Combining intervention strategies when working with hearing-impaired mainstream students

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education, 1998Seven children with mild to moderate hearing impairment were selected for a language support pilot which provided support from an Itinerant Teacher of the Deaf in their mainstream classroom and in a withdrawal situation with two or three other children with hearing impairment. The withdrawal situation provided the children with a quieter learning environment, more opportunities to interact in spoken English with an adult and peers, and a positive atmosphere for promoting the use of hearing aids. This study looked for change in receptive and expressive language and improved mainstream classroom involvement of these seven children as a result of this alternative provision of support. This study found that a combination of the pull-in and pull-out models of service to mainstreamed students with mild to moderate hearing impairment can achieve receptive language growth above the norms expected for hearing children within six months. Expressively, six of the seven children showed a higher percentage of analyzable statements per forty utterances after six months' intervention. Six of the children were perceived by their teachers to have improved classroom involvement. Parents of six of the children perceived a greater involvement in family interactions