Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi. I'm Krista Yuskow,
an Educational Audiologist
who works in the schools in Northern Alberta.
Over 65% of
students' school days are spent listening
in the classroom. Students are
listening to teachers, peers,
announcements, videos, and so forth.
So what do these young children need
in order to access all of this
critical auditory information?
Well, first and foremost
teachers need to be sure that
their speech is loud enough and
clear enough to be understood
by all students.
Two, students need to have
access to this information.
These two elements
are the cornerstones
for learning in elementary or grade
schools as students at this age
primarily learn through the auditory
mode. Now let's dig
a little deeper into hearing and
listening in the classroom.
How else can we help young ears and brains
to understand and process
all of the auditory information
presented in a classroom?
Well, we certainly know
that young children
require a listening environment
that is quiet and
free from distractions.
Young children also require
a louder speech signal,
a slower rate of speech,
repetition of information,
and more processing
time. So why do they need
these special considerations?
Why can't we just talk to them like
we would our teenage students?
Well, we all understand
that when a student enters into school
they will probably have poor
pencil skills with immature grasps on
the tools, and we know that
these skills will develop through maturation,
experience, and instruction.
What we don't often consider
is that auditory skills
are also maturational
and also develop with time
and experience.
For example, we cannot
ask a young child to retain
five critical elements.
This is because the part of their
auditory corte responsible for
auditory memory is
not yet mature.
Young children are also
unable to pull out speech
when listening in the presence of background noise
as their auditory figure
ground skills have not yet matured.
In fact,
maturation of the auditory cortex
is not complete til
approximately 13 years
of age.
We do not expect children to talk like
adults or write like adults,
so why do we expect that they
hear like adults? They do not.
We need to be aware
of these maturational effects
of the auditory system,
look closely at the listening environment,
and how information is presented
before identifying students
as inattentive, distracted,
or off task.
I invite you to view the
following websites for more information