistently hear the difference between some vowels and consonants, etc. and thus doesn't make the connection in reading either.

When you say you did a lot of phonics, phoneme awaremess, ear training, etc., who did this? The speech/lang therapist? You? Was it private therapy or provided in school?

[Anonymous]

All of the above. In school it was just the regular curriculum but it did include many phonics and phonemic awareness activities. The speech therapist worked on it also. We did the following--Keeping in mind this was years ago and I have no idea if any of this is still available. We bought Earobics, which is a computer program that uses various games to teach sound distinctions. It was kind of boring and we got limited cooperation. From what I understand FastForWord is somewhat the same thing although I think you do it at the therapist's office and it costs more. Hopefully it's more engaging too! We also used DaisyQuest, which was an old Mac program that was kind of a treasure hunt with sounds. DD loved that one. We got the idea from a professor's website who calls himself the Reading Genie. He has a ton of lessons on his site on teaching phonemes. We also used a workbook called "Explode the Code" from EPS.

Once DD went to first grade she went to reading recovery (even though she was reading (barely) on grade level). That was fabulous. She was finished with that by January of first grade, and by the end of the year she was about half a year above grade level.

[Anonymous]

OP, I have a child with some special needs, though not the same ones that your child has. You asked about IEP vs. 504, which is why I'm responding. The difference is this. With an IEP, your child will get services through the school and learning/testing accommodations. With a 504, you only get the accommodations. With an IEP, the services your child can receive if eligible are related solely to education. In other words, if a disability does not affect the ability to learn, then services will not be provided through the school. In my son's case, I don't think the services were sufficient on their own, so I supplemented with private services. In addition, my son had some disabilities that were deemed not to affect his ability to learn, so I had to get private services to deal with this.

Based on what you've said so far, it sounds like you haven't yet had an IEP evaluation. Your child is eligible for this at age 3, so you can start the ball rolling before your child even gets to school. You can go on the MoCo public school website for information on the process. To get started, all you have to do is call the principal of the school that your child will attend and request an IEP evaluation/meeting.

FWIW, I found that the IEP we had the year before my son started kindergarten was ok. But, the IEP during kindergarten was fantastic because the school knew my son and had the opportunity to see firsthand his needs.

Good luck to you OP.