Oct, 7th, 2014
Professor Corrina Carotti
Unit 6 Assignment
PS 340 exceptional needs children
Michael
Michael, a five-year-old male, just diagnosed with hearing loss and a speech disorder, has not learned to speak properly and is working with a speech therapist three times a week. Michael does not show any progress in learning letters or numbers. His parents are worried that he might be labeled in school and not allowed to participate in regular classroom activities. Michael is scheduled to start kindergarten in a month and the school psychologist wants to test him to see if he should be placed in special education classes. After speaking with Michael’s parents, it is found that he is an only child and does not play with children in the neighborhood. Although, he has occasionally play dates, Michael struggles to make friends. Due to children not responding to Michael when he tries to talk to them, there is little contact, causing Michael to be socially immature. To begin a plan to help Michael with his learning and social skills, there must be an understanding to why he has a hearing disorder as well as seeking strategies to support him in school. Use the definition laid out in IDEA to describe Michael’s hearing disorder and the competency based individualized strategies for supporting him in a school setting. According to (Heward, 2013) p. 313, Michael is suffering from deafness. His hearing loss is so severe that he is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, which causes an effect on educational performance. Most special educators distinguish between children who are deaf and those who are hard of hearing. Michael is deaf and cannot use hearing to understand speech. If Michael was able to hear, he would be able to understanding and interpret speech without using any special device or techniques. Due to Michael’s deafness, a hearing aid, would not allow
References: Heward, W.L. (2013). Exceptional needs children (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.