2016 © Kool Kidz Vidz, Teacher Tools e-magazine: Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss
Discussion Points: Elita
Elita has a severe mixed hearing loss in both ears. What kind of loss do you have?
How long have you known about your hearing loss? How long have you had hearing aids?
Did you already know about the Lifescribe Pen? What do you think about it?
Elita said the main problem she has in school is forgetting to bring her hearing aid batteries? Do
you always have a supply of batteries? Where? What do you do if one of your aids stops
working?
Have you experienced having other kids ask you about your hearing aids? How did it make you
feel?
Elita said, “I don't really care if people say that I have hearing aids, or that I'm weird with
hearing aids, cause they
help me hear, so that's good.” How do you feel? What do you think?
She said she can read lips, but not really. How much do you think speechreading really helps
you to understand? When? (noise, groups, 1:1, etc.)
Elita said that she receives sound later than when it is spoken, there is a delay in her
understanding. Do you experience this? Does reading lips help you in this situation?
She was the only person in elementary school with hearing aids and she said it made her feel
special. What are your experiences?
Why is Elita learning sign language? Do you know sign language? Do you think you might like to
learn it? Why?
What do you think you will do after high school?
What career sounds interesting to you?
2016 © Kool Kidz Vidz, Teacher Tools e-magazine: Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss
Discussion Transcript: Elita
The following is a captioning transcript of the Kool Kidz Vid for this student.
Okay, so my name is Elita, and I have had a severe mixed bilateral hearing loss in both
ears, since I was three years old, and I've had hearing aids since I was three years old. And, I am
trying out the Lifescribe in my AP US history class this year, and it's working out pretty well. I
haven't had a lot of time to practice with it, but it's pretty cool.
And, what is a Lifescribe?
Oh, you're asking questions now, okay. It's a smart pen where it will record, when I write
down my notes for history, and then I can go back and correct a certain word, and then it’ll play
the recording. And on.
I see.
The main problem that I have in school is forgetting to bring my hearing aid batteries to
school. And, that's certainly hard, because I can't be able to hear. But, I like to section it off, so
that I have one hearing aid battery go out at different times, so I can still hear if I don't have my
batteries with me. So, yeah that's cool. In elementary school, a lot of people would ask me why
my ears were so big and bulky, and I'd just tell them it's my hearing aids, and they were like "Oh
right" and I was like "All right" And then, and it's good. I don't know, I don't really care if people
say that I have hearing aids, or that I'm weird with hearing aids, cause they help me hear, so
that's good. The most challenging thing at home is that sometimes my friends forget that I
don't have to have hearing aids, and like don't have them in, and they try talking to me, and
that's really hard. But, I can read lips, so it kind of works, not really. A lot of things my friends
mainly don't know is that I can receive sound later than when it's spoken to me, or given to me.
So, it just takes a while, and I have to kind of getting used to reading lips, as well as hearing.
Right.
When I, for all of elementary school, I was the only person with hearing aids, and I didn't
really
care if I had them, and no one else did, cause I don't know, it made me special, and it just
didn't matter to me, cause everyone accepted me, it's all good. And, in the future, I would hope
to go to Arizona State University, and major in pre-med, because I really want to be a pediatric
anesthesiologist. That seems really fun. Since I'm taking ASL at the JC, I hope to be fluent, so
that when I go into the medical field, it will help me communicate with deaf and hard of hearing
people. I hope this helps you out a lot, and just remember that having hearing aids doesn't
make you any less of a person, you just have more help. Yeah!