Hearing impaired children experience difficulties in an ordinary classroom
Hearing impaired children experience problems when attending mainstream schools unless they receive proper help and support. They may not become properly integrated, and they tend to keep in the background as they try to avoid standing out from their classmates.
Many children fail to communicate that they cannot hear what the teacher or the other pupils are saying. They may never ask the other pupils to repeat themselves, and some even tell the teacher that no special microphone is required even though sound amplification would make it easier for them to hear properly.
Want to be ”?normal'
The hearing impaired children want to be like their friends with normal hearing, and they often feel inadequate when drawing attention to their hearing problem. All this has social consequences for the children. Many of them keep to themselves and prefer not to take part in classroom activities. The lack of attention to these children's problems often results in the children feeling tired and suffering from headaches when coming home from school.
Even a minor unidentified hearing loss in a school-age child may adversely affect the learning process and result in some form of learning difficulty in school. Class work may suffer if a child with hearing loss is expending extra energy trying to listen to the teacher, take notes, and process what is being heard all at once. The hearing problems of children often go undetected because many believe that their problems in school are caused by a lack of concentration or inattention.
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, February 2008