Effect on learning
The special educational needs of and minimal supportive services for school-age hearing-impaired children have been well documented (Blair and Berg, 1982). The effects of hearing loss on learning from birth to 5 years have received less attention and, as Culross (1985) note, virtually no assessment instrument can adequately measure the educational potential and psychological abilities if preschool hearing-impaired children.
Lacking the necessary sensory avenue for learning speech and language, the deafened infant appears to seek out alternative ways of relating to the environment in order to learn. This shift to other sensory channels, which is described fully by Studdert-Kennedy (1976), is necessary for the child to integrate whatever information can be received. How deaf and hearing-impaired children handle this information is unclear, but it would seem logical that, with even minimal access to the auditory channel, a child has a greater potential for learning normally. We are certain of one thing: Even profoundly deaf children are capable of developing the symbolic system necessary for learning, but how well these children learn depends on inherent intellectual and external familial conditions.
On the high school level, learning takes on special significance for the deafened and hearing-impaired adolescent. Peer pressure, sexual urges, emotional lability, and self-esteem often are hooked into the person’s perception of the hearing impairment. Too often, the disability may be used as an excuse to become reclusive, deficient in studying, or antagonistic to others or to drop out. Unifortunately, such behaviors often are interpreted by other not in terms of the implications of hearing impairment but as the acting-out behavior of a non-conforming teenager. What is misinterpreted is the young person’s cry for equilibrium, emotional support, and practical assistance.