Competencies Critical to Teachers of Students with Hearing Impairments

Abstract

it is essential that the knowledge and skills acquired during the preparation program be those needed by future teachers once they are delivering services to students with hearing impairments. A national survey of teachers in nonintegrated classes in residential schools and day programs, teachers in integrated settings in regular public schools, and itinerant teachers who work in regular public schools but who travel from school to school was conducted to determine perceptions of the competencies most critical to their job. The results of this study suggest that there are many similarites and some important differences in teacher competencies across service delivery models.As a result of well-known state and federal mandates, the majority of hearing-impaired children and youth currently are educated in public schools attended by hearing students (Moores, 1987). According to a recent national report, approximately 79% of our nation's students with hearing impairments are being integrated into classrooms with normally hearing students on a part-time or full-time basis (U.S.

Successful Students Who Are Deaf in General Education Settings

“…the importance of family involvement (Bodner-Johnson & SassLehrer, 1999;Calderón, 2000) early identification and early intervention (Mayne, Yoshinaga-Itano, Sedey, & Carey, 2000;StredlerBrown & Arehart, 2000) collaboration among service providers (Luckner, 1991;Luckner & Denzin, 1998) good reading skills (Paul, 1998;Schirmer, 1994) high expectations (Palardy, 1997;Shalaway, 1998) involvement in extracurricular activities (Stewart & Stinson, 1992;Stewart & Kluwin, 2001) social skills (Coyner, 1993;Stinson & Whitmire, 1992) self-advocacy (English, 1997;Friend & Bursuck, 2002) planned use of a preteach-teachpostteach method of instruction (Conway, 1990;Luetke-Stahlman & Luckner, 199D motivation, or what is now being referred to in the literature as selfdetermination (Sands& Wehmeyer, 1996;Ward, 1998) However, it is the combination of individual factors that makes the research for the present study interesting and relevant for educators and families.…”

The Impact of a Collaborative Consultation Service Delivery Model for Rural Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students

“…While early literature reports that SLPs, regular education teachers and other staff are often unprepared and feel less than confident to meet the unique needs of children who are D/HH (Luckner, 1991;Montgomery, 1999;Powers & Schwilk, 1997), more recent research suggests that university preparation programs are beginning to address this topic (Houston, 2010;Wray & Flexer, 2010). Furthermore, research documents that regular educators and other personnel feel more comfortable and include more characteristics of effective instruction for D/HH students if in-service training and support are provided, particularly when the information provided is also applicable to hearing students (Gooden & Rogers, 2003).…”

Essential Skills in Diagnosis and Assessment for Beginning Teachers

“…The increasing number of studies appearing in the professional literature attests to the renewed interest educators have in establishing their own professional standards. Several examples include research related to the knowledge and skills required for teachers of children with hearing impairments (Luckner, 1991;Sass-Lehrer & Wolk, 1984) and for learning disabled and other mildly handicapped students (Bursuck & Epstein, 1986;Fox-Reid, 1982;Haight, 1985;Hudson, Morsink, Branscum, & Boone, 1987;Leigh & Patton, 1986;Newcomer, 1982).…”

“…These authors utilized the professional literature as their primary source of information, although they did note that validation of the competencies they identified should be the next step in demonstrating that the competencies do in fact affect student achievement. Another approach, which examined teacher perceptions of important competencies needed for serving students with hearing impairments, found a high level of consensus among teachers from a wide variety of teaching situations on 40 competency statements initially drawn from the professional literature and experts in the field (Luckner, 1991). In this study practitioners evaluated and ranked the competency statements drawn from the literature.…”