April 13, 2020
Hearing Aids/Cochlear Implants
- It is important to keep the routine of wearing hearing devices for all waking hours, including weekends and evenings; not just during online schooling.
- Depending on the age of the student, perform a daily listening check with hearing aids/cochlear implants. Contact an educational audiologist for any help with this.
Online Learning
- Create a quiet listening environment away from siblings and pets if possible.
- If your student prefers to listen via computer speakers, support the student, if needed, in selecting a comfortable listening volume and speaker placement.
- If your student prefers using over-the-ear headphones, place them halfway up over the top of their ear and hearing aid (or CI processor) microphones (not over their earmold) in order to minimize feedback.
- If your student has a Hearing Assistive Technology (HAT/FM) system at home, use a 3.5 mm. male-male audio cord to connect it to the computer for online meetings.
Captioning
- Look for the closed captioning logo on videos and “select”.
- If there is no captioning available for the online teaching resources, one option is to use an automatic captioning program such as www.webcaptioner.com.
- Captioning is meant to support the audio signal and not substitute for it.
- A quiet environment is necessary, and the audio from the computer must be audible to the student.
- To enable captions in Google Hangouts Meet, click on the three dots menu in the lower right corner and choose “Turn on captions” next to the CC symbol.
- If your student is using their HAT/FM system, a splitter and separate speaker would be needed in order to use automatic captioning.
- Note that the accuracy of automatic captioning is limited.
- Please reach out to your educational audiologist if you have any questions about captioning.
We are here to support you! Please contact us with any questions or concerns as we all navigate this challenging time.