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.