18th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
March 3-5, 2019 • Chicago, IL
Individualizing Educational Placements for Toddlers with Hearing Loss
Toddlers with hearing loss vary greatly in their educational needs and abilities. Teachers of the Deaf are challenged with the task of differentiating instruction and providing appropriate services to all students placed in their classrooms. Professionals making educational placement recommendations can make informed decisions by analyzing student present levels, parent participation, and a child’s case history. With an increase in early identification and intervention, our program has seen rapid growth in toddler enrollment. This has created a desire for more family-centered programming. Due to this growth and the varying needs of our families, we developed new programs and tools to guide our recommendations. This project highlights the educational programming improvement process along with three case studies conducted by professionals at the Melinda Webb School (MWS) at The Center for Hearing and Speech (CHS) in Houston, Texas. Beginning in August 2013, MWS started a focused toddler program improvement initiative. This began by assigning specific age ranges to “Toddler” grade-level classrooms and defining a comprehensive and individualized toddler-level curriculum. Since 2013, MWS has tracked toddler enrollment and created additional classrooms that offer various levels of parent and child support.
The selected case studies review appropriateness of placements and level of educational support for toddler-aged children. Pre and post data were collected to determine the benefit of individual educational programming based on parent involvement, hearing and intervention history, and current rate of language progress.
- Explore a range of educational placements at the toddler level
- Objectively analyze present levels, parent participation, and audiologic history of toddlers with hearing loss
- Create tools and resources to make informed decisions within early intervention programs
Poster:
18878_10322LindyPowell.pdf
Presenter: Sarabeth Fly
Sarabeth Fly is the Director of Education at Texas Hearing Institute. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Delta State University and a Master's degree in Early Oral Intervention from the University of Southern Mississippi. Sarabeth is a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist, Certified Auditory-Verbal Educator.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
Lindy Powell is the Executive Director at St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf - Indianapolis. She has a degree in Deaf Education/Special Education from Ball State University, and a Master’s in Education in Reading from The University of St. Thomas Houston. Lindy is a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist, Certified Auditory-Verbal Educator. She previously served as adjunct faculty for The UT Health Science Center San Antonio’s program in Deaf Education and Hearing Sciences.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exist.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.