Term paper

Topic- Problems of children with Hearing Impairment in understanding

social science subject.

Submitted to: Dr.Vandana Saxena

Submitted by: Priya Arora

M.Ed (2nd yr)

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Methods

3. Findings

4. Discussion

5. Conclusion

References.........

Introduction

Millions of children attend elementary, middle and high schools throughout the country to be instructed by
teachers within six major subjects. Out of six main subjects taught in academic schools, social studies has been
proven as one of the most difficult yet complex subjects among students especially the deaf and hard of
hearing students. It has been noted where social studies, elaborate and diverse as it may be, have created an
environment where most students have the tendency to associate this subject with negative attitude and
experiences. Critical factors contribute to the overall decline interest in socials studies such as lack of strong
teacher to student relationship, the complexity of materials, and/or the constant repetition of old
information.Social Studies courses aimed to promote the development of critical thinking skills in students.
This study focused on the problems of students with hearing loss in understanding social science subject in an
inclusive learning environment of ITL International School Dwarka Sec 9. A considerable data were collected
through observations and interviews.
The issue of disabilities has been gaining recognition worldwide. This is due to the fact that the levels of
disabilities appear to be on the increase in most societies. Students with hearing impairment are more
vulnerable to a number of problems that hinder their learning capability. Most of them suffer from social
maladjustment, psychological problems, emotional disturbances, and difficulties in interpersonal relationships,
having poor selfconcept and personality problems(Heward,2006).Students with hearing impairment,
therefore, need special education that will address the student individual differences and needs. Ideally, this
process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures,
adapted equipments and materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to help learners with
special needs to achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and community than
would be available if the students were only given access to a typical classroom education (Heward, 2006).The
right to education is universal and extends to include all children in spite of their sex,color,ability, disability or
their social status.These principles of social justice, equity and basic human rights were advocated by various
international declarations including the World Declaration of Education for All (EFA) of 1990, the Salamanca
Statement of 1994, and the Convention on the Right of Child (UNESCO) of 1989. Since the 1990’s inclusive
schools movements
have become the basis for educational reforms in many countries in the world. For the last two decades
international policy on development has turned focus on providing quality education for all learners within the
mainstream classes, thereby removing the stigma and stereotyping of learners with barriers to learning
(Prinsloo,2001).This significant shift from special education to inclusive education around the world both
developed and developing countries aimed at including the children with special needs into mainstreams
classes rather than educating them in an isolated environment (Chalmers, 1998).Therefore,in order for
children with special needs to enjoy the same access to education like the other children is to enroll them in
the inclusive classrooms.Special education has however different approaches such as inclusion approach
whereby students with special educational needs spend all, or at least more than half of the school day with
students who do not have special educational needs. Because inclusion can require substantial modification of
the general curriculum, most schools use it only for selected students with mild to moderate special needs.
Such approach is accepted as a best practice specialized services may be provided inside or outside the regular
classroom, depending on the type of service. Students may occasionally leave the regular classroom to attend
smaller, more intensive instructional sessions in a resource room, or to receive other related services that
might require specialized equipment or might be disruptive to the rest of the class.The study concludes that
hearing impaired students are a special population within the school who require accommodations especially
in the class that would ease their learning experience and providing opportunities for class participation,
encouraging turn taking during class discussions and allowing extra time during examinations. The main aim of
the Social Studies course is to prepare students for social life.Social Studies courses sought to raise citizens
who act democratically within the society and make decisions based on knowledge and logic (Zarrillo, 2012).
To realize these aims, students need to improve their critical thinking skills, reflect on the discovery, research
and inquiry. As a result, students do not remain within their limits and can attain objective thinking skills
enriched with new ideas (Levstik and Barton, 2001). In this study, the focus is critical thinking skills, which is
one of the aims of the Social Studies course. Critical thinking is a way of thinking that enables the association
of connections established between events and facts in mind, by combining experiences and knowledge
attained (Ennis, 2011). Critical thinking promotes the use of processes that involve classifying, analyzing,
summarizing and synthesizing knowledge. Within the critical thinking process, it is essential to recognize and
answer the relevant questions, as well as use these questions effectively (Browne and Keeley,2007). Students
with critical thinking skills are able to question the reliability of sources they access rather than just accepting
knowledge directly. They can make transfer knowledge more easily and think metacognitively through finding
solutions to the problems they face(Bransford,2000).There are a number of key points that should be
considered in the Social Studies course for the improvement of critical thinking skills. Teachers are required to
prepare activities that involve using multiple strategies, provide students with adequate time to think about
the answers to the questions, ask questions and present activities that require the combination of knowledge
and experience, model students in ways of thinking (Zarrillo, 2012). In this way, teachers can create active
learning environments that ensure continuous student participation. Active learning is a process that select the
strategies they will use to attain knowledge (Gagné and Driscoll, 1988). Many studies emphasize the
contribution of critical thinking to educational environments (e.g., (Ikuenobe, 2001; Karabulut, 2012)). Given
the benefits of critical thinking, research into critical thinking in the field of education has become more
popular in Turkey in recent years (Polat, 2015) but critical thinking among students who need special
education like students with hearing loss is little investigated. In Social Studies classes, as well as the other
classes,strategy teaching should be applied to realize critical thinking. Strategy teaching fosters using
knowledge and experience, reaching and understanding the knowledge, promoting autonomous learning in
students by allowing students to evaluate themselves and changing their opinion when necessary (Jones et al.,
1987). Thus, the following strategies are taught in the Elementary School: (a) identifying and using reference
sources (b) organize information usable forms (c) chronology and perception of space (d) interpret of table,
diagram and graph (e) comparison (f) critical reasoning (g) decisionmaking and (h) use library, online, or other
search tools to locate sources (Ministry of Education, 2016).Many researchers emphasized that using more
written, audio and visual documents - along with information and communication technologies in Social
Studies classes - is essential for understanding the texts within the course content, as well as for the
development of critical perspectives (Buchanan, 2015; Alongi, 2016). Perception of chronology requires
important historical events to be approached in a chronological order and for the concepts of past, present
and future to be objectified. As a result, the connection between the present and the past can be observed,
along with the similarities and differences between events (Obenchain and Morris, 2011). The topics studied in
Social Studies courses are related and have effects on each other. Students make use of their past knowledge
and experience when interpreting new experience, and they need to establish critical reasoning to analyze the
effects of historical events (Steele, 2008). Various studies have emphasized that, in Social Studies classes, there
is a tendency among teachers to use traditional methods, to teach topics directly, to secure limited student
participation, and to allocate insufficient time to discussions (eg. (Hess, 2002; Seyihoglu and Kartal, 2010; Aksid
and Sahin, 2011)). The concepts that are explained through verbal definitions and limited examples thus tend
to be memorized without comprehension by students, which leads to a perception of Social Studies being a
boring course unrelated to real life (Bailey et al., 2006). In Social Studies classes, reading, analyzing, and
making judgments concerning information are all used simultaneously (Sievers, 2005; Steele, 2008). Because
of its role in preparing students for life, concepts and topics within Social Studies classes are related to adult
life. Thus, students tend to have difficulties in learning the concepts, most of which they are coming across for
the first time (Woolsey, 2009). The fact that the time allocated to Social Studies is less than the time allocated
to language and mathematics classes, as well as the fact that there is insufficient emphasis on the strategies
required for knowledge acquisition, limits students‟ critical thinking skills, which are required for
metacognitive thinking and solving real life problems (Fitchett and Heafner, 2010; Hawkman, 2015) In addition
to the traditional approaches in education, the fact that Social Studies requires the use of complex cognitive
skills confines the development of critical thinking skills in students with hearing loss who are enrolled in public
schools (Boucher, 2010). Along with these issues, inadequate use of the hearing sense in a child’s critical
development period affects the functioning of all sense processes (Bolognini,2012). Restrictions on hearing
and language input have a negative effect on the development of creativity, abstract thinking, event
sequencing, interpretation, summarizing, understanding alternative perspectives, critical reasoning, and time
perception (Mayberry, 2002; Eden, 2008). As a result, the conceptual development of students with hearing
loss fails to comply with the conceptual development of students with a hearing ability (Geers, 2008; Punch
and Hyde, 2010). This problem gives rise to complications in students in terms of critical reasoning between
historical or economic events in the past and current events, as well as completing gradual projects
(Woolsey,2009). Thus, it is notable that to learn the abstract topics of Social Studies classes, students with
hearing loss require a more individualized education than their peers with regular hearing abilities (Shepherd
and Acosta-Tello, 2015).
Why Social Studies may be a challenge for children with special needs
 Children with cognitive delays may not be able to orient themselves in terms of space and time.
 Children with reading disabilities may find the content and vocabulary of Social Studies difficult to decode.
 Children with a memory deficiency may have trouble retaining the information of Geography and History.

Objectives

This study aims to find out the answers to the following questions:

 To examine the problems in teaching and learning of social science subject of hearing impaired
students.
 To find out the practices to address these problems and the way they are carried out in the
classroom.

Methods

The data was collected from ITL International School Dwarka where students with hearing loss were observed
during classroom observations and interviews were taken from teachers and students.

One 4th grade student, Two 6th-grade students, and one 11thgrade student with hearing loss enrolled in
inclusive School.The students did not have any disabilities other than hearing loss.

Data Sources

In this study, observations were done of those 4 students. Unstructured and semi structured interviews were
done to discuss and analyse the results.(Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2011).The observation was done in one
week.In Social Studies classes, hearing impaired students encountered problems mainly associated with (a)
acquiring the meaning of concepts,(b) perceiving time and (c) establishing critical reasoning. Findings are
presented below regarding the problems students encountered and decisions regarding a potential solution
for these problems.

Results and Discussion

The data gathered through direct observationand interviews were analysed to find out the problems in
teaching learning process of hearing impaired students in understanding social science.

To scaffold students to acquire the meaning of the concepts, they were encouraged to discuss the
characteristics of the concepts and their places in our lives using photos, pictures, real objects, documentaries
and movies. Students were seen to encounter problems in determining the concepts they did not
understand.Students in the Social Studies class were identified to describe various misconceptions. In
subsequent interventions, students were observed to be able to express the topics and concepts they did not
understand. Looking at the characteristics of the Social Studies course, it is seen that the course content was
structured around 10 themes that improve critical thinking and that were identified according to National
Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) (1994) standards. It was seen that the course books prepared by the MoE
(2016) according to these themes included visuals, knowledge and exercises, but they were insufficient for
students with hearing loss. For example, there was a map to explain invasions during the War of Independence
within the “War of Independence” subject. While this material was helpful for students with regular hearing
abilities in understanding the topic, the map was insufficient for students with hearing loss. When discussing
this subject, the locations of the invading countries were shown using recent maps and photos taken during
the invasion were examined. Events were identified on the timeline and explained through informative texts.
This could have stemmed from the delay in the development of linguistic skills due to hearing loss. Punch and
Hyde (2010) finding that the conceptual development of students with hearing loss was slower than their
peers with regular hearing supports the results of this study. Along with the delay in linguistic skills and the
restrictions of the course books, the main problem encountered in the study was the difficulty that students
experienced in understanding Social Studies concepts. This problem is in line with the findings of
Woolsey,2009). In their study, Woolsey reported that students with regular hearing abilities have difficulty in
attaining meanings to concepts, as it is the first time they have heard many of the Social Studies concepts.
Consistent with this finding, Bailey (2006) state that when the Social Studies concepts are not associated with
real life, they are memorized without comprehension. Furthermore, the delays experienced in linguistic skills
due to hearing loss have a negative effect on imagination and abstract thinking. They, therefore, restrict the
sequencing and interpreting of events, as well as the critical reasoning and perceiving time (Eden, 2008; Punch
and Hyde, 2010). It is well-known that all these skills have an essential role in learning concepts. Hence, two
main elements could be cited as causing problems for students regarding acquiring the meaning of concepts
and critical reasoning. One of these elements is the fact that Social Studies concepts are abstract and
multidimensional and they also have associative characteristics. The other element is the fact that hearing loss
restricts abstract and relative thinking (cited from Mortarella by Doganay (2008).students with hearing loss
were identified to have problems in acquiring the meaning of concepts in Social Studies classes, perceiving
time, and critical reasoning. For the development of these strategies, materials and repetitions are believed to
be essential, and this requires more time. Because of the limited number of participants, the results of this
study could not be generalized.Recommendations on various interventions for students with hearing loss
could be as follows: Increasing the duration of support services could enable students to use the strategies
more frequently. To improve critical thinking in support services, interventions could be made based on
student research on the concepts. The development of students with support service interventions could be
assessed through formal or informal tools and systematic intervals. The study also found that the curriculum
was not only unfavorable to children with disabilities (hearing and visual) but was also unfavourable to those
without disabilities as it does not acknowledge diversity of the students as expected in a normal inclusive
school system.These findings are consistent with those by Mpofu (1999) and Zingoni (2004) who found that
most teachers in Zimbabwe mainstream education system are inadequately prepared (cannot read braille,
materials, cannot use sign language, etc.) to teach students with special needs. such teachers may obviously
do not hold professional aptitude (not trained) to modify the curriculum. Moreover, the new policy of inclusive
education has failed to uplift the performance of the hearing impaired students in regular schools compared to
special primary schools for the deaf where pupils of the hearing impaired performed much better and led
them to join secondary schools.These responses reveal that there is a need of addressing the challenges of
teaching and learning of students with hearing impaired enrolled in regular primary and secondary schools in
order to find alternative ways to enable them to perform much better academically.

The teachers’ responses showed that they faced a number of challenges. Lack of proper syllabus, teaching and
learning facilities, lack of in service training for the teachers of special education and the knowhow to facilitate
learning of hearing impaired students in inclusive education were at different times mentioned to be the main
challenges affecting hearing impaired students in their learning process. The most significant challenge was the
lack of teaching and learning facilities for the new syllabus of inclusive education.Lack of teaching facilities
based on the hearing impairment was a setback to students’ performance. Moreover poor performance is
caused by the lack of sign language during the instruction time, whereby most teachers use normal language
such as English making the students of the hearing impaired learners to misunderstand the topics during class
.For example, one of the students said: This system of inclusive education does not achieve its intended
objectives academically because the schools lack competent teachers in sign language which lead to the use of
normal language in such a way that the hearing impaired students fail to understand. Moreover, the inclusion
examination also contributes to such poor performance because the markers and those who set up the
examination base on normal language which is not well understood by the hearing impaired students
(Discussion with hearing impaired students).Therefore, it can be argued that teacher education needs to equip
them with profound conceptual understanding of what is going to be taught in primary and secondary schools.
A wrong assumption is that student teachers are competent in subject matter area. Where by such teachers
need in-service training in order to come up with competence in sign language and total communication on
how to facilitate learning of hearing impaired students in order to have good performance in the new system
of inclusive education. The findings have pointed out that the idea of inclusive education system came from
above, as there was no study done to support such a claim. Cook (2004) has noted that in several countries in
the world, teacher education is not only being called more fully to account for itself, but policies are being
drafted which impose particular views of professional development on the way teachers are trained.From the
respondents’ point of views, teachers’ incompetence in sign language led to the hearing impaired student’s
failure to understand the instruction in the class. In that case they are depended on asking other students of
what the topic was all above and what is needed. By the teachers some ordinary students however had low
skills and knowledge in that case failed to help them and sometimes misled them. In the same way those
specialist teachers for the special need education concentrated in the use of normal language which benefited
the normal students while hearing impaired students remained without receiving direct knowledge and skills
from their teachers. In order to facilitate learning of hearing impaired students, it is better for those teachers
to have in service training in sign language so that they can use total communication at the same time in the
class during instruction time and others can interpret when other general teachers are teaching.Based on the
findings, it can be argued that teachers for example do not have adequate academic knowledge of sign
language.It is worth to note that the best teacher is the one who has good mastery on the subject matter
content and has skills to enable him/her to transfer or induce that knowledge of the subject content to
learners. (Nydal, 2008).

In the 2nd observation (interaction with teacher and all students in social science classroom) The teacher first
gave an introduction to all the students in general irrespective of the students’ abilities and needs. In a way, he
hasn’t given an adapted education to the diverse ability of the students in introduction part. The teacher
created a situation to break the abstract concept into a concrete concept, when he connected the theoretical
framework of the problem with practical examples from the students’ daily life. By his way of explanation
some students in the class understood the concept. When he explained from simple to abstract he reached
more students in understanding the steps to solve the problem. In introduction part the teaching style is less
inclusive way but when he went to the students to clarify their doubts then it is more of inclusive class than
before. This may be because he might have thought that the introduction part is more general to all and then
for the explanation part he had adopted the ability to cater to the diversity of the students because he had to
meet their individual needs. At some point he couldn’t reach the children with special needs because the
students hadn’t come out with their special needs and because of that he wasn’t able to solve their needs. It is
also difficult for a teacher to reach all the students with diverse needs in an inclusive classroom with
traditional teaching methods. On the other hand, he also needs some special education techniques to solve
the diversified needs of the students in an inclusive classroom.

It is evinced in this observation that there is a lack of special education techniques to promote an inclusive
classroom. It is a need of an hour to develop certain techniques among teachers in these traditional
classrooms with such special teaching techniques. Hence successful inclusive education should engage diverse
students with diverse instructional methodology, curriculum materials and assessment methods (Bateman &
Bateman, 2002; Hitchcock, 2002).

Conclusion

In conclusion we all want same basic things of life, decent and comfortable place to call home, something
meaningful to do during the day, some close with whom to share the good times and opportunity to make our
own decisions about things that will affect our personal lives. Students with disabilities also wants the same
basic things and increasing speaking up for themselves about the state they want and staff, family and states
agency professionals are beginning to listen so that they feel empowered in improving their lives.You can
create an inclusive setting for students with intellectual disabilities by using a variety of instructional methods
to meet the needs of your diverse learners. This is not only beneficial for students with special needs; it
benefits all students by providing different ways for students to succeed. Varying instructional methods can
mean changing the way the material is delivered, what materials are used, what end products are created, and
how students are assessed.Young learners with special needs are due the benefits of a full education, including
social studies. The impact of not meeting this goal can affect their abilities to become participatory citizens in
our democratic society. Just as students need instruction in learning to read and perform math computations,
they also need guidance in effective social studies instruction. Although educational legislation requires that
students with special needs be given the benefits of a full education, many teachers continue to struggle with
implementation. Diversity in today’s classrooms, as well as the lack of intensive professional development on
differentiation techniques, is a challenge that often impedes implementation. Reform in education is a slow
process resulting in few good models of differentiation implementation. We also hope that the instructional
strategies, lesson plans and other resources provided will be the impetus for teachers to try new
differentiation techniques in an effort to include young learners with special needs. The window of
opportunity to impact students’ values, beliefs and skills is at early ages and is often not regained once lost.
Recognizing the importance of social studies instruction for all students is a gift that teachers can give young
learners with special needs as well as society as a whole. Teachers are encouraged to share ideas and
techniques that they have tried to increase the body of knowledge for those interested in social studies
instruction for young learners with special needs.Many of the challenges are out of reach by students and
classroom teachers thus, raise a government concern to address the issue with total vigor. In terms of
limitations they are so many but the significant ones are inadequate of qualified teachers in sign language, lack
of learning and teaching facilities, lack of funds and overcrowded classrooms which set back the consideration
of special needs student in instruction time. Unless these limitations are dealt with amicably, otherwise
students cannot learn as required.

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