Deaf / Hard of Hearing

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA '97) defines two terms related to hearing acuity: Deafness and Hearing Impairment. According to IDEA '97,

• Deafness means ahearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired inprocessing linguistic information through hearing, with or withoutamplification, and that adversely affects a child'seducational performance.
• Hearing impairment means animpairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adverselyaffects a child's educational performance but is not included under thedefinition of deafness.

It is important to note thathearing acuity by itself should not be the sole criterion fordetermining appropriate programming for students who are deaf andhard of hearing. Each student with hearing loss is an individual withunique strengths and talents that must be identified and consideredwhen designing educational programs to facilitate growth in deficitareas.

Hearing loss and corresponding interventions vary greatlyfrom student to student and from program to program. The goal for anystudent who is deaf or hard of hearing should be to develop aneffective program that addresses the student's individual strengths andneeds, and prepares him or her to be a successful adult.