20: Explaining Our Job To Other People
I recorded this episode to help explain what it is we do as an itinerant Teacher of the Deaf. This episode primarily discussed supporting auditory oral students in the mainstream. My goal is that this helps give some language for TODs to use when explaining their role to others!
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transcript episode 20: What does the itinerant tod do? (auditory oral)
Hello and welcome to the TOD POD, a podcast to support itinerant teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing, SLPs, and other Deaf Education Professionals. I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fun and today we're talking about explaining the role of the TOD to other people. So here's the deal, I know you as the teacher the deaf listening to this, know what you do. But for a long time I struggled explaining this to other people around me. So this episode is here to provide some language and some clarity to help when you need to explain to other professionals, parents, or districts exactly like what it is you do and how it's different from other professionals.
I'm going to start with explaining the areas we cover and then go into specific comparisons with other professionals namely the SLP, the special ed teacher, and the audiologist. For this episode I'm going to specifically be talking about itinerant TODs who support students using primarily listening and spoken language in mainstream settings. Meaning Teachers of the Deaf who work with students in a DHH program, whether it be signing or oral, are going to have slightly different roles and responsibilities as the classroom teacher. So this is really specific to itinerant TODs. Alright, let's jump right in.
The role of the itinerant teacher of the deaf can be broken down into 3 areas: accessibility, language and auditory development, and self-advocacy. Let's start with accessibility, this is probably the biggest one, the one I have the most to talk about. What does it mean to make a learning environment accessible to a student with hearing loss? It's the role of the TOD to educate and consult with the classroom teachers to provide an accessible learning environment for the student with hearing loss. We can provide in-services at the beginning of the year which is a presentation that provides classroom teachers with information on educational strategies. Some classroom teachers have never had a student with hearing loss or cochlear implants or hearing aids, and they need information on the hearing equipment and on specific strategies they can use to help their students. Some of these strategies include but are not limited to preferential seating, repeating and rephrasing information, providing many exposures to vocabulary and information, using visual supports, checking for comprehension, minimizing background noise, and correctly utilizing the hearing equipment.
Additionally, a Teacher of the Deaf can monitor the classroom acoustics to ensure that learning is accessible for a deaf and hard of hearing student who primarily learns through listening. She might recommend physical changes such as carpeting, sound panels, or sound reducers for chairs. She can also offer educational suggestions such as closing the classroom door, seating the child away from background noise, reducing background noise as much as possible. Since typical schools are not designed for children with hearing loss, the TOD can evaluate the listening environment and make suggestions. Often these suggestions have the benefit of reducing background noise which benefits everyone honestly. For a child who uses hearing aids or cochlear implants or another type of device, their devices need to be working every single day in order for them to have access to their learning environment. For younger students, usually the TOD trains someone in the building. Sometimes a nurse, sometimes a para, to check the equipment daily through an LMH 10 listening check or similar. When the TOD is there she checks it also and is available for basic troubleshooting of the equipment. TODs are often the only professional in the building with any experience with hearing aids or cochlear implants. And therefore play an important role in maintaining the equipment. The Teacher of the Deaf often works with the educational audiologist to solve equipment issues, more on that later. It is important to make sure that auditory information is accessible to the students. However, it's not the only thing we need to make accessible. It's also important to make sure the educational material is accessible and this is often achieved by previewing and reviewing vocabulary. Many deaf and hard-of-hearing students benefit from previewing and reviewing key vocabulary because some need multiple exposures to new words to understand the content. So students may struggle with a lack of background knowledge so they might have trouble making connections between concepts, and fitting that vocabulary into the larger context. Previewing vocabulary allows the student to have direct repeated exposure to new vocabulary in a quiet setting. This makes the educational material more accessible because when they learn the information in the classroom, they've already heard that word a few times and have some context for the lesson. As you can see, a big part of the role of the itinerant Teacher of the Deaf is making the environment accessible. This includes auditory input accessible through classroom acoustics and hearing equipment, as well as making educational content accessible by supporting the classroom teacher and previewing and reviewing vocabulary.
Okay, now let's move on to auditory skill development and language development. Auditory skills include: improving auditory memory, practicing auditory comprehension strategies, practicing listening in background noise, and more. Language development includes: using longer and more complex sentences, increasing vocabulary, categorizing, comparing contrasting, using multiple meaning words, idioms and analogies, and pragmatic language skills. The specific targets vary depending on the age and ability of the student and the Teacher of the Deaf can help determine which auditory and language skills need practice and work on those skills through IEP goals. Many children who receive TOD services also receive speech therapy. These services complement each other and can benefit a student in different ways. Unlike speech, auditory training is often done without visual cues with the teacher sitting next to the student, so they have to rely on and practice their listening skills. TODs typically do not focus on articulation or specific sounds. However, the TOD and SLP may work together to determine if speech sound errors are resulting from a lack of access. For example, if the child needs a new map or maybe stronger hearing aids or something like that. Even when working on language targets like vocabulary or context clues, a TOD might approach this differently than an SLP because we are primarily working through audition. Likely, the reason the student needs support in language is partially because they had less access to incidental learning and overhearing of conversations over the course of their life. Which over time accumulates to less words and sentences heard which can result in needing vocabulary or language intervention. So it all goes back to listening. Working through audition means that we focus on giving the student a lot of exposures to words, always presenting language in context, and helping them build connections between the words. And SLP experienced and hearing loss can certainly do this. However, most SLPs that are in the schools are generalist, I mean they have to be, they see so many kids! So they might not be as practiced in supporting students with hearing loss because it's a lower incidence disability in the school population.
So yes, a TOD and SLP can both address language goals but I would say it's important for them to work together so that the TOD can work to build up their listening skills and their language skills so that they miss less in their environment over time and the language gap can shrink. So that they have strong enough listening skills to pick up more language from their environment. I kind of got ahead of myself there, I'm going to talk more about the SLPs later but that's it for now.
Additionally, an itinerant Teacher of the Deaf often pushes into classrooms, meaning she stays in the classroom with the student instead of pulling to a separate room. I just did a whole episode on this if you're looking for strategies. Not every student with the hearing loss requires support in all of these areas. It's really the role of the Teacher of the Deaf to individualize the service so that she's best supporting the student.
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This episode is brought to you by my Self Advocacy Dice Bingo Games. I find games to be a really helpful way to start self advocacy conversations with my students in a non-stressful, non-awkward way. These games require no prep, just print them out and bring some dice and you're ready to go for your session. There are 6 topics available including: remote mic situations, IEP and 504 vocabulary, and bluffing and problem solving. Link in the show notes if you'd like to check them out for your next self advocacy lesson.
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Alright, now we're going to move on to self-advocacy. Students with hearing loss will typically live with their hearing loss their whole lives and will be required to advocate for themselves in school, college, the workplace, just like life in general. So for young students self advocacy skills may include: cleaning and maintaining their hearing aids, it also includes understanding what factors impact their hearing like distance, background noise, technology. As students grow they're required to assume more independence for their equipment and learn how to troubleshoot issues.
Beyond equipment self-advocacy includes identifying communication breakdowns and repair strategies. The reality is that everyone misses information sometimes and the students need to be equipped with the skills to handle those communication breakdowns and repair them. They need to learn strategies for picking the best seat in class to hear. Additionally older students learn about their accommodations and how to advocate for them. Self-advocacy also includes discovering their identity as a person with hearing loss. This means connecting with similar students and identifying deaf and hard of hearing role models. They may need to practice explaining their hearing aids or their cochlear implants to their peers. And have a script ready and practiced. The TOD can help provide social and emotional support for students who are learning how to navigate school with the hearing loss.
Self advocacy is also important in transition planning. Students should know what resources are available in their community, what their legal rights are under IDEA and ADA, when to disclose their hearing loss, and how to advocate for accommodations in the workplace and in college. The TOD is a specialized professional. She can provide this unique support which is so important and so necessary for students to be successful in school and in life. Many students with hearing loss get by by YES-ing their way through school - they nod they say yes, but they may be missing important academic and social information. And it's the role of the teacher the deaf to advocate for these students while also teaching them to advocate for themselves. Okay, let's get into some comparisons. So if someone says to you they don't need a TOD or TOD services because the student already gets speech... What can we say? I'm going to repeat myself a little bit but bear with me.
A school based SLP is a generalist. It's necessary for them to treat a variety of speech and language issues. As hearing loss is a low incidence disability many school SLPs have little or no direct training in auditory habilitation. For example, during traditional speech therapy, SLPs traditionally sit directly across from a student to ensure clear visual access to their face. TODs often sit next to a student to reduce visual cues and maximize auditory practice. Exaggerated mouth movements are never used when working through audition. TODs and SLPs can both address language goals. However, TODs may have specialized approaches that address the cause of the deficit and prioritize background knowledge, vocabulary, and learning through audition in order to reduce the overall gap. Self-advocacy skills are explicitly taught and embedded into sessions. TODs have the specialized knowledge to monitor accessibility in the classroom.
That's what I would say. Okay, what's the difference between a special education teacher and a TOD? I would say while special education teachers are often wonderful at applying accommodations and modifying work to suit different students, they're not experts in the specific accommodations needed for deaf and hard of hearing students. TODs can provide this information through inservice, pushing into the classroom, and collaborating with a special ed teacher.
TODs have specialized knowledge of the hearing equipment including the classroom hearing assistive technology and the students' personal hearing devices. As I mentioned the equipment needs to be working every single day in order for the student to have access to their education. The TOD has the ability to monitor the equipment and provide basic troubleshooting. The TOD can provide resources related to accessibility such as captioning resources, also d/Deaf role models, and social emotional support related to accepting their hearing loss.
And the last one is what's the difference between a TOD and an educational audiologist? The educational audiologist is an audiologist who works with the school to monitor, test, and troubleshoot equipment. Ongoing audiological monitoring is crucial to make sure the student has optimal access to speech sounds via their hearing devices. I feel like a broken record but I think it's worth repeating. The educational audiologist recommends and maintains the hearing assistive technology, the HAT system, also called FM, DM, remote microphone, whatever you want say. This technology can only be recommended by an audiologist. While a private audiologist could technically recommend a HAT system for a student. It's not ideal because the private audiologist likely does not have access to the classroom to make an appropriate recommendation based on the existing equipment in the class, the makeup of the class, the number of teachers and the classroom acoustics. A TOD cannot recommend a HAT system. It's outside of our scope of practice, and by that I mean like a specific HAT system. A TOD can say we need to consult with an educational audiologist to get the student a HAT system, that's fine. But they can't be the one to decide what HAT system they're going to use because it's outside of our scope. If there is some kind of problem with the HAT system like a microphone is disconnected, the TOD can do some basic troubleshooting because she's likely in the building more than the educational audiologist. However, if there's a problem that requires a new part, or more extensive troubleshooting, the educational audiologist steps in and takes care of that. Only an audiologist can recommend the classroom equipment, just feel like that bears repeating. So if there's a remote mic or a sound field anything like that, the educational audiologist has to be involved. Typically they don't see the student like regularly, they're usually there at the beginning of the year they check in as needed and they're there at the end of the year. Versus the Teacher of the Deaf which is a service on the IEP or 504 that's there on a somewhat regular basis. The TOD and the educational audiologists work together, compliment each other, but do have different roles.
Alright, so that's everything I have [laugh] it feels like a lot, I probably didn't even hit everything because I know TODs do more than this, like I barely touched on like supporting academics, I feel like with vocabulary I did. But I feel like this sums up what makes us like a unique professional on the child's education team. On a personal note, my favorite part of being an itinerant TOD is that I get to provide that individual personalized support for that student and since the service is completely individual I can provide exactly what that student needs like when they need it. When I'm in their class, like I'm only really focusing on them. Is everything accessible? Are they making progress? Are their goals appropriate? The student has my undivided attention, and I make sure they get the support they need to succeed. And I think that's really special to have that role where you can watch out for just them during that time. I feel like I can really make an impact because of it.
Thank you so much for listening to the end of this episode I have a free handout that outlines these responsibilities that I'll link in the show notes below. If you're finding these episodes helpful please share this podcast with a TOD friend I would really appreciate it. As usual links resources and the transcript are available in the show notes and at listentotodpod.com. Have a fantastic day! Bye!