Evidence Based Practice in Educating Deaf and Hard of Hearng Students

Chapter 1:
This chapter was an overview of what is to come in the book. This chapter was easy to read and follow along with so I am excited to read the rest of the book and hope that it is as easy to read. I like how the chapter stated that no one system or apporach will work with all deaf and hard of hearing studnets. This is such an important statement for any one who is working with this population to remember. There are so many factors to considering when educating students who are deaf or hard of hearing. I think that people often forget that no two children are a like and no one way of teaching will work with everyone.
The key findings index had a lot of really great statements. One statement that spoke to me was "Early identification and interverntion can greatly decrease barriers to language learning faced by deaf and hard of hearing children durng the early years of life, although they have not been eliminated." We learn the importance of early identification and intervention everyday in our classes. This again is something that we as future educators of the deaf and hard of hearing need to make others aware of. We need to help people to understand how important it is to get their child services if they do have a hearing loss.
"Even with early cochlear implantatiopn, language abilities remain on average below those of hearing peer." This statement is so true! There are so many people who think that if a child get a cochlear implant they will be cured. This statement tells people that, there assumption is wrong. It is so important for people to understand that a cochlear implant can make a difference for children, but will never cure them.

Chapter 2
This chapter discussed universal newborn hearing screens. I found the information about other countries hearing screening to be very interesting. I have never really thought about other countries and what types of screenings that they might have. This chapter also discussed many differnt statistics that apply to deaf and hard of hearing children and their over all development. Most of the information I knew, but I was glad to have a reference to refer to when sharing this information with others that may be interested. I know that students who are deaf and hard of hearing are behind academically compared to their hearing peers. But when I read a statistic such as high school students who are deaf or hard of hearing are performing at the 80th percentile which compares to average hearing fith and six graders I am still shocked. However, reading that statistic over and over again and ingraining it into my brain helps me to stay motivated. It helps me to again realize why I am doing what I am doing and pushes me to be a better teacher for my future students.

Chapter 3
This chapter was about a lot of reasearch. Research is very important in our field. It is so important because technology is always changing and new ideas are always being thought up. Even though I know research is very important I must admit I dont always enjoy readng about how something was found out. I want to know what they found and how I can apply it to be a better teacher and help my studnets. With this being said I found this chapter to be slightly boring compared to the other two chapters that I read.