FACILITATING INTEGRATION OF THE DEAF CHILD IN A REGULAR SCHOOL

Sandhya Limaye*

INTRODUCTION

It is commonly held that placing disabled children in special schools leads to their segregation from their non-disabled counterparts, which in turn can isolate them from day-to-day experiences with other children, while integrating them into regular schools will help them to achieve their maximum potential in a more favourable educational and social environment. Integration is an ongoing process of learning to live together, and it also involves increasing knowledge about self and others. For deaf children, the question of integration is more complex than it usually appears. An integrated educational programme with no special methods, prepares the child for a life in a hearing community (1). It is said that integration is the way to provide deaf children with what they cannot gain from their deaf environmental experiences. Social, business and professional contacts in life cannot be fully achieved without effective language and communication skills (2). Therefore, integration is designed, firstly to build speech and language skills. Integration helps deaf children to master new skills, encourages them to strive for greater achievements and helps them to develop a healthy and positive self-concept. Since regular schools provide a more stimulating learning environment and a wider curriculum with normal oral language environment, deaf children will learn to find new ways of coping in a normal situation very early, and as a result, their ability to cope in a hearing world will also be greater. According to Dalvi (3), the success or failure of an integrated child in a hearing environment initially depends not so much on whether the child is severely or profoundly deaf, as on his level of intelligence, ability to lip-read, his language development, the help and training he gets from his parents and his special school, and the availability of a resource teacher to guide him in studies in the regular school curriculum. Integration thus involves the efforts of many people working as a team, such as teachers of regular schools and special schools, parents of the deaf child, other specialists like the resource teacher, social worker, audiologist and speech therapist. The identification, development and co-ordination of this team effort is both a challenge and a critical requirement in meeting the needs of deaf children ( 4).

It is found that many regular schools prefer not to give admission to deaf children as they have many misconceptions about deafness. Such schools strongly feel that it is the role of special school to provide education to deaf children and they are not willing to spend extra time for deaf children. They also feel uncomfortable with deaf children as they do not know how to handle them. As far as parents are concerned, after securing admission in a regular school, they have to handle their children's social and emotional problems under various situations. In spite of all these problems, integration can bring in more benefits than losses to deaf children.

This study was carried out to identify the problems in integrating deaf children in regular schools and to facilitate their integration through planned interventions.

METHODOLOGY

Four groups of people were selected for the study, which included five children with severe to profound deafness, from the local language medium school, who were to be integrated in June `94. There were 2 girls and 3 boys, with ages ranging from 7 years to 15 years. Onset of hearing loss in these children ranged from 3 months to 2 years of age, and the degree of hearing loss was bilateral, ranging from severe to profound. All were using hearing aids, and had studied in special schools prior to being integrated in the regular schools. The reasons for integration were that their special schools did not have higher classes, and that their academic performance was good. The other 3 groups were the parents of the 5 deaf children, the teachers of the 5 regular schools who were going to teach the deaf children, and the classmates of the deaf children in the regular schools.

Interview schedules were used to collect information from the parents of the deaf children and the teachers of regular schools. In addition the teachers of the special schools where the children had studied were also interviewed regarding the deaf child's educational performance, socialisation, the teacher's view about the child's readiness for integrated education, and their perceived role in the integration process. The parents' interview schedule consisted of questions relating to family background, socio-economic data, child's educational performance, reasons for opting for integration, anticipated difficulties during the integration process, and awareness of their extra responsibilities related to integrating their deaf child in a regular school. The parents were counselled in order to help them handle the integration process. An observation checklist was also prepared in order to cross check the information collected from the parents, the special school teachers and the author's observations regarding the children's comprehension, speech, their understanding of other people's speech, their own communication with others, nature of parent's communication with the child, and the use of hearing aids. It was found that most of the responses were similar and relevant.

An individual meeting was held with each deaf child in order to understand their view about integration and to help them prepare for integration before the schools re-opened for the new academic year. Physical preparation of the children involved talking to them about the change of school and describing and visiting the new school in order to familiarise them with the new environment. Emotional preparations involved working towards reducing their fears before they entered the new world of hearing children. The preparation time varied from child to child depending on the age of the child, educational level, communication ability, interaction between parents and child, and active involvement of the parents in the process.

The interview schedule was adapted to assess the regular school teachers' perceptions of deafness. A methodology of group discussion and education was employed to clarify their doubts and to give them information about the concept of deafness, degree and type of hearing loss, misconception about deaf children, effect of hearing loss on language and communication development, and operation, use, importance and limitation of hearing aids. In addition, practical suggestions about handling the deaf child were also given to all the teachers.

An activity oriented training approach was adopted with the classmates of the five deaf children in the regular schools in order to create awareness about deafness and to prepare them to accept the deaf classmates. As the age group of these school-going children varied from 6 to 13 years, it was felt that a participatory approach would help the children understand the concept of deafness better. Different exercises were carried out to enable the hearing classmates to understand the practical difficulties faced by the deaf children. The exercises included introduction of invisible disability, awareness of difficulty in hearing ( by putting cotton in their ears and asking them to listen to a tape recorder at low volume), type of communication, demonstration of hearing aid and so on.

After carrying out the field work, the outcome of the intervention was evaluated by meeting the deaf children, the parents and the regular school teachers, 6 months later. The purpose was to identify the level of adjustment of each group, the level of achievement, and problem areas. The author also acted as a liaison between the school, the child and the family, in interpreting each one's needs and problem areas to the others. The goal of this exercise was to make the process of integration a positive experience for all concerned. For this phase, an interview schedule was used for the parents of deaf children and the teachers of regular schools, and individual meetings were held with the deaf children.

RESULTS

Parents of deaf children

It was found that the rationale for integration of deaf children varied from family to family according to their needs and convenience. The decision to integrate the deaf child was taken by the principal of the special school and the parents, without consulting their deaf children or without informing children, as they felt, that they knew what was best for these children. All parents found it difficult to secure admission in regular schools on their own. The lack of society's readiness to accept the deaf child as part of the hearing world created frustration and depressed the parents. The principals of special schools became a great source of help in such circumstances. After securing admission for their deaf child in the regular school, they still faced tensions about their capacity to cope with the new situation. They were fearful that their child would be unfit in the mainstream. In addition, the parents expected the teachers of regular schools to allow their child to sit on the first bench, to pay personal attention, to talk loudly or slowly to make the deaf child understand the subject matter, and they expected that other hearing children should not trouble their deaf child. It was found that none of them thought about the expectations and problems of the teachers of regular schools. After counselling and discussions with the parents, they felt relaxed and opined that they had learnt many facts about integration which they were not aware of before, for example, their extra responsibilities because of integration of their deaf child in a regular school, expectations and problems of teachers of these schools while handling the integrated deaf child in their class. One mother commented that she was so anxious about her own problems that she had forgotten that others may also have problems.

Deaf children

It was not easy to work with the deaf children due to inadequate vocabulary of these children. It took time to explain things to them by using alternative words orally, through writing and gestures, and if they did not understand them, the parents had to help them further. It was found that all these children were tense about their lack of social acceptance and the inability to understand people's communication. They were nervous and had doubts about their ability to cope with the new situation. One deaf girl was strongly opposed to integration, and her parents and teachers of her special school made an effort to persuade her. After working with the deaf children to help overcome their fear of integration, and preparing them physically and emotionally for integration, they were able to think about the benefits of integrated education to them. These discussions also helped to make the deaf children more relaxed and less tense.

Teachers of regular schools

It was found that the teachers of the regular schools did not know much about different aspects of deafness. Many teachers felt tense about how they would make the deaf child understand their teaching. One teacher felt that the only place for the deaf child was a special school and that the special school should not create problems for the teachers of regular schools by encouraging integration. The other teachers expressed sympathy for the deaf children, as they were different from normal children. They felt that since deaf children have communication problems, it would be difficult for them to understand the teaching, and to mix with other normal children. Bilek (5) cites some reactions of teachers of regular schools, "How can I help a deaf child without special training", "We are not specially trained - we need to know more", "If hearing is their problem, how can I help?" Such reactions reveal that it is important to work with the teachers of regular schools in order to broaden their experiences with deaf children, so that they are able to facilitate the children's adjustment in their school. Demonstration of hearing aids and the discussions, instead of lectures, helped the teachers to understand the deaf child's position better. They were also encouraged to ask many questions about communication patterns, and their problems, function, and use of hearing aids and so on. All teachers felt that these programmes helped to increase their knowledge about deafness.

Classmates of the integrated deaf child in regular schools

The responses from the classmates showed that they had some ideas about deafness due to the impact of the media. The programme gave them an in-depth understanding of deafness. Many children informed the author that they were happy to have learned all this in an interesting way. They had a number of queries about the deaf child, regarding the use and function of hearing aid and communication problems. They felt that it was educative and that they would like to help the deaf children when they need help. They also requested that similar programmes be started for other types of disabilities. This programme also made one girl aware of her grandmother's problem and thereby created a feeling of concern in her to help deaf people. The news about the interesting programmes for the classmates of deaf children spread all over the school and many other classes also requested the programmes to be repeated for them. This experiment showed that it was more effective to create a desire among the hearing children to help the disabled child rather than to pressurise them by moralising.

Evaluation after six months of integration

It was found that the integrated deaf children gained independence through participation in large classes and were socially relaxed after frequent contact with their hearing peers. They were exposed to the different nature of regular schools and were constantly exposed to the language of their hearing peers. This helped the deaf children improve their communication skills and speech. Their verbal expression had improved as also their spontaneous use of language. In addition, due to the improvement in their ability to comprehend speech, their confidence in communicating with others increased. This in turn. helped them to improve their speech further with the opportunity to practise their speech continuously. They were able to reduce the use of signs and gestures as they learned to use oral communication more. Their speech was not yet perfect but it promised to improve with time. It was also observed that the younger children had less problems in adjusting to a new environment compared to the older children. This may be because the adaptability of a child is likely to decrease as he grows in age. The awareness of their differences from the hearing world also increases as they grow older. Three children from the primary section performed well academically. The remaining two children who were in the secondary section had to work hard to cope with the demands of the curriculum. This was due to the vast syllabus and the fact that they were not accustomed to the new method of teaching which forced them to emphasise rote learning. Both children, however, worked hard to clear their exams by attending individualised coaching class. All children agreed that it was not easy for them to quickly understand the subject matter which was taught in the class.

All parents felt that integration helped their children to improve their communication. They also learned new ways to help their own child, and to think about their child's abilities and limitation more realistically. All parents except one strongly felt that their children did not create any problems while adjusting, and thereby they were also able to adjust themselves to this new situation. One set of parents had to work hard to help their child to adjust in the regular school system, as the child could not adjust easily in first two months. All parents agreed that it was not easy for their deaf children to understand the subject matter taught in the class, and that they had to help their child by reinforcing learning at home. This additional responsibility was rather stressful for the parents. Despite this, this integration process helped the parents to learn more and to handle the situation with confidence.

The majority of teachers in regular schools had initial difficulties in understanding the deaf children's speech. But with a little effort, they soon began to understand the child well. Subsequently, they felt comfortable with the deaf children and were happy about the children's performances. The teachers had positive experiences about deaf children, learned many new things in the process and made some important suggestions for further improvement in deaf children.

*1, Girisannidhya, Shreenagar, Wagle Estate, Thane (W) - 400604, Maharashtra, India

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank to my Guide, Dr. Lina Kashyap, Head and Professor, Department of Family and Child Welfare, Tata Institute of Social Sciences for guiding this action research project as a part of M. Phil. degree. 1 would also like to thank the five deaf children and their families, principals and teachers of special schools, principals and teachers of regular schools, classmates of integrated deaf children of regular schools for their co-operation and help to carry out the field work successfully.

REFERENCES

1. Webster A, Ellwood J. The Hearing impaired Child in the Ordinary School. London : Croom Helm,1985.

2.Blumberg C. A school for the Deaf Facilities Integration. In: Northcott W.(Ed), The Hearing Impaired Child In a Regular Classroom: Pre-school, Elementary and Secondary Years.Washington: The Alexander Graham Bell's Association For Deaf, 1973.

3. Dalvi K. The Study of the Experiments Done In Oral Education of Deaf Children Through the Conversational Method. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Mumbai, 1992.

4. La Porta M, et al. Mainstreaming Pre-schoolers: Children with Hearing Impairment- A Guide for Teachers, Parents and Others who Work with Hearing Impaired Pre-schoolers. Washington : US Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Human Development Services, 1978.

5. Bilek S. The Integrated Teacher. In: Northcott W.(Ed), The Hearing Impaired Child In a Regular Classroom: Pre-school, Elementary and Secondary Years. Washington: The Alexander Graham Bell's Association For Deaf, 1973.

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