Attitudes of others

Another striking feature of the body of evidence regarding the impact of deafness is that it almost exclusively focusses on the deaf individual and how deafness impacts on their experiences. There is little consideration of how the deaf individual influences and shapes their own environment or affects the other individuals within it with the exception of parents and in particular mothers. Studies have considered the importance of parents and how having a deaf child affects the parents and their subsequent relationship with their child (Meadow-Orlans et al., 2000, Meadow-Orlans et al., 2003, Plotkin et al., 2014, Vaccari and Marschark, 1997). Luterman (2004), for example describes the potential impact of guilt and fear on the arrival of a deaf child for many parents. His work in early support for deaf children through early years’ programmes was based on the philosophy of ensuring the parent felt informed, empowered and in control. As humans we are social beings and interaction requires at least two individuals yet research has rarely reflected on how deafness in one individual influences the communicative partner and the manner in which they contribute to the

interaction as a consequence. The following sections will consider these potential challenges for teachers and peers.

4.3.5.1 Teachers

The importance of a positive attitude towards the inclusion of students with disability by the mainstream teachers has been identified as fundamental to the success of the process (Avramidis and Norwich, 2002). Teachers are reported to be influenced by the label given to the child’s needs. Responses are reported to be more positive to those children with mild disabilities, physical difficulties (Huang and Diamond, 2009) and sensory losses (Avramidis and Norwich, 2002) than to children with severe learning

disabilities or emotional and behavioural difficulties (Avramidis et al., 2000, Avramidis and Norwich, 2002). Recent research in the Netherlands indicates that many mainstream teachers are positive about the inclusion of deaf students in their classes (Vermeulen et al., 2012, Bruggink et al., 2014); based on the teachers responses to questionnaires and interviews. This indicates a substantial change in attitudes from the late 1980s and early 1990s when the inclusion of sensory impaired children in a mainstream classroom was considered to be particularly difficult (Clough and Lindsay, 1991, Ward and Déan, 1996).

Since this time there have been substantial changes in the identification and management of deaf students and technological advances in hearing aid technology and the development of cochlear implantation (2.3.1).

Consequently, many deaf students, including profoundly deaf students, may present with no immediately obvious indication of their level of hearing loss as their speech production may provide no indication that they do not hear everything. This may lead to mainstream teachers being more positive about their inclusion within mainstream classrooms as they incorrectly interpret this as linguistic and communication competence (Wheeler et al., 2004). This positive acceptance which may be based on misperceptions of deaf students’ language and communication competence may result in

mainstream teachers being less aware of their need to modify their lesson delivery to accommodate the students’ language skills. This may lead to some deaf students becoming frustrated and result in disruptive or

withdrawn behaviour. Vermeulen et al. (2012), identified that the teachers developed negative attitudes towards the deaf students whose behaviour became disruptive in their classroom. Teachers were less willing to be flexible and accommodate the deaf students’ needs if their behaviour was

considered difficult and they demonstrated a negative attitude to work. This was not however found by Eriks-Brophy and Whittingham (2013) who reported that the teachers in their study did not consider deaf students to be disruptive.

The importance of teachers’ awareness of the communication success of deaf students was explored by Braeges et al. (1993) with a cohort of 95 deaf students who attended a school for the deaf. She identified that those

students who were confident in contributing to the class activities and felt they were understood and considered by teachers to be involved and motivated achieved more academically than those students who felt

…frustrated, misunderstood and confused regarding classroom communication and who were perceived by their teachers as bored or uninvolved.” (Braeges, 1993, p.244)

The structure of the formal system within many secondary school settings does not easily support direct contact in which to build relationships between students and mainstream teachers. In the course of a week a student may work with a dozen different teachers and even encounter more than one in a particular subject area. Consequently difficulties with communication,

cognitive processing and fatigue (McGarrigle et al., 2014, Hornsby et al., 2014) may lead a teacher to perceive that these are in fact an unwillingness to engage in class activities rather than as a result of communication or language issues.

Teachers and peers perceive that deaf students experience far less difficulty with communication than the deaf students reported themselves (Zheng et al., 2001, Rekkedal, 2015). It is interesting to note that teachers of hearing students rarely underestimated their students’ understanding but frequently overestimate it (van de Pol and Elbers, 2013). The authors also identified that the teachers’ perception of the students’ understanding influenced the nature of the subsequent support they provided. Similar findings were reported by (Begeny et al., 2011, Wittwer et al., 2010). All three studies indicate that individualised knowledge of students leads to more accurate judgements of their levels of achievement and competence. It would follow, therefore, that for a deaf student’s learning to be effectively mediated a teacher would require a detailed understanding of the student’s

communicative abilities, concept development and the manner in which their deafness shapes their cognitive processes.

Teachers frequently consider they have received insufficient training to allow them to develop these understandings (Eriks-Brophy and Whittingham, 2013). Indeed insufficient training for mainstream teachers in teaching students with SEN is a recognised challenge for inclusive practice, (Boyle et al., 2013). It has also been suggested that 50% of the variability in outcome for deaf students may in fact be due to instructional factors (Marschark et al., 2011), a lack of training for mainstream teachers is likely to be a significant factor.

It is important to recognise, however, that a mandatory qualification exists for those teachers who teach groups of deaf students on a regular basis and whilst it is not compulsory for peripatetic teachers, who may visit deaf students in mainstream settings, it is strongly advocated within the current SEN Code of Practice (Department for Education and Department for Health, 2014). This qualification corroborates the level of expertise required to work with deaf children, as with other children with a sensory impairment. It is acknowledged that a subject specific mainstream teacher would not be expected to have the same depth of knowledge of the needs of a deaf student as a teacher of the deaf. This also raises the question of the role of the specialist teacher of the deaf within mainstream settings; the contribution they make and whether or not it is adequate along with the questions raised regarding teaching assistant contributions.

4.3.5.2 Peers

Students spend a significant part of their lives within their particular school setting and consequently it provides an important social environment. The success or otherwise of the social interactions will have a significant impact on many different aspects of a child’s educational experience depending on the nature of the interactions and with whom they occurred. Inevitably they will have an impact on their learning and academic achievement (Zins et al., 2007, Garner, 2010). Indeed emotional competence has been identified as an accurate predictor of future academic success (Izard et al., 2001). There is limited research that has considered the influence of the classroom on the deaf student. Hintermair (2011), used quality of life measures to examine the importance of positive experiences in school and home for deaf students’ overall quality of life, concluding that a positive experience in school was more important for deaf students than for their hearing peers. Those students who reported they were comfortable communicating in the

classroom and considered they were easily understood by their peers and teachers achieved well academically; those who felt they were not able to participate fully achieved less well. Positive peer relationships were also described as important by the deaf students in helping them to feel engaged in the classroom as part of the community. When deaf students experienced negative attitudes towards their deafness it could lead to social and

academic difficulties. There are clearly a number of significant influences that exist within the mainstream classroom that warrant further investigation in understanding how to ensure the social context classroom environment can support deaf students.