Assistive Hearing Technologies Among Students With Hearing Impairment: Factors That Promote Satisfaction

Abstract

Hearing technology can play an essential part in the education of deaf and hard-of-hearing children in inclusive schools. Few studies have examined these children's experiences with this technology. This article explores factors pertaining to children's use of and attitudes toward hearing technologies, such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, teacher-worn microphones, and student-worn microphones. The study included 153 deaf and hard-of-hearing students. All students communicated orally and were in inclusive schools from grades 5-10. The results suggest that males view hearing technology more positively than do females. Having severe hearing loss also promoted positive attitudes toward hearing aids and cochlear implants, but not toward microphones. The students with positive self-descriptions tended to be more satisfied with hearing aids or cochlear implants than the students with negative self-descriptions. The main factors promoting the use of hearing aids were severe hearing loss, positive attitudes toward hearing aids, and the sound quality of hearing aids.

Functional hearing in the classroom: assistive listening devices for students with hearing impairment in a mainstream school setting

“…significant predictor of device uptake, especially in teenagers (Cienkowski & Pimentel, 2001;Cameron et al, 2008). Often a host of personal and environmental factors, such as stigma, peer acceptance and self-perception of normality can impact whether a specific technology type is adopted (Eriks-Brophy et al, 2006;Rekkedal, 2012). Previous research has indicated that invisible or less visible ALDs are preferred to visible ones (Luckner & Muir, 2001;Cameron et al, 2008).…”

“…The benefit provided by soundfield systems is not restricted to only students with hearing impairment. Implementation of soundfield systems can also improve the listening environment for students with normal hearing, and have the added advantage of not drawing unwanted attention to children with hearing impairment (Rosenberg et al, 1999;Rekkedal, 2012). Additionally, soundfield systems have been shown to be of assistance to teachers, resulting in reduced vocal fatigue and vocal strain (Rosenberg et al, 1999).…”

“…Utilisation of ALDs in the classroom also plays an essential part in ensuring the inclusivity of students with hearing impairment (Luckner & Muir, 2001;Eriks-Brophy et al, 2006). Despite their benefits, there are often a number of different psychosocial factors that affect uptake and usage of ALDs (Rekkedal, 2012). In particular, social stigma, low self-esteem and cosmetic appearance have been identified as crucial determinants that can affect user satisfaction and can lead to irregular usage of these technologies (Cienkowski & Pimentel, 2001;Rekkedal, 2012).…”

A Commentary on the Current and Future Status of Educational and Developmental Psychology in Australia

“…Various assistive technologies are making significant changes to the life experiences and opportunities for individuals with learning disabilities (Heiman & Shemesh, 2012), severe to profound intellectual impairments (Lancioni, Sigafoos, O'Reilly, & Singh, 2013), hearing (Rekkedal, 2012) and vision impairments (Kelly, 2011), as well as those with functional declines in later life (Sellers & Markham, 2012). Both traditional and newly developed psycho-educational assessments are now available electronically, and technology has enabled other instruments to be modified for use with children with significant motor impairments (Warschausky et al, 2012).…”

EyeSchool: An Educational Assistive Technology for People with Disabilities - Passing from Single Actors to Multiple-Actor Environment

“…Literature about the manner in which students with disabilities, and in general, people with disabilities are using assistive or "adapted" new technologies also tends to cluster around specific impairments, as visual [1], [4], hearing [7], physical or cognitive ones [3]. We use the term "adapted technologies" in order to designate the mainstream technologies whose uses were adapted to the needs of people with disabilities, for instance the general environment of Windows requiring special settings for people with visual impairments, etc.…”