19th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
March 8-10, 2020 • Kansas City, MO
Audiology Students Beliefs About Deaf People
I conducted research at a Doctor of Audiology (AuD) program to find out what audiology students believe about Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) people. The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine if these students view DHH people from a medical perspective or from a social/cultural perspective. Nineteen students were given an adapted Attitudes to Deafness Scale. Then six students were interviewed individually. The interview transcripts were analyzed looking through the lens of Cultural Disability Theory. Finally, seven recommendations are made to the audiology students regarding their future interactions with parents of newly identified DHH infants.
The Attitudes to Deafness Scale demonstrated that these AuD students had a mostly social/cultural view of DHH people. Deep analysis of the interviews, however, showed that every student had a mixture of social/cultural views and medical views. Those points of view will be discussed in the presentation. Importantly, the students view it as the audiologist’s responsibility to inform parents of newly identified Deaf infants of their “options” - the “technology route” vs. the “American Sign Language (ASL) route,” with an expectation that the parents would choose a “route” right away. Audiology students did not view DHH adults or Teachers of the Deaf as part of the team that could guide the parents through this decision making journey. These “options” were only for parents of Deaf infants. Hard of Hearing infants were prescribed hearing aids, with the expectation that they would acquire spoken language and blend into the hearing world.
Finally, I (the researcher) make seven recommendation for these audiology students that can assist them in ensuring that parents of newly identified DHH infants view their children from a more social/cultural perspective, whether the parents choose to use signed or spoken language, or both.
- The learners will be able to describe the purpose and design of this study.
- The learners will be able to list at least four of the findings of this study about the beliefs and attitudes of audiology students about Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.
- The learners will be able to name at least four recommendations to audiology students about presenting information to parents of newly identified Deaf and Hard of Hearing infants.
Poster:
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Presenter: Nancy Grosz Sager
BA Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara MA Deaf Education, Fresno State University EdD Educational Organization and Leadership, University of the Pacific
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exist.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.