We had a very fun, informative LD Study Group session on 2/19/2016 at the American English Institute, University of Oregon (http://aei.uoregon.edu/)! We discussed strategies and accommodations for supporting students with limited/no hearing and/or limited/no vision. We were joined by two wonderful advisors from the University of Oregon Accessible Education Center (http://aec.uoregon.edu/) who shared their expertise. Here are some take-home tips from the discussion:

Accommodations

• Having a transcriber in class for a head-of-hearing student works well in many contexts as some of the teachers testified.
• Compared to a transcript prepared by a teacher beforehand for a listening task, having a live transcriber seems much more helpful for some of the students.
• It seems like a transcriber would have worked better for the deaf students we had in the past who were not proficient in American Sign Language (they had an ASL interpreter then).
• At undergraduate foreign language classes, usually note-takers are sufficient as most of them have limited hearing.
• Having a blind student encouraged one AEI teacher to be hyper-organized, as she would share her powerpoint before the class. She also became very aware how visually-oriented she is.
• Using a certain format would be easier for students to use their “reader” application. We will learn about this more later.
• The way deaf students interact with language is very different, so give them the language they use (e.g. captions on videos even in Speaking/Listening class, TOEFL exam).
• Amplify my professors at University of Oregon (https://education.uoregon.edu/news/now-hear-project-amp-aims-increase-access-students-hearing-loss). Approximately 20% of students have some form of hearing loss. Professors often say “My voice is loud enough” and do not use microphone but using microphones could be really beneficial.

Strategies – activities

• Visual/kinesthetic exercises for pronunciation seem to be helpful (e.g. stretching a rubber band for stress, standing up and down along with pitch, “pronuncercise”).
• University of Iowa “Sounds of Speech” app (http://soundsofspeech.uiowa.edu/) might be helpful as well. He might have been instructed to use this by his speech therapist back home.

Collaboration

• The Accessible Education Center would like to start working with the AEI teachers as soon as possible so that they can coordinate accommodations and start preparing material modifications (e.g. captioning videos, converting textbooks/materials into braille)

– Maiko (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maikohata, https://www.facebook.com/learningdifferencesinesl/)