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Hearing Assistive Technology: Guidelines for Appropriate Use in Classrooms with Older Students

Scenario Equipment to Use Who Should Use the Microphone

Lecture

Soundfield/CADS*; Personal Systems

Teacher

Class Discussion

Soundfield/CADS; Personal Systems

Pass the microphones to each speaker.

Giving directions prior to independent or small group workSoundfield/CADS; Personal Systems

Teacher

Small Group Work: 1 student with hearing loss

Personal Systems

Pass among the other members of the student's group as they take turns talking.

Small Group Work: Multiple students with hearing loss all synched or connected to the same frequency or network

If students with hearing loss are in the same group, use the personal system.

 

If not, do not use either system.

If the students are in the same group: Pass among the other members of the student's group as they take turns talking.

Small Groups: Multiple students with hearing loss all synched or connected to different frequencies/ networksPersonal system with multiple transmitters***Pass between the leader and participants in the students' groups as they take turns talking.

School Assembly or Special Visitor

Personal system; Soundfield/CADS or school PA system

Pass between speakers.

Giving directions for written testsSoundfield/CADS; Personal systemTeacher
While students take written testsNothing 

Traveling from one class to another

Student should bring the personal transmitter to the next teacher**. 

 Speech Therapy

Personal system or Nothing

If the speech room has good acoustics, HAT may not be needed. If, however, the room has a great deal of background noise then the Speech Language Pathologist should wear the mic; Pass from person to person if there are multiple speakers in a group.
Special Classes (art, gym, music, etc.)Personal system to go with students**.Instructor

Standardized speech and language testing (ex: PLAI, PLS,

Goldman-Fristoe)

Personal system

Speech Language Pathologist or Test Administrator

Written standardized testing (ex: ACT, SAT)

While reading directions: Soundfield/CADS; Personal system

 

While testing: None

Test Administrator

*Classroom Audio Distribution Systems (CADS; a.k.a. sound field systems)

**Work with your audiologist to determine whether frequencies will interfere with one another if transmitters are moved throughout the building.

***Consult your audiologist regarding the use of multiple transmitters.

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