Andres Sanchez

Professor Batty
English 113B
April 8, 2016
Challenges Faced by Deaf Students
Being different with certain disabilities is not a good thing. Despite the hardships that
people go through, they often find a way to work around it to become successful, especially for
deaf students. Its much harder for students growing up to take in the facts and accept that they
are different from others. They will be picked on by others and for children growing up with a
certain disability like not being able to hear, school is the last place they would wanna be. There
will always be challenges that deaf students face when going to school, depending on their
family budget, some students may be eligible to enroll in a school specifically for the hard of
hearing, but some may have no choice but to go to a school where most of the students are
hearing. There is also a challenge between the cost of the school the student wants to go to. Most
deaf schools tend to be a bit more expensive than a school that is for students that can hear. The
good thing is that students with a hearing disability tend to receive a lot of help wherever they
decide to go so they dont have to face all the challenges and struggles alone and they become
successful despite having a disability. In order to prevent the exclusion of deaf students feeling
isolated, public schools should be required to provide adequate tools and funding for the hard of
hearing so that they are successful like students who are able to hear.
Students who are hard of hearing arent the only ones that struggle, but their teachers
struggle to. Teachers play an important part in contributing to the success of their students. Often
times teachers in colleges have help from interpreters who translate the teachers main important

points. The way Ive seen this implied in a classroom is by the use of captioning which takes
down the words being spoken by the teacher and is translated in a form that is easier to
understand to the student. Teachers have to find a way to teach students who can not hear and
that requires a lot of work to do so. Holly McBride writes in her article Odyssey: New
Directions in Deaf Education, Their teachers, too, face unique challenges. Material making,
breaking concepts and tasks down into component parts, providing time and motivational
opportunities for developing background knowledge and foundational skills, and addressing
generalization across environments are all things that must be carefully considered and planned
for within limited instructional time for students with disabilities (McBride). Without teachers
taking the time to actually make the lessons more understandable in a way a person who can not
hear is a teacher who actually cares and wants her students to succeed based on complications
they face. Teachers and counselors are some of the people that play an important role in the
success of a deaf student. With the right kind of help, there are endless possibilities that people
that can not hear do to affect their society in a positive way. They may one day grow up and find
way to give people who can not hear their hearing back.
To other people, not being able to hear may consider a person as being useless because
they wont be able to listen to certain instructions. Life is harder for those who cannot hear and
they must find a way to cope with the struggle of living in a world of silence. It's much more
difficult for a person who is in school because they will have a hard time learning. Aimee Whyte
writes in her article Journal of College Counseling, Like all college students, Deaf students
confront a number of developmental and psychosocial challenges when adjusting to college life,
including breaking away from supportive relationships at home, establishing new relationships
and identifies at college, and managing higher academic demands (Whyte). Eventually there's a

point in their life where they have to accept the fact and just have to learn to deal with the fact
that they cannot hear. With the right mentality and with the right support for these students, then
they can achieve anything they set their minds to. Despite the hardships they will face, like being
picked on or bullied, it depends on them if they will accept defeat or continue trying in order to
someday be successful.
As long as there is as much people who are able to hear then there are as many people
that cannot hear then this means that there should be balance between people who have
disabilities and people that dont. People who have certain disabilities whether it being physical,
mental, or emotional they shouldnt be treated differently from people who can hear. It's good to
have balance in the world, we cant have too much of something because then we get used to
things and later on change becomes difficult. Everyone is good at something, and there shouldnt
be any exclusion in schools just based on what you can or cant do. In Caroline Guardinos
article American Annals of the Deaf, Students who are deaf with a disability (DWD)
constitute nearly half of the population of K-12 learners who are deaf or hard of hearing.
However, there is a dearth of information on theory, research, and practice related to these
learners (Guardino). Hard of hearing students usually dont face academic challenges alone.
Usually, they have someone there guiding them and teaching them along the way.
People with any type of disability are stronger than anyone else because they have to
endure with a disability that ties them down. Students with the disability of hearing, they tend to
be quick learners because they have to learn a special way to communicate and that is through
sign language. Learning sign language is something that is not easy to do and people that cannot
hear have to find a way to teach themselves. For those student who attend public schools, they
have a hard time communicating with their peers because not everyone can sign. It would be a

good thing for a good amount of people to learn sign language because in the world
communication is key and helps open doors to new things. There are obstacles in life that a
person must go through. Some obstacles come at you quickly while for others they dont. People
with the disability of not being able to hear have to face various obstacles every single day and
having to deal with the discrimination that comes with it. There have been times where people
have gotten to the point where they just cannot take it anymore and have thought about taking
their own lives away. Their lives are way different than a person that is considered as normal
but that doesnt mean they cant be successful in life.
Some people may believe that money shouldnt be wasted on trying to help those who are
disabled and hard of hearing and so they cut off resources that may benefit people who have
disabilities especially those that cannot hear. People may not want to have students who have
something wrong with them because of the rep they may have. It greatly affects them from being
successful. People dont tend to have much hope for those that cannot hear or have any physical,
mental, or emotional disabilities. However, this is unfair because if those who are deaf want to
pursue a good education, it tends to be more expensive and farther away for them. This is
somewhat discriminatory towards people with disabilities because people tend to want to exclude
them from society.
Not being considered the same as everyone could be a good and bad thing, depending on
the way you see things. It could be a good thing because you can get the chance to be unique, but
it can also be a bad thing because people will look at you differently and see you less of a person
when theres something wrong with you. It's always important to never exclude people because
of their disabilities. Education is so important that schools should be the first to have a form of
change and make things equal for each student.

Works Cited
Guardino, Caroline, and Joanna E Cannon. "Theory, Research, and Practice for
Students Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing with Disabilities: Addressing the
Challenges from Birth to Postsecondary Education."American Annals of the Deaf, 160.4
(2015): 347.

McBride, Holly, and Matthew Goedecke. "Curriculum Modification: Making

Standards Accessible for Deaf Students with Disabilities." Odyssey: New Directions in
Deaf Education, 13 (2012): 8-11.

Whyte, Aimee K, and Douglas A Guiffrida. "Counseling Deaf College Students:

The Case of Shea." Journal of College Counseling, 11.2 (2008): 184-192.