Some kids are born with visual impairment, some with hearing or other impairments and some people may have different abilities due to injuries, infections or accidents.
This article will discuss ideas for children with hearing disabilities and their education. Hearing-impaired learners may use hearing aids that insert into or behind their ears, for instance, Cochlear implants, the surgical implant devices that bypass the damaged inner ear and send signals directly to the hearing nerve. It's no secret that new technologies have made the life of hearing impairment individuals easier. Now, deaf or hard of hearing kids can attend school and take part in activities with their peers using such solutions.
But, what apart from these? What else can be done for such kids?
To answer these questions, we have curated a list of the best applications designed specifically for children with hearing impairments and to help you teach them effortlessly.
Little Ears
Designed for toddlers and tiny tots with hearing impairments, Little Ears is a nifty little app that assists early speech and language development. The application is quite engaging and easy to use; it does not have unnecessary elements or distractions, leading to overstimulation. Little Ears has twenty sets of illustrations with three images each; children can tap on any to hear the sounds or name the objects and can do simple quizzes, which facilitate speech and language.
Auditory-Verbal
The Auditory-Verbal application addresses the detection and comprehension of the Ling 6 Sounds (plus silence) for persons with hearing aids or cochlear implants. Therapists can use this App as a quick auditory comprehension check-in therapy session. The application comprises flashcards that depict the 6 Ling sounds (and silence) representing the range of speech sounds across low to high frequencies. Auditory Verbal Therapy includes a male voice, a female voice, and the ability to record your voice. Furthermore, to keep track of progress, after each practice session, the application provides a data chart of correct and incorrect responses with space to type your notes and print or email the results.
Cochlear HOPE Words
Cochlear HOPE Words is a child-friendly online App for listening and spoken language. The Cochlear HOPE Words App has been adopted from Speech Sounds and Speech Sounds Vowels – two renowned HOPE resources created to expose children to speech sounds in the English language. The application offers interactive flashcards for the alphabets that have been organized by speech sounds associated with a particular letter. Every letter of the alphabet has 20 different interactive pop-up cards. Thus, when a child touches the word or image, the image expands with vocal narration.
The goal is to enable a child to practice auditory self-examination by listening to a word and matching his or her vocal output to what he or she has heard. The development of vocabulary is also made easier by the fact that the child attaches a sense to the spoken word associated with the image.
iHearThat
This App allows children to practice recognizing the Ling 6 sounds in a fun matching game. iHear That has split the game into two levels; Easy: includes images as a visual component of sound recognition, and Difficult: requires children to identify matches by sound, making it easier for deaf children to learn.
Sound Match
Sound Match is a unique and fun audio-memory game designed to help children learn and distinguish sounds. This application helps develop a child's memory skills with five different themes. Also, improves their ability to recognize and distinguish different sounds. Overall improvement on concentration and attention skills. Just like a traditional memory game, the Sound match has three difficulties that challenge your child's memory skills, as he will need to match an image with its correspondent sound and vice versa.
Signed Stories
Signed stories is an excellent app to help children with hearing impairments read stories. It has a collection of the best high-definition books from as little as 99¢/79p - preview before you buy. Stories are selected to support Common Core State Standards and National Curriculum vocabulary builder and fun learning games.
Furthermore, it helps develop language skills with the video vocabulary builder, optional captions/subtitles for children with dyslexia and special needs customized as per the needs.
ASL with Care Bears
ASL Care Bears is a fantastic app for children who are deaf and struggle with self-regulating their emotions while communicating with others who don't understand them. The application is packed with 2,500+ signs and phrases, easy navigation and features, with different signers making learning easy, accessible, and fun.
Herein, learners can save their favourite signs or the signs they want to practice more, go into slow mode, and tap/scrub anytime you enjoy the video to pause or go back a bit.
If you're a teacher to kids with hearing impairments, then these applications have the perfect solution for your learners. Do try them.
