Recommended Books

Daily life with three children out of school for the summer plus a summer full of continued school district meetings, preparations, emails, letters, and worries have me struggling to complete my next story for this blog.

I just met another parent this week who was unsure of the importance of advocating for the listening needs of their child in school. Apparently their child is feeling too embarrassed to use the FM system but is still getting As and Bs. Why not just leave well enough alone?

While I try to get over my hump with my next story to be able to more fully answer that “why not just leave well enough alone” question that I have heard so many times, please let me share these three books that I highly recommend for parents whose children depend on their technology-aided listening abilities.

Sound Field Amplification: Application to Speech Perception and Classroom Acoustics, 2nd Edition
By Carl Crandell, PhD, Joseph Smaldino, PhD, and Carol Flexer, PhD
2005 Thomson Delmar Learning

If you simply read Chapter 1 “Rationale for the Use of Sound Field Systems in Classrooms”, this will help give you a better understanding of the critical importance of your child’s listening in the classroom.

Some quotes from chapter 1:

“If children cannot consistently and clearly hear the teacher, the major premise of the educational system is undermined.”

“Even in a front-row center seat, the loss of critical speech information is noteworthy for a child who needs accurate date entry to learn. The most sophisticated of hearing aids or cochlear implants cannot recreate those components of the speech signal that have been lost in transmission across the physical space of the classroom.”

“Hearing is a first-order event in a mainstream classroom. If a child cannot clearly hear spoken instruction, the entire premise of the educational system is undermined. Due to poor acoustic conditions and a variety of hearing and attending problems, there are millions of children who are being denied an appropriate education.”

Facilitating Hearing and Listening in Young Children
By Carol Flexer, PhD
1994 Singular Publishing Group, Inc.

This is an old book now, but it has an awesome couple of pages in chapter 1 on the subject of incidental learning and its impact on language, academic and social/emotional development. Not enough has been written for parents on this subject of incidental learning. In my experience, most parents are simply not aware and not educated regarding the vital nature of incidental learning to their children.

On page 14: “Beware of underestimating the barrier that any type and degree of hearing impairment presents to the casual acquisition of information from the environment (Ross, 1991)"

The Human Right to Language: Communication Access for Deaf Children
By Lawrence M. Siegel
2008 Gallaudet University Press

Once you understand the communication and language that your child is missing due to poor classroom acoustics, inadequate amplification, etc., this is a book to spark your passion for advocacy.

We would never accept the isolation of a student with a physical mobility disability by telling that student to stop at the classroom doorway and try to participate in the classroom instruction from that distant location. We would never accept turning down the lights on a student with vision disability who depends on adequate lighting. Why then do we continue to accept the isolation of our children with hearing loss when we provide them incomplete access to the vital communications of their classroom teacher and classroom peers?

From the back cover of the book:

“In 1982, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Amy Rowley, a deaf six-year old, was not entitled to have a sign language interpreter in her public school classroom. Lawrence M. Siegel wholeheartedly disagrees with this decision in these pages. Instead, he contends that the United States Constitution should protect every deaf and hard of hearing child’s right to communication and language as part of an individual’s right to liberty. Siegel argues that when a deaf or hard of hearing child sits alone in a crowded classroom and is unable to access the rich and varied communication about her, the child is denied any chance of success in life.”