Re: teacher's opinion on in class services

October 5, 2005

In a message dated 10/5/2005 10:25:52 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

lisak555@... writes:

Anyway, I learned from the audi that the teacher does not see the need for

an FM but understands she must use it if it's in the IEP. She feels that he

hears fine in the classroom.

I still hear this all the time. I've always heard this about our son from

everyone, family, teachers, anyone and everyone. It is the result of the coping

skills that our D/HOH kids develop to get along. Ian is now in high school

and his English teacher voiced this at open house, wondering why a kid like

Ian (bright and capable) needed any services at all. I took the time to explain

why and told her that without the FM (and TOD) he would not be keeping up

and doing so well. I gave her a brief history on the kinds of language

acquisition issues Ian has dealt with since 6th grade. She was surprised but

acknowledged that it all made sense. Being HOH is an odd thing for people to

understand.

But there is another component here, in my opinion it is the teacher

resistance to D/HOH related services. I found that overall elementary teachers

wanted to behavior-modify or remediate away my son's hearing loss. Which is, of

course, impossible. Their proof of this potential to get along without services

was his ability to speak clearly and to lip read. Neither is proof of

anything except his ability to develop coping skills.

<<The teacher seems to be a very controling and rigid person and she likes

things just so. I think she's disturbed when she doesn't feel in control. I

believe she expressed to the audi that she wants a chance to see what she can

do with on her own. >>

This could be describing our experience with elementary teachers. There was

almost a territorial response to having a TOD involved with our son. The

classroom teacher and the SpecEd teacher felt they could do what Ian needed. Our

argument was they couldn't and we were not going to experiment with our son's

education but letting an untrained teacher " give it a try. " As for the FM,

we had to fight everyone to get it into place. All those people with

absolutely no experience with D/HOH kids had strong opinions on what he

needed.

Once Ian was in the middle school, the teachers had a completely different

attitude. The teachers for the upper grades seem to be a different breed. They

were welcoming, cooperative and supportive.

<<I just feel like I need someone with the hard of hearing experience in

there to consult with the teacher. >>

Stick to your guns about what needs. And definitely get someone in

there to consult with the teacher. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't. She may

simply be one of those teachers who should never have an inclusion class of any

sort because she simply cannot deal with it. We had one of those for Ian

when he was in 4th grade. In retrospect I wish I had forced a classroom change.

If you feel in your gut that this teacher is not going to cooperative and

will fight or undermine 's services, then I'd suggest having his class

changed to someone without control issues. Like I said, in retrospect, it is

what

I should have done for Ian in 4th grade rather than spending most of the

year trying to work with that teacher.

Better to do it now at the beginning of the year than to suddenly find

yourself in April and realizing it's been a wasted year (like we did).

Best -- Jill

October 5, 2005