
Listening skills, how the student interprets and uses what is heard, are more often assessed and addressed in the realm of educational intervention. Using informal tools, VI professionals and family members can be helpful partners by sharing information with medical practitioners on how the student functions outside the clinical environment, so they can make informed decisions about these often atypical patients. Questions about a student’s hearing, whether their auditory system is working properly, at what frequencies and in what conditions, as well as issues related to prescriptions for hearing aids, for instance, are best addressed by personnel in the medical field, such as by an audiologist. What is the difference between auditory, hearing, and listening skills?Īuditory topics cover a broad range.
Auditory comprehension skills how to#
Use of a reader – how to find, pay, and benefit from this assistance (Self-Determination) Listening skills, such as listening for approaching vehicles, and auditory object perception, for safe mobility (O&M) Taking notes during a lecture (Compensatory skills, study skills) Using a screen reader to scan a reference for keywords (AT) Use of audio assisted reading (AT, Compensatory Skills) Listening comprehension (Compensatory Skills, concept development) Turning to face the person who is speaking (Social Skills) Locating and identifying sound sources (Sensory Efficiency)

The following is a sampling of skills that may be impacted by a visual impairment and how they relate to the Expanded Core Curriculum: An inventory of listening skills may help isolate areas of difficulty for a student. There are many skills involving the use of the auditory system that all children develop, often with no intervention. What specific auditory skills may be affected when a student has a visual impairment? Such images may differ according to a student’s individual experiences and verbal input he or she has received from others (Whitmore & Maker, 1985).” A student with visual impairments is likely to have fewer and less detailed mental images to correspond with verbal language.

Images are recalled to assist students in comprehending verbal language (Barraga & Erin, 1992). Auditory language triggers the creation of mental images that correspond with words. Dykes caution that while auditory input provides another way that students can gain information, “teachers should not assume…that students will understand verbal input in the same way and at the same depth as other students understand visual input. In their article Effective Classroom Adaptations for Students with Visual Impairments, authors Penny R. It is important to remember that merely providing materials in audio format or reading aloud written text does not ensure literacy. Lizbeth Barclay and Jodi Floyd have suggestions on how to integrate teaching students with visual impairments to develop listening skills within literacy instruction. Students may need to learn to listen so that they can listen to learn. Literacy includes many auditory elements, from the importance of sound play and phonemic awareness in early literacy development to more sophisticated use of listening to learn from classroom instruction. Students who are blind or visually impaired must be provided with adequate instructional support that equips them to interpret auditory materials efficiently and effectively. Should listening skills be included in literacy instruction? As the skills to do this are different from those used for listening in casual conversation, auditory strategies are an important component of literacy instruction. In their educational programs, many students with visual impairments will need to access a significant amount of information from text through auditory means.

As more auditory formats such as podcasts and audiobooks become mainstream, it has become clear that whether or not listening to information is the exact same as reading print or braille, this is an important literacy format. Phil Hatlen gives his thoughts about this in Literacy According to Phil. There has been some controversy in the past about whether or not accessing text through hearing is actually reading. While it is important for all students to develop strong auditory strategies, this area is crucial for those who are blind or visually impaired.įor more information on educational strategies specific to the needs of students with a hearing loss, please see the Deafblind section. Definitions of literacy have expanded to include auditory skills as a valued form of literacy.
