Educational Challenges of the Hearing Impaired Children: The case of two Selected Special Schools in the SNNPR State
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Date
2005-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study attempted to investigate educational challenges in teaching children
"~th hearing-impairment in Mazoria special school and Durme special class for
the deaf. Data for the study was collected from 44 hearing-impaired students, 9
teach ers, 2 school principals and 16 parents of the HI students. Pilot test of the
questionnaire and interview was condu cted in Minilk II special class for the deaf
before the actual study was conducted. The main study was conducted in
Mazoria special school and Durame spe.cial class for the deaf. Questionnaire
was completed by HI students. Teachers and school principals were
interviewed. Parents of the HI students also participated in focus-group
discussion.
The finding of this study shows that the hearing-impaired students' knowledge
of sign language was not developed. This could be attributed to different factors
such as teachers lack of progressive and up to dated trainings, shortage of text
books, irregular attendance of class, conflict of home sings and formal sign
language and the like . Most of the hearing-impaired students in both schools do
not attend the class regularly owing to various reasons such as long journey to
school, work load at home, economic problem, parent's lack of awareness about
the education of their HI children etc. The other major challenges in teaching
the hearing-impaired were lack of budget to procure teaching materials,
inconvenience of the classroom to teach HI students, absence of adapted
curriculum etc.
As it has been indicated in the finding of this study, teachers of the HI students
were undermined and under estimated and their work was not valued by other
people. In general, the education of the HI students lacks the attention of
governmental and non-governmental agencies and community members.
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Keywords
Challenges of the Hearing Impaired Children