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Jan - MTP
Jan - MTP
Jan - MTP
Maxine Lynch
Mentor Teacher Project, January 2014
The acoustic environment of Allegra* was assessed using the Phonic Ear
Listening Environmental Profile. The environmental conditions of a classroom can
greatly impact how a student performs. Allegras classroom scored 26 points
which places her classroom in the category of borderline listening environment.
The Listening Environmental Profile looks at aspects of the teacher, teaching
style, and physical classroom. Most of the problematic noise in the classroom was
generated from the physical settings and design of the classroom. This classroom
had many hard surfaces, which causes reverberation and leads to poor classroom
acoustics (Acoustical Society of America, 2010). The large classroom windows
covered one wall, and had flimsy fabric drapes offering no sound absorption.
Other hard surfaces in the classroom included: walls lined with whiteboards; and
regular ceiling tiles. Reverberation can be decreased by increasing sound
absorption in a classroom (Acoustical Society of America, 2010) through adding
soft materials. Changing the drapes to be a heavy fabric would increase sound
absorption. Another modification could be adding in acoustical ceiling tiles. In
many classrooms, the addition of acoustic ceiling tiles greatly improves the entire
acoustic environment (Acoustical Society of America, 2010). Ms. B* is Allegras
teacher, and there are 24 children in Allegras third grade class. Ms. B will not talk
over any noise, and her students are quiet and attentive to their teacher. Ms. B
teaching style is teacher-focused and often, her voice is the only one that
students need to hear. Ms. B consistently wears the FM for Allegra, and re-iterates
student responses. Ms. Bs teaching style was ideal for a child with a hearing loss,
because of the lack of student noise, and the teacher-focused environment.
Allegras auditory skills were assessed using the Functional Auditory
Performance Indicator (FAPI).
Functional Auditory Goals:
1. Increase Allegras ability to discriminate familiar words in imperfect acoustical
environments. Unless Allegra is in an ideal acoustic environment, she has not
acquired the skills to be able to discriminate between similar sounding words.
References:
Acoustical Society of America, (2010). Acoustical performance criteria,
design requirements, and guidelines for schools. Melville, NY
Stredler-Brown, A. (2010). Development of listening and language skills in
children who are deaf or hard of hearing (pp. 137-161). In R. Hull (Ed.),
Introduction To Aural Rehabilitation: Serving Children and Adults With
Impaired Hearing. San Diego: Plural Publishing