Allocation of support levels to hearing-impaired children — moving away from using audiometric descriptors

Abstract

In today's climate, Education Authorities must be able to justify the level and type of support provided to individual hearing-impaired children. With increasing financial pressures, it is more important to identify resources early and efficiently. It is also necessary to justify unambiguously why any one child meets the criteria for referral for a Statement of Special Educational Needs and why another should be placed on an earlier stage of the Code of Practice. Further, the decision-making criteria must be sufficiently rigorous to withstand appeals procedures.The audiometric descriptors normal, mild, moderate, severe and profound (BATOD Magazine, 2001) currently used in the UK provide a broad indication of degree of hearing loss. This paper argues that these descriptors are not sufficiently sensitive predictors of aural/oral functioning and therefore cannot give useful guidance on levels of educational support. An alternative method for describing hearing loss is presented. This model (the Articulation Index, Pavlovic, 1991) is based upon the child's percentage access to speech sounds (with hearing aids if they have them) and is used to place the child into one of four bands of provision for educational support.This model has been used effectively in a Local Education Authority (LEA) in England. A correlation between predictions by this model and Teacher of the Deaf (ToD) professional opinion of the level of support required by the child, remained extremely high over a three-year period. The annual Statementing Review process has not shown any modification to this model to be necessary and it can be concluded that the model accurately predicts the level and type of support needed.