Students with mild to moderate hearing losses, and some with severe hearing losses, are mainstreamed in a regular classroom for all or part of the day (Martin, Berstein, Daly & Cody, 1988). While these students may require special education services, the classroom teacher plays a vital role in the overall education and daily management of a child with a hearing impairment (Hass, 1987). Villa (1989) reported that many school employees have not received adequate training to educate these students. Therefore, it becomes the school's responsibility to educate teachers through a comprehensive inservice training program. One format for providing such a program is a self-directed inservice program. This approach can be utilized as a cost-effective means of meeting the professional needs of educators, although little is known regarding its' effectiveness to train teachers about the needs of students with hearing impairments. To address the effectiveness of a self-directed inservice approach, a comprehensive self-directed inservice program which provides information about hearing loss, behavior manifestations of children with hearing impairment, hearing aid maintenance, and mainstreaming was developed. This program was designed to educate teachers about the classroom needs of students with hearing impairment. A group of 20 teachers were randomly assigned to either the experimental group, which received the inservice program or control group, who read a brief article. A post test was administered to both groups, and the experimental group also answered a questionnaire regarding the inservice program. The results revealed a significant difference in the basic knowledge of regular education teachers about the classroom needs of students with hearing impairments for those receiving the program. This suggests that a self-directed inservice program is a viable method of educating teachers about the needs of students with hearing impairments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-6197 |
| Date | 31 July 1996 |
| Creators | Whiteley, Teresa Michelle |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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