Hearing challenges

So I've thought about the challenges that mobility and visual impairments bring to the world of post-16 education. Today, I'm thinking about people with a hearing impairment.

Common to all post-compulsory education

• Viewing videos or listening to radio
• Written exams
• Telephone calls
• Communicating with tutor or other staff

Specific to campus-based modules

• Finding sign language interpreters
• Not being able to hear alarms/bells
• Acceptance of hearing dogs
• Lip-reading and taking notes at the same time
• Background noise makes hearing lectures difficult

Specific to online learning

• Accessing audio content
• Incorrect subtitling

Last year, one of the tutors I line managed was a deaf man. He'd been deaf from birth. In order to communicate more effectively with him, I attended his BSL course. I had done some Makaton many years ago, when my youngest son was born deaf (though he can hear now) so I remembered some of that.

What I enjoyed most about the course was learning about deaf culture, something he was very proud of and loved telling us about. He was also a fantastic story-teller and had a wicked sense of humour. You could never tell, at the beginning of his stories, whether it would be a true story or a joke.

The most difficult thing I found, when working with him, was that he missed out on a lot of things that were 'said in passing'. This must have been so frustrating for him. Much as I always tried to ensure he had full access to whatever was going on, it was really difficult. I'd never thought about how much information we pick up by overhearing other people's conversations. This must also be difficult for disabled students who have a hearing impairment.

Another thing that was difficult was that everybody assumed that BSL is basically speaking English with your hands. My tutor explained, more than once, that BSL is his mother tongue and English is his second language. Of course there is a lot of common ground but he found written English, particularly formal English very difficult. He sometimes didn't understand emails and other written communication. For a deaf student, with exams and assignments, I imagine some support might be needed.