Children with hearing impairments are first sent for audiological assessment at the Institute, and admission is based on the recommendation of a team of professionals including the Special Educator, Audiologist and Speech Language Pathologist and Psychologist in discussion with the parents.
Medium of instruction
Kannada and English
Classes
Preschool to 10th grade.
The school has two sections:
The Pre-School section – for young children with hearing impairment, aged 4-6 years.
- The objective of this section is to provide intensive speech, language and listening training to children between 4-6 years so that after training, they can be integrated into a regular school at the same age as their hearing counterparts.
- The teacher to child ratio in the Pre-School section is 1:7. This low teacher-to-child ratio is maintained to ensure that the teacher is able to give individual attention to each child and also monitor his/her progress closely.
The curriculum for young children with hearing impairment in the Pre-School section revolves around intensive language and listening training. All our teachers have a diploma in Special Education [Hearing Impairment]. The involvement of the parents is crucial for the success of the training program. Therefore mothers receive regular training and counseling on the follow up required at home. The preschool training will be continued for 3 years.
1st to 10th standard – for children older than 4 years.
After 3 years of training, the child is ready to go to the 1st standard and is able to cope with the regular school [state level] syllabus from the 1st standard to 10th standard. Children appear for the 10th standard examination along with normal hearing children. The only concession children with hearing impairment get is that they are exempted from learning the 2nd and 3rd languages in the curriculum.
- Integration is recommended depending on the child’s ability but generally children remain in the school till the 10th standard. Apart from the prescribed syllabus, the children are given extra training for language development.
Mainstreaming children:
Segregation of the children into high and low functioning groups is done based on parental involvement & support, severity of HI. The children in the high functioning group (i.e., those with mild to moderate HI) receive Auditory Verbal Therapy, where the main aim is to provide the children with basic communication skills required for mainstreaming into regular schools.