Identification and placement for deaf students with multiple disabilities: choosing the path less followed
Posted by Callier Library on July 23, 2008
from the American Annals of the Deaf
Students with a hearing loss often have an additional disability. Although the number of deaf students with multiple disabilities is growing, research on this population has significantly decreased over the past quarter-century. The article reviews the literature on identification and placement of deaf students with multiple disabilities, specifically deaf students with one of the following disabilities: autism, emotional/behavior disorders, attention deficit disorders, or mental retardation. Degree of incidence is also reported, and is compared with statistics from the annual report of the Gallaudet Research Institute (2005). Included in the review are suggestions for future research and implications for professionals in the field of deafness.
» Identification and placement for deaf students with multiple disabilities: choosing the path less followed said
[...] Autism Vox wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt from the American Annals of the Deaf Students with a hearing loss often have an additional disability. Although the number of deaf students with multiple disabilities is growing, research on this population has significantly decreased over the past quarter-century. The article reviews the literature on identification and placement of deaf students with multiple disabilities, specifically deaf students with one of the following disabilities: autism, emotional/behavior disorders, attention def [...]
Homer Mullins said
I am an attorney compelled to make the decision pre-maturely to leave my 30-year law practice due to cognitive impact on my ability to process and remember information provided to me orally. This condition was brought about by hearing loss secondary to surgery for a right side cholesteatoma, and auditory processing disorder, central and peripheral. It also didn’t help that I had AD/HD and a reading disorder. After leaving practice, I became a coach for professionals challenged by AD/HD and other attentional deficits. It was not long before I began to notice that a significant percentage of my AD/HD clients had auditory processing deficits. I have learned through research that AD/HD is often misdiagnosed as APD and vice versa. I read one interesting study from the early 50’s about sound field technology. A room mixed with hearing impaired kids and other developmental disorders was set up and tested to measure any assistive benefit gained through the use of FM signaling over a period of days. Indeed, the FM was highly beneficial to those with auditory processing issues. However, as a quite unexpected benefit, those with AD/HD also improved. It makes good sense when one considers that if a child can’t understand what’s going on around him, he or she will get bored right quick and develop some very bad work and learning habits. That leads to squirming, impulsive behavior and so on. I shifted the focus of my practice to something that interested me more, i.e., hearing loss and other audiologic deficits. And now that I have the view from another angle, where the identified patient has a hearing loss, there’s a fair chance he may also have AD/HD so I strongly encourage the client to have a comprehensive workup to screen for both problems. The deal situation is where the APD client has co-morbid AD/HD and a physician puts him on one of the stimulant medications and an immediate improvement results. I’ve also heard more than a few anecdotal stories where some very young APD kids were erroneously diagnosed as having AD/HD with severe symptoms, coexisting with affective disorders and some other developmental and learning deficits. These kids, especially those from the lower socio-economic strata, were indefinately institutionalized. Most of those stories are from earlier in the 20th century but quite a few of those folks are still out there, too dependent on institutional care to survive on the outside. I look forward to following this interesting research.