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SPEAK
Benefits Children with Hearing Loss
Stark County Educational Service Center is pleased to offer a state-of-the-art classroom for children with hearing loss. This classroom, called SPEAK (Stark Project for Educating Audition in Kids), is an extension of the early childhood preschool programs offered through the Stark County Educational Service Center. The classroom, which is located at Prairie College Elementary School in Canton Local, began operating in January 2006. Four students with hearing loss and one hearing classmate from school districts throughout Stark County were enrolled. At the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, the class was extended to a full day program to allow time to provide the students intensive instruction in speech, language, and auditory development. There are currently eight students with hearing loss and two hearing classmates enrolled in the program.
SPEAK is one of three public preschool programs in the State of Ohio to offer an auditory oral preschool classroom for children with hearing loss. This unique program provides an educational option for parents who have chosen spoken language as the primary means of communication for their child with hearing loss. SPEAK’s mission is to teach children with hearing loss to listen and speak, and to understand when someone is speaking to them. The primary goal of SPEAK is to prepare children to return to their home school district to be educated with their hearing peers as soon as they are ready. There are several components of SPEAK which are necessary in the development of auditory oral communication skills. The classroom teacher, Mrs. Eileen Johnson, is a specially trained teacher of the hearing impaired. The curriculum provides highly specialized instruction in speech, language, and listening skills, while adhering to the preschool curriculum set forth by the Ohio Department of Education. With appropriate hearing aids, cochlear implants, and frequency modulation systems, children are taught to use their hearing to develop spoken language. In the preschool classroom, attention is given to developing the young child’s spoken communication, social, cognitive, and perceptual-motor skills through individual and whole group activities. To foster oral communication and provide age appropriate language models, hearing classmates are included in each class. The SPEAK program also has the following support services: audiological services, speech-language therapy, auditory training sessions, physical and occupational therapy, adaptive physical education, psychological services, social services, and itinerant services.
One component of a quality auditory oral program for children with hearing loss is access to audiological testing and maintenance. Children with hearing loss who are developing spoken language need to be able to hear appropriately before they are able to learn. Normal hearing or managed hearing loss is the foundation for academic success. Stark County Educational Service Center has a state-of-the-art Audiology Center which allows the educational audiologists to assess, diagnose, and manage hearing loss in children of all ages, including infants. More than 800 children are evaluated annually. The Audiology Center was donated by Quota International of Massillon, Ohio, Charitable Trust with generous support from the Timken Foundation. The donation includes a soundproof testing booth as well as the following diagnostic equipment: a clinical audiometer that allows for assessment of hearing loss for students; Visual Reinforcement Audiometry to assist with assessing hearing loss in very young children who cannot be evaluated with standard procedures; an immittance bridge which assesses middle ear status in children of all ages; Otoacoustic Emissions, which provides an objective measurement of inner ear function that does not require a response from the patient; Auditory Brainstem testing and Auditory Steady State Response testing, which objectively assesses the brainstem’s response to sound; and a hearing aids analyzer to electroacoustically evaluate hearing aid and frequency modulation systems.
Thanks to our generous donors, Stark County Educational Service Center’s educational audiologists have the essential equipment to help ensure that all children have access to sound so that they can develop academic skills.