María Castaño, Arts & Entertainment Editor
On Oct. 22, Manhattan University’s (MU) ARCH Faculty Fellows Program welcomed speech-language pathologist Tara Gallagher, CCC-SLP, TSHH, for a discussion on “supporting students with hearing loss.”
With 22 years of experience, Gallagher specializes in auditory, verbal and listening techniques to support children with hearing impairments.
This event was part of the “Embodied Learning, Inclusive Design: A Humanities-Sciences Workshop on Disability in Higher Education” project directed by the MU professors Christie González-Toro, Ph. D., and Mehnaz Afridi, Ph. D.
In a separate written interview with The Quadrangle, González emphasized the objective of the project.
“Our goal is to offer a workshop series that addresses a critical need: helping faculty create more inclusive and accessible learning environments for students with sensory disabilities,” González said.
The workshop focused on explaining the difficulties people with mild, moderate or severe hearing loss experience in a classroom setting, what tools are currently available to accommodate said students, and to clarify common misconceptions about sound access. The tool Gallagher focused on during the workshop was cochlear implants.
inside of an ear.
MY.CLEVELANDCLINIC.ORG/COURTESY
Cochlear implants have internal and external parts that work together to send sound signals to the brain. The internal part is surgically placed through a small incision behind the ear. Gallagher explained that these implants convert sound into electrical signals, creating a hearing experience that differs from that of people with typical hearing.
Near the end of the workshop, the floor was open for questions, and Gallagher expanded upon this point after J. Patrick Abulencia, Ph. D., a professor of chemical engineering at MU, asked if there was any way for hearing people to know what it was like to have a cochlear implant.
“If you search [for] cochlear implant stimulation, you’ll hear it,” Gallagher said. “You’ll be shocked. I stopped having parents do that because they would be sobbing. Because you can’t understand it. It sounds like metal scraping.”
A significant part of the workshop focused on common assumptions about deaf or partially deaf people who use hearing devices. Gallagher explained the importance of teaching the children she works with to advocate for themselves. She explained that it starts with helping her students tell the difference between not hearing and not listening.
“[The students] have to say, ‘I didn’t hear you,’ or … ‘I wasn’t listening.’ … They have to know for themselves which one it is,” Gallagher said. “Are you not listening because that’s on you, or are you not able to hear? … I teach them that so that they can give that information to you as faculty members.”
On a subsequent slide, Gallagher presented multiple bullet points with advice on easy things faculty members could do to make their classroom more accessible, such as “reducing background noise, arranging settings for clear view, providing written captions, sharing key vocabulary ahead of time [and] repeating classmates’ comments into the mic.”
MU currently offers multiple accommodations to students through the Specialized Resource Center (SRC), such as note-takers, readers and scribes, information on the access and requirements of service animals, special dietary accommodations and housing or academic accommodations.
All of these become available after the student submits all relevant paperwork the university asks for on its website. Yet, Afridi shared the difficulties in making a significant change for disabled students on campus due to the limitations of the SRC.
“We can do much better,” Afridi wrote in an email to The Quadrangle. “Disability services on campus fall under the SRC, and they’re stretched thin and doing the best they can. We met with Juanita Pacheco [Director of Advising/Success Coaching in the SRC], who is amazing and educated us about the needs we have, in both resources and finances. The first step should be awareness, and I hope we can train more of the campus community.”
Afridi emphasized to The Quadrangle how her approach to helping disabled students does not end in the classroom, but rather, she is looking for ways to change the available resources for them.
“I am working on a city grant to help with [the expenses of disabled students because of their disabilities],” Afridi wrote. “Keeping my fingers crossed.”