Hi guys, miss u all
long time since i post a topic here in bioforum
not sure if this is the right place for posting this topic

I'm teaching science for middle school students...this week i found one student who pay no attention to the lesson..later and through asking, i discovered that she had problems in hearing, this lasted for years, but now she is fine and hear well better than anyone else in her classroom...However, she has some problems figuring out words, in other words, she looks hearing words for the first time in her life!!!
the semester is 3-4 months, so it's short to help her with new scientific terms!!
What can i do for her! I want her to pass the course !

strawberry on Oct 25 2009, 11:36 AM said:

hi strawberry...nice to see you back here too. Regarding your student, if she's been having problems with your course, it probably would be the same with the other courses too. Couldn't you suggest some remedial/extra period for her (after school hours) so she can catch up and this could involve the other educators as well? This can be coordinated if you or the other faculty would be willing to put in the extra time. If not, then you have to suggest to her to do this extra studying, privately and you can provide the study plan/materials yourself. Just a thought.

casandra

casandra on Oct 25 2009, 09:14 AM said:

hi casandra
nice suggestion

i'm thinking in biological terms..what might happened to her brain
don't know if i have to deal with her as a young child!!
she may be able to read, see, and know things, but unable to figure out them by hearing !!!!!

Hi Strawberry,

Don't treat her as a small child. She's probably very intelligent, and will catch on to you talking down to her quickly. You don't want to put her off!

Is there a special ed teacher or speech therapist in this school? Team up with this person and work together to help this girl. They will be able to recommend tactful ways to help her.

Regards,

lab rat

strawberry on Oct 26 2009, 04:45 AM said:

Our daughter had something similar, I think. she had a string of ear infections and colds during a critical window where babies make the association between the sounds they hear and communication of ideas. because her ears were blocked and inflamed through this time, everything she heard sounded like she was hearing through a pillow - very muffled. The speech therapist we organised was certain there was no effect on her brain function. Then again, she was assessed at ~30 months ,so her brain was still pretty undeveloped. Your student's neural networks may be a bit harder to reconfigure, but I agree with lab rat: just keep on feeding her more learning, and she let you know when she can't take on any more.

My brother (who didn't have hearing problems, just couldn't spell some sounds) is just correcting his speech problems. We always thought it's impossible (that's what actually doctors said 20 years ago), but he's learning very quickly. I guess if she has good materials to learn from at home, she will compensate very fast. I had some attention problems, but compensated this way as well. Hell, people learn foreign languages. This is almost the same.

i thought also as she is learning a new language..
I think she can read, so maybe trying online teaching may help her better than hearing at this time!