Written By Deb Hopper, Occupational Therapist
In the classroom, you are likely to find that some of your kids may have a form hearing impairment.  Teaching students with Auditory/Hearing Difficulties can be a challenge if you have no previous experience.
This article will provide you some useful background knowledge and practical strategies to help you.

Teaching Students With Auditory/Hearing Difficulties

What is Auditory Processing Disorder?

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) also known as Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) is a hearing problem that affects around 5% of school-aged children.
APD causes some sort of interference with the way the brain sends messages to the ears.  The lack of coordination between the brain and ears causes a difficulty in interpreting sounds, especially speech.
If you suspect that one of your class has APD, you will need to refer that child to an audiologist, as only they can make the diagnosis.
Symptoms to be aware of include:

• Do noisy environments upset the student?
• Is the student unusually bothered by loud or sudden noises?
• Does the student’s behaviour and achievements improve in a quieter environment?
• Does the student have difficulty following simple or complex instructions?
• Do they find conversations hard to follow?
• Are they disorganised and forgetful?

If you pick up any of these symptoms in a student, refer them straight away.  You may also find our article on sensory processing disorders useful to look at.

Teaching Students with Auditory Processing Disorder

Strategies for In-Class Learning:

1. Repeat or rephrase key information throughout your lesson.  (This not only helps APD students, ALL student benefit from repetition of key points)
2. Seat the student close to the teacher and away from doors & windows to help them focus
3. Speak clearly and slowly when teaching and delivering your lessons
4. Provide a signal to indicate that a key point is being made
5. Provide an assistive learning device to help the student to hear the teacher’s voice
6. Use visual tools to support spoken lessons eg whiteboard or computer
7. Teach through use of gestures and images to help the student to understand the important concepts of your lesson

Strategies for Classwork:

1. For independent work, provide a quiet area for your APD student
2. Assign a classmate to share notes with the student
3. Ignore spelling errors in their work
4. Give the student opportunities to show their strengths in class
5. Make sure work instructions are broken down into clear, short, written steps
6. Allow extra time for any tests or exams

Educating Students with a Hearing Impairment

Hearing impairment has recently been in the news, as a 20 minute Short Film called The Silent Child won an Oscar in the 2018 awards.  This film highlights some of the issues around a hearing impaired child, within both the family and starting school.   As educators, it reminds us that we need to put in place a variety of strategies for each hearing impaired student to enable them to learn and thrive.
What’s the difference between APD & a Hearing Impairment?  
Check out this article from Understood to find out more.  The symptoms can be very similar and easily confused, this article will help you to work out which one your student may present with.
Strategies for Teaching students with a Hearing Impairment:
1. Personal Delivery

• Speech – lipreading is exhausting and for this reason, speech needs to be clear and you will need to provide your student with adequate contextual cues to give them the greatest chance of success
• Visibility – the student needs to be able to see your face, remember not to cover it with your hand or a pen.  Think about staying in the same place and not moving your head around too much
• Face – remember to be face to face with the student wherever possible, speak clearly and check comprehension by asking relevant questions
• Position – bring the student towards the front of the class and allow them to tell you where their ideal seat is
• Distractions – wear plain clothes and keep shiny jewellery to a minimum
• Gaining Attention – make sure the student knows that you are starting your lesson and provide them with an agreed signal
• Equipment – the student may need a hearing aid or other type of assistive device to help them (check with the audiologist).  It may also be necessary for you to wear a device to help amplify your speech or have a sign language interpreter with you

2. Presentation

• Context – provide contextual cues and be clear when you are changing the subject
• Structure – follow a structured lesson plan to provide the student with a framework for learning
• Pace – allow extra time for your hearing impaired student to give them chance to assimilate the information you are providing.  Also build in regular breaks in your lesson, this allows your student to have a rest from lipreading
• Contributions – to enable your student to be included, always repeat any questions that come from behind them and only allow one person to speak at a time

3. Use of Visual Aids

• Include into your lessons visual aids to help all of your students, including your hearing impaired student
• Add things in like flash cards, posters, captioned images and captioned videos
• Depending on which system of sign language your student may be learning – include captioned signs and symbols from the system to build up their bank of vocabulary

Remember, when you think there may be any type of hearing impairment, to initially refer to an audiologist.  In school, you may also have a specialist teacher you can contact to discuss the student you have concerns for.
It is vitally important to be provided with the correct equipment for each individual hearing impaired student and this can come from the specialist teacher or audiologist.
As professionals, we must also be in regular contact with parents so that all parties involved with the student can agree and contribute to helping the young person learn and progress, both at school and at home.

Overwhelmed: A Child’s Safe Space

Written by Deb Hopper

Published in

Navigating through the day as a child can be an exhilarating, yet daunting process. There is the fun and joy of play, friends and family. There is also the challenge of meeting new people, the social challenges of interaction with play, the environmental challenge of coping with noise, lights and movement at preschool or school or at the supermarkets. Just as adults, if the challenges outweigh our capacity, children can experience stress and overwhelm.
The signs of overwhelm are exhibited differently between different children but may include:

• needing to take control of situations that may be seen as being bossy or dominant in play
• meltdowns and crying
• ‘behavioural’ issues, whining, clinginess or oppositional behaviour.

These signs or clues that your child may be overwhelmed may be shown more at home, at school or both. Many children can ‘hold it together’ at preschool or school, but once safe at home, they feel safe and their emotions overflow.
Other children find the preschool/school environment overwhelming and their stress cues/signs are more pronounced at school. Either way, it’s important to be a detective and notice the signs of overwhelm and once identified, put a plan of reducing this stress before it escalates.
It is also important to be aware that overwhelm may come from a combination of at least 2 sources. Mental or emotional overwhelm – feeling that the demands of a task are way too difficult, or sensory overwhelm – with factors of the environment being too much to handle. Examples of sensory overwhelm might include too much noise, glare or too much light, not liking the feeling of touch of some objects such as tags in shirts, seams in socks or messy glue.
How to create a safe space when your child is overwhelmed.
When a child shows signs of overwhelm, it’s important to provide a safe place. This might be a physically safe space, or it may be simply verbal acknowledgement that it looks as if things are difficult.
Five top ways to reduce overwhelm for a child may include:
1. Create a physical space in a corner of a room at home or in the classroom such as a small tent. A safe space could include cushions, fidget toys, favourite books, a bean bag half-filled so they can nestle in and feel safe, a heavy blanket, calm music and fairy lights or oil timers or oil toys. This can be called the safe space, or create a fun name for it that your child owns.
2. Have a conversation about the reason why they may feel overwhelmed. Tell them you want to help them, but that you need some clues as to why they feel this way and then tell them you can help think of some ways to make things easier.
3. Use a visual chart such as the Just Right Kids Technique Model (see link below) to help kids map and point out how they are feeling. A visual map helps them to identify how they feel and having them being able to communicate about this, can relieve some stress and worry.
4. Give them verbal permission that if they are feeling sad, overwhelmed, angry or mad that they can come and tell you, or that they can take themselves straight to the safe place.
5. Empower your child or the children you work with to know that having feelings and emotion, including being overwhelmed is normal, but that there are ways that we can help change how we feel, including using a safe space as in point 1 above.
As parents, carers and teachers, we tune in to the needs of the children in our life. However, sometimes we can become a little disconnected or busy and not notice the cues of overwhelm. Creating a sensory safe space is one strategy that can be used to help children cope with overwhelm. Teaching a child to have more independence in knowing their emotions and experimenting with strategies to reduce stress, is a great life skill that will be well used through to adult hood.
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Download this article to print easily here:Deb Hopper Overwhelmed-A-Childs-Safe-Space
Deb Hopper… Occupational Therapist, author, workshop presenter. Deb is passionate about empowering parents and educators to understand the underlying reasons of why children struggle with behaviour, self-esteem and sensory processing difficulties. A practicing Occupational Therapist, she understands the daily struggles that children, parents and teachers face.
Deb is the co-author of the CD Sensory Songs for Tots, and author of Reducing Meltdowns and Improving Concentration: The Just Right Kids Technique. The Just Right Kids Technique Model can be downloaded at: http://www.lifeskills4kids.com.au/just-right-kids-model/
You can contact Deb on 02 6555 9877. She is available for clinic and phone/ Skype consultations.

Improving Fine Motor Skills

Written by Deb Hopper

Published in

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Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make the biggest difference and sometimes the little things in life can be the most difficult. Many children struggle with fine motor skills, or the ability to use their fingers to get the little things done. This might include doing up buttons, zips, doing up shoe laces, playing with favourite construction toys such as Lego, holding cutlery, or helping to pour themselves a drink for example.
There are three main reasons why children might find these day to day things difficult to do. These are hand and body strength, dexterity and finger co-ordination and the ability to plan what they need to do. Practicing these skills at home can be easy, fun and low cost to do. If your child continues to struggle, please contact your occupational therapist, preschool or school teacher for some more ideas.
Here are 5 top tips for making the little movements easier.
1.Sometimes a child finds it hard to control fine finger movements needed in things such as drawing or Lego because they don’t have a stable body base.
We need to have strong core postural muscles and good control of big arm movements, before we can do small movement tasks such as drawing. Body strengthening activities such as swimming, trampolining, or lying on a skate board and pushing themselves around helps children to create a strong postural core, arms and legs, to act as a solid base for finger based co-ordination tasks.
2. Sometimes children also need to strengthen their hands and arm muscles so they have the strength to open milk containers, lunch boxes or the toothpaste.
Just like adults go to the gym to strengthen our big muscles, children can also strengthen their hand muscles. For younger children, pull out the playdoh and roll snakes, pinch patterns and make snails. For older kids, they need extra resistance so try plasticine or a soft to medium strength theraputty, for hand strengthening. Or, think outside the box and get them to ‘paint the fence’. This activity is cheap and the large arm movements needed will help strengthen their arms. For strengthening little fingers, buy a cheap water sprayer and give them the job of watering the pot plants. It’s a great strengthening activity and will help you too!
3. If your child is struggling with a daily task, such as tying his or her shoelaces, help to give them the feeling of success.
Backward chaining is a great way to build confidence in fine motor skills. This means that you complete most of the task and then they do the last part. You say, ‘Well done!’ and build up their self-esteem. The next time, you do one less step and coach them in what to do, to complete the last two steps, giving praise at the end. Continue until they can do the whole task.
4. Play the ‘tell you what to do game’. This game is great for kids who struggle with planning or motor planning.
Start with bigger movements while they learn the rules of the game, for example, jumping. Get them to tell you what
their body is going to do when they do the activity, e.g. ‘jump’. For example, for jumping you need to bend your knees, put your bottom backwards, push up, jump and land. Once they get used to ‘telling’ you how to do bigger
tasks, get them to tell you how they do things with their fingers. For example, ask them to tell you how they will pick up their glass of milk at breakfast time. This could be ‘reach out, open my hand, pick up cup, move towards
my mouth, take a drink, put it back on table’. Connecting thoughts of planning words into action can help create links in the brain to make fine motor tasks easier.
5. You don’t need to buy lots of fancy toys with bells and whistles to improve motor skills. The best way to learn is to use and practise with containers, jars, lunch boxes, opening cereal boxes or helping to pack the dishwasher. If you child is finding a particular task difficult, say ‘Stop, think, breathe, what is your plan?’ Once we can stop and get a plan together, it can help to overcome feelings and responses of frustration, makes learning the task easier and creates best feedback pathways to the brain for the next level of learning.
So next time your child is struggling with something fiddly, ‘Stop, think, breathe, ask what their plan is’. Think about what fun and low cost games you can do with them, or set up for them, to make it easier next time.