This morning I was very fortunate to attend a training session designed by Grainne Boyle at Insights, and her fabulous team. An empowering discussion about children’s needs in the classroom, for a learning barrier which is more common than we know, and very underrepresented.
One outcome from today is a social media platform for discussion. Please get in touch with me if you would like to join and/or continue the conversation.
I learned loads this morning, but my big takeaways are:
- child assessments need to be conducted in settings fully equipped with specialist equipment
- if you ask a child with hearing loss ‘did you hear?’ the automatic response is often ‘yes’ and there is a need to build resilience to be honest
- the power of ensuring we face the student when talking
- that the combination of hearing and seeing (visuals) in learning is a perfect combination for ALL children
- children struggling to hear will show it in their eyes
- allowing time for students to have down time, turn off their devices, and ‘zone out’ is vital
- acoustics in a class play a vital part of enabling students
Hilal talked us through the terms Deaf and Hard of Hearing, different types and levels of hearing loss, how to read an audiogram, how to identify children who may be struggling with hearing loss and how to support with interventions, accommodations and recommendations.
We then heard an empowering talk from Ensaf Saleem, at Vienna. She demonstrated different pieces of technology from an array of different microphones and speakers, which amplify speech and would enable engagement of students in the learning during teacher talk, group work and sports.
We also had the opportunity to pose questions to Sarah Darwish, a specialist paediatric Audiologist in Dubai.
The event was supported by Dubai British School Jumeirah Park, Ensaf Saleem an Audiologist and specialist in Assistive Listening Devices (from Vienna Hearing), and Hilal Kara Ali, who flew in from Misk Schools, in Riyadh.
grainne boyle
hilal kara ali
ensaf saleem
sarah darwish
