private or public insurance hospital school or domain

I recently had a call from a parent of a kindergarten student with hearing aids who was told by her private school that 1) the parent must pay for the FM/DM system and 2) that the child could not receive any special support for her learning needs due to the impact of the hearing loss. Like many parents she wanted to know if it was true that students in private or charter schools cannot receive special supports and services. The answer? Yes and No.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS – Some do, some don’t provide specialized services and supports

No private school can discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, in admissions or in hiring, or anything else; those that do would lose their non-profit status from the Internal Revenue Service.

Many students with disabilities attend private schools that are under contract with public and charter schools; these students retain their right to a “free and appropriate public education,” or FAPE, in a “least restrictive environment,” or LRE. If the private school accepts students with disabilities and agrees to provide specialized services and supports, then these services should be appropriate to meet the identified needs of the student. This would
include services by a teacher of the deaf/hard of hearing, speech language pathologist, and/or educational audiologist whenever needed to meet appropriate IEP goals or supports, like selection and fitting of hearing assistance technology (HAT).

When families are seeking private school placement, they may be told that the school does not provide any special education services, meaning that if they choose to enroll their child in such a private school, they will be waiving the right to LRE and IEP services. If a family chooses to forego the services offered by their public schools, required by their Individualized Education Plan, and opts for a “parental placement” for their child instead, they also give up FAPE and LRE.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, private schools must provide “auxiliary aids and services” to students with disabilities who are otherwise qualified for admission, so long as these accommodations would not change the fundamental nature of the program or result in significant difficulty or expense. The clause about expense is why many parents of children in private schools must pay for HAT equipment for their child rather than having the school bear this expense.

Additional requirements under the ADA follow if the school receives public funds (such as through a state voucher program). In that case, schools cannot exclude a voucher participant based on disability if, “with minor adjustments,” such a student could reasonably participate in the private school’s education program. Religiously-controlled schools are exempted from these ADA requirements unless they receive federal funding.

SOURCE:   https://www.educationnext.org/private-schools-allowed-discriminate/

CHARTER SCHOOLS – All do, with the same expectations for appropriate services and supports

Section 504 requires charter schools to conduct any recruitment activities and provide the opportunity to apply to a charter school on an equal basis. During the admissions process, a charter school may not ask a prospective student if he or she has a disability. Limited exceptions include that, if a school is chartered to serve students with a specific disability, the school may ask prospective students if they have that disability. When a student with a disability is admitted to and enrolls in a charter school, the student is entitled to FAPE under Section 504. After enrollment, a charter school may ask if a student has a disability, which includes, whether a student has an individualized education program (IEP) or Section 504 plan.

The primary purpose of the IDEA Part B program is for States and school districts to make FAPE available to eligible children with disabilities and to ensure that IDEA’s rights and protections are afforded to eligible children and their parents. Under IDEA, all students with disabilities, including charter school students with disabilities, must receive FAPE through the provision of special education and related services in a properly-developed IEP.

A charter school may not unilaterally limit the services it will provide a particular student with a disability. The responsible charter school LEA, or the LEA that includes the charter school, must provide a program of FAPE for the student in the least restrictive environment (LRE) in which the student’s IEP can be implemented.

States must ensure that charter school LEAs and LEAs that include charter schools meet all their responsibilities under Part B of IDEA, including the LRE requirements. In this context, the LRE provisions require that, to the maximum extent appropriate to their needs, students with disabilities attending public charter schools be educated with nondisabled students.

SOURCE: https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/dcl-factsheet-201612-504-charter-school.pdf

PARENTS HAVE CHOICES

The typically smaller class sizes and high expectations of private schools are attractive to many families as their children with hearing aids or cochlear implants can perform age-appropriate work, but struggle in large group listening environments. Yet most young children with hearing loss continue to require specialized supports and services, such as work on auditory skill development, language, self-advocacy, and social communication, especially in the first years of elementary school. Private schools may or may not provide any of these supports. Charter schools can provide more creative environments or specialized themes that may suit a student with hearing loss. If families choose to go the charter school route, then they must be very involved in IEP planning and discussions of needed supports and accommodations. Whatever specialized services would be expected in a public school should also be provided in a charter school. Public schools may struggle to extend the staff and supports needed so that all students under their jurisdiction will receive appropriate services. A fully involved IEP team, including families, can make well-informed placement decisions for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

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A recent US court case¹ made it clear that students with hearing loss must receive an eligibility assessment that identifies areas of suspected need secondary to hearing loss must be evaluated with sufficient intensity to satisfy in depth evaluation. The special factors considerations² also need to be applied throughout the evaluation process. Furthermore, the LEAD-K³ movement has spotlighted the need for appropriate, tailored assessment of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.  The big question from the field of education for children with hearing loss is ‘What assessments should we be using?’

The IDEA law is consistent about looking at educational performance needs when considering a student’s eligibility for specialized instruction and support. Educational performance is not equivalent to academic performance. While academic performance needs to be considered, it is no more important to consider than the other areas specified by IDEA which are functional, behavioral, social needs and any other performance considerations relevant to the specific child. If a school team only considers grades for eligibility then they are using a sole criterion, which goes against the IDEA requirement that eligibility determinations be made with consideration of at-risk areas as determined by the suspected area of disability.

Our students with hearing loss may ‘look fine’ in the classroom, yet we realize that there are usually subtle differences/needs that, added together, cause academic performance to erode over time. Even ‘good’ students with hearing loss can qualify IF there is someone on the multidisciplinary team who truly understands the impact of hearing loss on development AND uses appropriate assessments to use to tailor the evaluation process to the risk areas of students with hearing loss. Teachers of the deaf/hard of hearing and educational audiologists should have/receive the training needed to feel comfortable in assessment.

The defined purpose of IDEA⁴: To ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free and appropriate education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living. Performance of the expanded core skills needed for full participation (self-advocacy, communication repair, knowledge about hearing loss, amplification independence, etc.) are necessary for a student to be fully prepared to function as an adult. These are NOT standard areas of evaluation for other students with special needs, but they must be considered as part of a tailored assessment for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

LIST OF RECOMMENDED ASSESSMENTS: The list includes recommendations for both functional and formal assessments for ages 3-5 years and school-age students. In evaluations, it is appropriate to look closely at social/emotional, self-advocacy, and the possibly subtle phonological/morphological awareness and ‘Swiss cheese’ language skills that impact comprehension and reading fluency.

Low average language results reflect the impact of hearing loss, not capability. So often for our students, qualification for specialized instructional services hinges on the results of language assessment. A study⁵ found that 40% of students with hearing loss have a capacity for higher language levels beyond what test scores indicate. Further⁶, language learning for students with hearing loss occurs on average at 70%, or just above 2/3, of the rate of children with normal hearing. It is appropriate to anticipate that most children with hearing loss upon school entry will have some delay in expressive and/or receptive language, with greater degrees of hearing loss predicting greater levels of language delay. Also, the nature of hearing loss causes incidental language to be missed whenever a child is further away from about 3-6 feet of the speaker. This typically results in ‘spotty’ or ‘Swiss cheese’ language rather than solid overarching language delays. A student may therefore score higher than his or her actual functional language ability, based on the actual questions asked during the assessment and the individual’s particular vocabulary or conceptual knowledge.

One strong finding from the robust 2015 Outcomes of Children with Hearing Loss Study⁷ was that normative test scores overestimate the abilities of children who are hard of hearing as they are unlikely to reflect the level of effort that students are expending to maintain competitiveness with peers. Although 80%⁸ of children born deaf in the developed world receive cochlear implants, the success rate with cochlear implants is highly variable and cannot be assumed to ever ‘fix’ all language development issues, even for children with the best outcomes. We must consistently communicate with our school teams that students with hearing loss are not language disordered. Language, social, and reading delays occur secondary to lifelong decreased access to communication.

EVERY student with hearing loss who is going through initial assessment needs to have cognitive testing in order to accurately and appropriately estimate if/how much the hearing loss has impacted development based on the student’s ability compared to peers with typical hearing.⁹ Students with hearing loss (DHH-only) experience delays secondary to access issues. It is important to know the cognitive ability of each student with hearing loss as their communication access needs must be accommodated so that they reach the same level of achievement as their cognitive peers.

Although testing is performed in a few weeks’ time, evaluation isn’t just about a snap shot, it is about performance over time. Case in point, we received a call from a parent of a 5^th grader who is hard of hearing. The child had an IEP in kindergarten and grade 1 and was then dismissed. By the end of grade 4 the reading scores had decreased. The school team wasn’t concerned because the student ‘wasn’t very bad yet.’  Time should be taken to consider the percentile scores on reading across time to see if there has been a decline.  When looking at eligibility, dig into prior testing and see if there is evidence of declining percentile ranking in test results over time. For example, in grade 2 did the child score at the 48^th percentile in reading as compared to the 26^th percentile in grade 4? A public agency must provide a child with a disability special education and related services to enable him or her to progress in the general curriculum. The fact that there is a decline indicates that there are special needs that have not been addressed for the student. Access needs and/or deficits in specific skills foundational to reading comprehension would then need to be identified.

Sometimes administrators make the point that schools must provide educational benefit for students but do not have to guarantee that the student reaches his or her potential. Per the March 2017 decision of the US Supreme Court, schools may not settle for minimal educational progress by disabled students. Educational programs must be reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances. In the case of students with hearing loss, the expectation would be to provide full access to school communication and specialized instruction to fill in learning gaps PLUS support typical/expected levels of progress in the classroom. Therefore, evaluation must be tailored to identify the access, learning, and functional performance needs of every student with hearing loss so that they can progress equal to their cognitive peers.

References

1. 1. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, June 1, 2018, S.P. v. East Whittier City School District: https://successforkidswithhearingloss. com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Court-case-RE-need-for-thorough-assessment-highlighted.pdf
2. 2. IDEA section 300.324(2)(iv): Consider the communication needs of the child, and in the case of a child who is deaf or hard of hearing, consider the child’s language and communication needs, opportunities for direct communications with peers and professional personnel in the child’s language and communication mode, academic level, and full range of needs, including opportunities for direct instruction in the child’s language and communication mode.
3. 3. LEAD-K: Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids. https://successforkidswithhearingloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Court-case-RE-need-for-thorough-assessment-highlighted.pdf
4. 4. The 2004 IDEA Commentary provides an overall ‘setting the stage’ for the IDEA law; on this webpage.
5. 5. Language underperformance in young children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing: are the expectations too low? Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. September 19, 2017. Results² focused on children with hearing loss who have language levels within the average range on standardized measures. Researchers identified a mismatch between the cognitive level children test at and the expectations for their language skills. In examining the abilities of their 152 young child subjects they found that at least 40 percent have a capacity for higher language levels – beyond what their language test scores indicate.
6. 6. The Effect of IQ on spoken language and speech perception development in children with impaired hearing. Cochlear Implants International, (11)1, June, 370-74. A 2010 study³ found that children were learning language at approximately 2/3 of the rate (or 70% of the rate) of their normally hearing peers. Subjects were 62 children ages 5-12 years who used oral communication and attended oral early intervention or school settings. Children in preschool learned language at a faster rate than children attending primary school. On average, children attending preschool were learning at 0.78 of the rate for normal hearing children as compared to a rate of 0.67 for students in primary school. Speech perception scores did not plateau until children had, on average, the language ability of a typically hearing 7-year-old.
7. 7. Epilogue: Conclusions and Implications for Research and Practice. Ear and Hearing, 36, 92S-98S. Sole reliance on norm-referenced scores may overestimate the outcomes ofCHH. When the children who are hard of hearing (CHH) were compared with the norm-referenced group on various measures, the differences were small. However, when compared the CHH to a sample of CNH who were matched on age and SES, the size of the effect of HL on language doubled to two thirds of a standard deviation. These results question the sole reliance on comparison to norm-referenced test scores for judging eligibility. Standardized test scores may overestimate CHH as they are unlikely to reflect the level of effort that students are expending (cognitive and perceptual resources) to maintain competitiveness with peers in secondary schooling, where the cognitive demands increase. We need to closely monitor the outcomes of CHH including comparing their performance relative to neighborhood grade-mates. Many CHH in the OCHL study represent the best-case scenario. We might expect that a sample with greater diversity on these dimensions would not perform as well as the OCHL cohort
8. Language acquisition for deaf children: Reducing the harms of zero tolerance to the use of alternative approaches. Harm Reduction Journal, 2012, 9-16. Today, 80% of children born deaf in the developed world are implanted with cochlear devices. Due to brain plasticity changes during early childhood, children who have not acquired a first language in the early years might never be completely fluent in any language. If they miss this critical period for exposure to a natural language, their subsequent development of the cognitive activities that rely on a solid first language might be underdeveloped, such as literacy, memory organization, and number manipulation.
9. Addressing the Need for Appropriate Use of Norm-Referenced Test Instruments. Supporting Success, December 2017.

Karen L. Anderson, PhD, Director, Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss; 2019 Early March Update.
This information is not intended as legal advice.  http://successforkidswithhearingloss.com

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With only 1:100 IEPs for students eligible for specialized instruction due to hearing loss, the access issues secondary to being deaf or hard of hearing are often unrecognized or minimized.  The unique needs of students with hearing loss may not be thoroughly recognized in the administrative testing policies, requiring us to advocate so that students who are DHH are tested fairly for their knowledge, and not their inability to fully perceive the test items.

Test accommodations are changes made in the test presentation or response method so that students can demonstrate what they know about the content without changing the content of what is intended to be measured. Valid accommodations produce scores for students with disabilities that measure the same attributes as standard assessments measured in non-disabled students.

The purpose of accommodations is to ‘level the playing field’, thereby improving access to the material presented in instruction and to ensure accurate assessment of student knowledge of the test material. Many students use accommodations that are commonly used by other students with special needs, such as extended time, and also use accommodations that fit the unique communication and learning needs of this population. Standardized, high-stakes testing presumes a certain level of English proficiency that is not necessarily appropriate for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. High-stakes tests have a highly verbal aspect, therefore, students with restricted language skills are at a distinct disadvantage. When expressive and receptive language levels and modalities used by students with hearing loss are considered, and how these may differ significantly from those of English-based hearing students, the need for accommodations becomes even more apparent. Reading is auditorilly based and learning to read at the same rate and to the same level of peers is often challenging. Students who are deaf/hard of hearing may be one or more years delayed in reading as compared to their typically hearing classmates. Often, decisions about what accommodations are necessary are made by IEP team members without an adequate understanding of, or training in, the impact of hearing loss on interaction and performance.

Access to instruction is much more than identifying if your students can hear/see what the teacher is presenting. The instructional language level used by teachers is often 1.5 grades above the student grade level, making it especially difficult for students with hearing loss who have a 6 month or more delay to fully comprehend what the teacher is saying. Access to instruction also includes thinking about the language used in the environmental print in the classroom, use of figurative language, and the language level used in textbooks. The language that the student must understand to be able to complete assignments is also a factor.

Questions to answer about student access during test taking when planning for appropriate accommodations:

1. Is the student able to access the test materials as effectively as peers without hearing loss?

2. Is the student able to demonstrate content knowledge via a variety of test formats?

3. Is the student able to respond accurately to a variety of test questions (wh-questions, compare/contrast, summarize, etc.)?

4. Can the student organize thoughts and use appropriate grammar, spelling and mechanics to clearly communicate ideas via essay-type questions?

5. Does the student budget time to allow completion of all test items?

In response to issues identified when answering the questions above, IEP teams should determine changes necessary to ‘level the playing field’ for each student who is deaf or hard of hearing.

Timing/Scheduling Changes to when the assessment is given

Setting Changes to where the assessment is given

Administration Changes to how the assessment is given

Presentation Format Changes to how the assessment is given

Response Format Changes to how a student responds to the assessment

Other Use of dictionaries/word lists/glossaries

Assessment accommodations uniquely relevant to students who are deaf or hard of hearing may include the following. Accommodations should be used in classroom instruction prior to testing to ensure that the construct measured is the content area rather than the student’s ability to use the accommodation.

• Repeating directions (including with or without a proficient ASL interpreter)
• Simplifying directions (including with or without a proficient ASL interpreter)
• DVD with video or without video
• Amplified audio recordings/auditory presentations
• Video or streaming video of visual communication (i.e., ASL)
• Response in sign language with a scribe
• Augmentative, assistive, or adaptive technology
• Computer-based, or computer-assisted testing

Accommodations are not mutually exclusive; students may use only one accommodation, or they may use many, depending upon their unique educational context and preferences. Additional factors influence accommodation patterns and effects including the student’s age, written English proficiency, and accommodation quality (i.e., interpreter proficiency or appropriateness of hearing assistance technology). Take time to review the extensive handout from NICHCY on Assessment & Accommodation found on the Accommodations webpage under Planning to Meet Student Needs in the Professional Resources section. It provides information on the big picture, deciding which accommodations a student needs, types of accommodations and more. Accommodations for Students with Hearing Loss.

Increasingly, high stakes testing requires listening to content presented on a computer. What do you need to do to make this type of testing accessible to the student with hearing loss? The webpage Connecting Hearing Devices to Computers or iPads provides extensive suggestions for ways that a student can listen effectively through a computer or iPad, including through streaming or Bluetooth systems, headphones or the use of silhouettes. Be sure to look through this information to be sure that you have really addressed all your student’s computer access needs!

It is a tremendous challenge to make peer discussion fully accessible to students with hearing loss due to the distance, noise and multiple talker issues. No technology at this point handles access to peers well. Although there are pass around microphone available to use with FM systems, these options are often under-used by most teachers. Access to instruction, including peer discussion, still relies on the classroom teacher keeping in mind that special consideration is needed by the student with hearing loss.

The Access to Instruction Checklist in the Teacher Tools Materials Just for Members Library is useful for discussing the different aspects of instructional access with teachers, and results in a score that can be interpreted to mean the level of necessity for accommodations and adaptations. This checklist is also in Chapter 7 of Building Skills for Success in the Fast-Paced Classroom, which deals with Instructional Access throughout the chapter.

Resources

• Leppo, R., Cawthon, S.W, & M.P. Bond (2013). Including Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students with Co-occurring Disabilities in the Accommodations Discussion. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 19: 2, 189-202.

• Case, B.J. (2005). Accommodations to Improve Instruction and Assessment of Students Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. Pearson Policy Report.

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How Much Service???

Guidance via the Hearing Itinerant Services Rubric

Every child’s needs must be considered individually to determine the frequency and intensity of services to provide a free and appropriate education. That said, how do you decide if a child receives 30 minutes of DHH teacher time 3 times a week or if it is appropriate to provide monthly consultation? It is all too easy for budgetary restrictions to determine service provision unless you have a means to systematically consider the relevant factors and make a logic-based decision about the appropriate amount of service. The leadership and DHH staff at the Special Education District of Lake County, just outside of Chicago IL, worked for an extended time to craft a rubric to assist them in determining appropriate levels of DHH service.

As you will see, many varying factors are considered within the 3-page

Hearing Itinerant Services Rubric. Of course, individual child issues or circumstances need to be carefully considered as well as the rubric recommendations, but use of this Service Rubric may provide the evidence basis needed for justification of appropriate levels of service to meet student needs – academic, class participation and expanded core skill development.
Thanks much to the leadership of Lori Degman and the DHH staff at SEDOL for sharing this resource!

Another matrix for service determinationhas been made available from the Michigan Department of Education – Low Incidence Outreach.
Go here to view

Educational Impact for Student who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing and for more background on this resource.
Thanks to the Michigan Department of Education Low Incidence Outreach for creating this valuable resource!

Service Delivery Guide for Educating Students Who are Deaf and Low Functioning was developed by Region 4, Houston Texas in 2016. As the title indicates, this matrix is different from the others as it is specific to students who are Deaf-plus.

Specially Designed Instruction for Students with Auditory Impairments is a 1-page summary of the areas of specially designed instruction that should be considered for students with hearing loss. The page lists the areas of Language, Communication, Cognition, Literacy, Academic Concepts, and Social-Emotional. For each area the impact on content/skills, teaching methodology, and delivery are listed. Thanks to the folks in Region 4, Houston Texas for their creativity in developing this resource.

Iowa Expanded Core Curriculum Skills also has an extensive bulleted list of expectations of 4 levels of skill development.

K-12 ASL Content Standards developed by the Clerc Center at Gallaudet University. The ASL Content Standards help for planning and monitoring ASL development in children who are deaf or hard of hearing visual communicators.

Charts: Model of Service Delivery + Response to Intervention Supports for Children with Hearing Loss

Models of Support Services (availability of services from an itinerant teacher of the deaf/hard of hearing)

The information below has been derived from sections of the law, Office of Special Education Program comments and discussion provided at the
U.S. Department of Education’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The guidance provided in this website helps clarify the intent of IDEA and may be useful to professionals and parents alike who are trying to advocate appropriate services and supports for children with hearing loss.

Who should provide services?

In order to provide appropriate intervention to meet IEP goals, service providers must have the knowledge and experience of what services to provide and specific teaching strategies to address these needs. Children with hearing loss have learning issues secondary to reduced access, not due to learning disorders. While they may have attention, language, reading and other issues that appear similar to students with disordered learning, the teaching strategies to address these issues are often different, requiring a background in deaf/hard of hearing education. Refer to the following handouts:

Why Involve the Teacher of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing?

Comparison of Roles in Supporting Students with Hearing Loss

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NOTE: the information below this does NOT constitute legal advice.

Be sure you are also aware of ADA requirements that schools ensure that communication is as effective for children with hearing loss as for other students. Read more on the 504/ADA page.

Defining Hearing Loss

NOTE: State may have different definitions of hearing loss categories. State definitions typically provide more specificity to assist teams in determining which students to determine eligible for specialized instruction.

As defined by IDEA: Deafness means a hearing impairment so severe that a child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

As defined by IDEA: Hearing impairment means an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance but is not included under the definition of “deafness.”

The term adverse educational effect does NOT mean that a child has to be failing in school to receive special education and related services. According to IDEA, states must make a free appropriate public education available to “any individual child with a disability who needs special education and related services, even if the child has not failed or been retained in a course or grade, and is advancing from grade to grade.” [§300.101(c)(1)]. The OSEP clarified that “it remains the department’s position that the term ‘educational performance’ as used in the IDEA and its implementing regulations is not limited to academic performance. Whether a speech and language impairment adversely affects a child’s educational performance must be determined on a case-by-case basis, depending upon the unique needs of a particular child and not based only on discrepancies in age or grade performance in academic subject areas (Section 614(b)(2)(A) of IDEA and the final regulations at 34 CFR Section 200.304(b) state that in conducting an evaluation, the public agency must use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental and academic information..”  Functional and developmental information for D/HH children includes consideration of expanded core curriculum areas that include such topics as self-advocacy, speaking/listening skills, ASL, etc.

Special Considerations – only for children with Hearing Loss

Unlike the other 12 categories of special education disabilities, the IEP teams of children who are deaf or hard of hearing are held responsible by IDEA for taking the following into consideration:

iv) Consider the communication needs of the child, and in the case of the child who is deaf or hard of hearing, consider the language and communication needs, opportunities for direct communication with peers and professional personnel in the child’s language and communication mode, academic level, and full range of needs, including opportunities for direct instruction in the child’s language and communication mode, and (v) Consider whether the child requires assistive communication devices and services. 34 CFR 303.324(2)

Thus, the “basic floor of educational opportunity” begins with equitable access to communication so what is being taught can get through – so he has the same opportunity to learn as any typical child does.

What if a child with hearing loss is made ineligible for specialized support?

The local education agency (school or district) is accountable for children it finds ineligible for special education and/or 504 supports. If those students do NOT make adequate progress – defined as one year’s growth in one year’s time – parents can take legal action to prove the school’s liability which could result in an award of compensatory damages for the family.*

 In Deal v. Hamilton Board of Education (6th Circuit, 2004), the court ruled that “meaningful educational benefit must be gauged by the child’s potentialities.” The takeaway message is to know what the student’s potential is – not necessarily her maximum potential, but a level of achievement that is measured in context to her ability to become proficient with the standards that have been identified for her grade level. Since IDEA requires that the IEP be reasonably calculated to enable children in mainstreamed settings to achieve passing marks and pass from grade to grade, it can be construed that passing from year to year assumes a child is, at the very least, making one year’s growth in one year. This points to the crucial information the IEP team must have about the student’s cognitive ability, and the instructional strategies and communication access supports that will succeed in delivering the curriculum so that she can benefit meaningfully from her education.*

*From: Johnson, DesGeorges, & Seaver (2013). Educational Advocacy for Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. Hands & Voices, CO.

Schools are responsible for ensuring effective communication

For more information go to the Accommodations via a 504 Plan and/or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) webpage.

 MATERIALS TO SHARE WITH THE SCHOOL ADA COORDINATOR OR TEAM

• Background information for administrators, ADA coordinators, families: Cascading Impact of Hearing Loss on Access to School Communication
• Accessibility Considerations worksheet (ADA) for Students with Hearing Loss

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