PIC/Family Voices Podcast Episode 20: Understanding Deaf and Hard of Hearing IEP Teams

This episode features Dr. Rachel Parkington and Lauren Martone discussing the essential members of deaf and hard of hearing school teams, the IEP process, communication plans, and how to support student success. Learn about team roles, legal rights, and practical strategies for educators and parents.

Key Topics

  • Roles of team members in deaf education
  • Key components of IEP for deaf students
  • Importance of collaboration in IEP development
  • Communication plans and language access
  • Legal rights of parents under IDEA

Resources 

Transcript

Emily Woodward (00:03.197)
Today, our guests will be Dr. Rachel Parkington, founder of Here to Learn, and Lauren Martone. Dr. Rachel Parkington earned her doctorate in audiology from the University of Northern Colorado and her Bachelor of Science and Communication Disorders from the University of Massachusetts. A leader in educational audiology, she has served as president of the New Hampshire Academy of Audiology and currently serves as past president of the Educational Audiology Association.

Since founding Here to Learn in 2015, she has worked to expand educational audiology services for students across New Hampshire. Lauren Martone is a family school partnership facilitator at the Parent Information Center and mother of two children, one with disabilities. Lauren has utilized Rachel’s knowledge and expertise in developing useful resources and materials for children who are deaf and are hard of hearing. This podcast came to fruition throughout this work.

In this episode, Dr. Rachel Parkington will explore the essential members of deaf and hard of hearing school teams and the critical roles that they play in supporting student success. Dr. Parkington will break down who is typically part of an IEP team, how the team members may vary based on a child’s individual needs, and what each professional contributes to the planning process.

We’ll also discuss the key components of the IEP for deaf and hard of hearing students, including communication plans and parent rights under IDEA. Welcome Rachel and Lauren to the podcast.

Lauren Martone (01:39.984)
Thank you so much for having us. Yeah.

Rachel Parkington (01:40.4)
Thank you for having me.

Emily Woodward (01:45.459)
So the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, outlines the required members of an IEP team, but for a deaf or hard of hearing students, the conversation can become more specialized. When building that team, who should families and schools consider including to ensure the students’ unique communication and learning needs are fully supported?

Rachel Parkington (02:09.274)
So I love this question. I sit down at a lot of tables with IEP teams and the first thing out of some team members’ mouths is, wow, this is a big team. And I’m like, yep, yep, it is, because everyone’s needs to be here. So it is really important to have this a team with all of the unique players that understand the deaf and hard of hearing students’ needs, and that is quite a few people sometimes. It includes a teacher of the deaf, it includes an educational audiologist, it might sometimes include a speech language pathologist, and potentially an educational interpreter or acute language transliterator. So why would we need all of these people at the table? Just quickly to discuss the role specifically of a teacher of the deaf and educational audiologist, I think, is important so that teams know why they would want them sitting at the table. So a teacher of the deaf and educational audiologist are not the same. We are different roles, and while our roles can overlap, we each have our own specific roles that we need to use to make sure the student gets what they need. A teacher of the deaf is a credentialed specialized teacher, that’s going to look at the deaf and hard of hearing students academic, social emotional, and communication needs. And so they’re a really important team member to have at the table to be able to understand how to assess what tools are needed to assess, and how to teach the child in order to make the progress they need in the education, educational setting. And as an educational audiologist, what I would do or what an educational audiologist would do, we’re a team member that’s going to help with their access, specifically most likely their auditory access. So looking at what kind of amplification technology they’re using, looking at remote microphone or hearing assistive technology for the student, looking at classroom acoustics. So we’re an important piece to the team as well, and we need to be sitting at the table to ensure that the student has all the access that they need. Those are those are some examples of who you would want sitting at the table and why you would want us sitting at the table.

Emily Woodward (04:45.715)
Lauren, can we talk just a little bit about these two positions? I know we had talked previously, the teacher, the deaf, and the educational audiologist, and kind of the importance of having these two roles present as Rachel just indicated at team meetings, and what role does each member? Rachel kind of reiterated just now, but if you had anything else you wanted to add to hit that point.

Lauren Martone (05:08.488)
Yeah, I think it’s just important that we remember every child is different and communication modalities will vary and their needs vary. So each team member helps represent a unique resource and meet those needs in different ways. So it’s important to have their expertise at the table to support the whole child.

Emily Woodward (05:33.683)
Great, thank you. What would you say strong, well-written IEP goals look for with a deaf or hard of hearing student? And are there critical areas such as auditory skill development, self-advocacy, communication access, or assistive technology use that teams should especially be aware of?

Rachel Parkington (05:53.38)
Yes, so all of those areas you just mentioned are critical areas that teams should be aware of. So I think the first step to writing a well-written IEP goal is making sure that we have good evaluation data. So the first step is making sure that the evaluations are completed in order to know what type of specialized instruction a student should be getting. And for a deaf and hard of hearing student, it goes beyond just looking at academics. So, we would want as a team with the teacher of the deaf and educational audiologist as a part of that team to look at assessing for areas like auditory skill development or development in the language of the choice, which might be American Sign Language or CUDE language, self-advocacy, assistive technology use.  All of those things are important in assessing and then carrying over the data you get into writing that strong IEP goal. One resource I use quite a bit, and I actually just spoke about at a talk I gave is something called the Expanded Core Curriculum for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students. And that looks at what our students need beyond academics. There are states that have their own written expanded core curriculum. I usually point towards the Iowa expanded core curriculum or the Pennsylvania Expanded Core Curriculum. They’re free. They’re online. And they are a great guide that you that teams can use in order to make sure you’re hitting all the key areas for a deaf and hard of hearing student so that they’re getting well-rounded support.  Just some quick examples of the areas it looks at is self-advocacy, how they know their audiology or hearing technology, communication, social emotional skills, vocational skills, and their identity as a deaf and hard of hearing student.

Emily Woodward (08:03.101)
Thank you. And I can link those resources too with the podcast documents afterwards. Lauren, why is collaboration important when developing an IEP for deaf and hard of hearing students?

Lauren Martone (08:15.09)
That’s great question, Emily. I think that collaboration is essential when developing the IEP because, like Rachel mentioned above, these students often have unique communication, language, academic, social, and accessibility needs. And no single professional or family member can fully address that, those alone. So, a collaborative team approach really helps ensure that the student will receive appropriate support, supports, services, and opportunities to be successful both academically and socially. We know that social piece is as crucial as the academic piece for kiddos.

Emily Woodward (09:01.459)
I know that New Hampshire uses a communication plan as part of the IEP process for deaf and hard hearing students. Can you tell me what the purpose of that plan is and how does it help teams better understand and support a student’s communication needs?

Rachel Parkington (09:15.172)
Yep. So, it’s funny, I was just doing one of these yesterday. So, the New Hampshire Communication Plan is it actually before I get into it, I want to tell you where you can find it. So, you can find it in appendix C of the New Hampshire Educational Service Guidelines for Students Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing so, if you just Google New Hampshire Educational Service Guidelines for students who are deaf and hard of hearing, you can find it online.

And then the communication plan is in Appendix B. Again, it’s a free resource. It should be accessible. But what that important plan does is it covers deaf and hard of hearing students’ language modalities or primary languages and communication modalities. So how is our student learning language? And then how is our student communicating? And is that through listening in spoken language? Is that through American Sign Language? Is that through Signed Exact English? Is that through cued language? Is that through a combination of any of those languages? Has the family been supported in that language? Is the school supporting that language? And what services and modifications need to be put in place in order to give that student access to the language. And that includes access to staff that uses the preferred language and communication modality, and peers that use the preferred language and communication modality. And the New Hampshire Communication Plan walks you through all of those different pieces to ensure that we’re giving the student a language-rich environment in their preferred language and communication modes.

Emily Woodward (11:11.677)
Could you explain a little bit about how the communication plan connects to IDEA’s requirements around communication, language access, and access to peers, staff, and learning?

Rachel Parkington (11:22.82)
Yep, so within the IEP, there’s something called the special factors page. And on the special factors page, it says the team must consider the communication needs of the child, and in the case of a child who is deaf or hard of hearing, consider the child’s language and communication needs, opportunities for direct communications with peers, and professional personnel in the child’s language and communication mode, academic level and full range of needs including opportunities for direct instruction in the child’s language and communication mode. I wanted to read that all because it’s written there, it’s in there, it’s written. One thing I’d love to see is have the state embed the New Hampshire Communication Plan within the IEP kind of software. So as soon as you go to answer that question, it takes you to the New Hampshire Communication Plan. Because when the team asks that question, you need to make sure you can fully answer that. And if you just quickly say yes, did you really assess everything? The New Hampshire Communication Plan allows you to kind of have that understanding that, yep, we covered that. It’s listed here. We usually put it right in the IEP, and you know that all is good. And I also want to say that the New Hampshire Communication Plan, you can come back to that at any time. I have a lot of parents or teams ask, once we do this, is this it? Like, that’s their language, that’s their communication mode. No, because that that can change over time. So you can always go back to your communication plan and change it, and honestly, you should be going back to it annually every time you look at the IEP because you’re looking at the special factors page every single time you look at the IEP.

Lauren Martone (13:12.554)
I just want to add too that when families are in those IEP meetings in the special factors page, if that box yes is checked, that those were considered, it is okay for a family member to ask how? How were those things considered? And where did you come up with the answer yes to this question? Because that may lead into that communication plan needing to be pulled into the conversation.

Emily Woodward (13:45.019)
If you could change just one thing about how the IEP team process is approaching deaf and hard of hearing students in New Hampshire right now, what would that look like?

Rachel Parkington (13:56.4)
I’ve been working as an educational audiologist in this state for eleven years and I’ve seen so much growth in how deaf and hard of hearing students are supported in schools over that eleven years, which is amazing. You know, so this question is hard for me to answer because I’ve seen it grow and I’ve seen so many positive changes be made. I think if I were to continue to look at how teams are approaching deaf and hard of hearing students. The one thing I’d want to change is just ensuring that the team is considering teacher of the deaf and educational audiologist to be a part of the team. Because I do still see some school teams getting the clinical audiology report and saying, this is enough. We don’t need anything else. We can figure this out. I just strongly feel that’s not enough.
A clinical audiology report doesn’t give you all of the information the student needs in order to plan for their education. The clinical audiologist sees the student for an hour maybe, and they don’t look at the student’s learning needs. They don’t look at the student’s classroom access. You really need to have that, the teacher of the deaf and educational audiologist on the team to interpret those reports.
I think, you know, beyond that, another thing I’d love to see continuing to make progress on is implementing remote microphone technology. And sometimes I’ll see schools who don’t have an educational audiologist on the team just ask the parent if they can use their microphone, they have at home. And they’re like, well, we can just use this because we’re pretty sure it’s gonna work okay.
So having a walk-in to team sometimes and they have the home microphone and that’s not necessarily made for education. And beyond that, the microphone belongs to the family. So, if the school is saying that a student needs access to a remote microphone system in order for the student to have access to their education, then the school should provide that accommodation. And that includes having an educational audiologist come on board to make the recommendation for an appropriate microphone, fit that microphone and ensure its functioning properly. Because what’s the point in having the accommodation if it’s not done right?

Emily Woodward (16:34.877)
Thank you for mentioning that, Rachel. This can be a reminder to everyone also that schools are required to provide what your child needs to access during their school day and make sure it’s maintained as well. I know that in an upcoming issue of Pass It On, our newsletter we produce quarterly, we will learn some additional tips on how to best support deaf and hard of hearing students as well. And that issue will come out in the fall, so be on the lookout for that, and that’ll kind of provide some insight onto other ways to support deaf and hard of hearing students as they prepare for preschool. So, IDEA guarantees parents meaningful participation in the IEP process, but for many families of deaf and hard of hearing children, especially hearing parents who are new to this experience, IEP meetings can feel rather overwhelming or intimidating. What do you wish every parent knew before walking into that meeting?

Rachel Parkington (17:32.054)
I wish every parent knew how important their voice is and how much their voice matters and their input matters. And specifically for a deaf and hard-of-hearing student, you’re the parent, you’ve been with this with your child since day one of the diagnosis. You’ve been to all the clinical audiology appointments. And while you might be like, I don’t know what that clinical audiologist said, you also were there for that diagnosis. You were there working with your child. You’re there trying to interpret and understand your child’s needs. Beyond that, you’re so important in making your child’s language and communication needs known to the team. So, it’s your choice as a parent of the deaf and hard of hearing child to let the team know what language you want this child to have. Do you want your child to be listening in spoken language, have American Sign Language, have access to cued language, or any combination of that? And then working with the team to ensure that your child’s needs are met and your want as a family for what language you chose is being met as well. Your voice is so important and so impactful. I can’t stress that enough, how much I myself continue to learn from parents and families. I was just at a deaf and hard of hearing camp and it was I worked with parents for three days and I came back and I was like, my cup is full. I love working with parents. I love hearing what they have to say. And so please continue to just be your child’s best advocate.

Emily Woodward (19:28.125)
Lauren, did you have anything?

Lauren Martone (19:30.122)
I just I think that’s great advice and I hope that parents really can hear that and feel that the importance of them their presence at the table.

Emily Woodward (19:45.043)
What do you wish educators better understood about working with deaf and hard of hearing students, Rachel? And especially when it comes to communication access, language development, classroom participation, and the impact that hearing differences can have on learning and social connection.

Rachel Parkington (20:03.088)
So, I would love educators to continue to understand that hearing does not equal understanding. So, we can put hearing aids on a student and I can put a remote microphone system on a student but that doesn’t equate to full access throughout their day. Are they hearing their peers at recess or accessing their peers at recess? Are they accessing their peers at lunch? Their peers aren’t wearing the remote microphone system. How are they doing socially? How are they doing emotionally? I really think one thing is that the ears are the gateway to the brain. We want to make things accessible, but we also need to look beyond just putting the hearing aids on and the remote mic system on. Another thing I’d love educators to continue to learn about is listening fatigue. So, our deaf and hard of hearing students have to work so much harder to listen. And by the end of the day, they just might be exhausted. And they might not want to talk to their peers. They might not want to do that group assignment. They might start to shut down. So, understanding that that is a big piece to their day is that listening fatigue? You know, I take it back. Think about when you’re on a phone call and the connection is really like it’s disconnecting, it’s maybe fuzzy. You have to work so hard to listen to that phone call. And sometimes you just want to be like, I will call you back. I will call you later. I’m going to give up. That is how our students can feel throughout the school day. So that working harder to listen is a really important consideration for our teams to think about. So yeah, I mean I could go on, but those are two main things.

Emily Woodward (22:02.813)
No, those are really great points. How can educators better address the academic, social, and communication needs of deaf and hard of hearing students?

Lauren Martone (22:13.512)
I think like Rachel was just saying above, that it’s just important for educators to remember that effective support for students really goes beyond accommodation and it really requires intentional collaboration as well as flexibility and understanding of each child’s unique needs and I think oftentimes when you get into a classroom and some of these accommodations are in place and the extra supports, they really benefit all the children in the classroom. And it ends up just being a normal part of the day. And that’s really important for them to just be open to embracing.

Emily Woodward (22:55.847)
I love that, Lauren. I think you mentioned that on a previous podcast episode we worked on together too, that it kind of benefits all the students. What rights do parents have under IDEA under the IEP process?

Lauren Martone (23:11.22)
So, there are so many of them, but I think that really important is that parents have a right to an IEP meeting. They have a right to have their child evaluated and then to receive copies of those evaluation reports in language that they can understand. And I think that that’s sometimes a disconnect. Parents receive the reports and they feel really overwhelmed by what they’re reading. And it’s already emotional enough.  It’s a journey that’s very emotional when your child is diagnosed and you’re on this path. So, I think supporting parents in that is important. They have a right to communication access, and the child has a right to a free and appropriate public education. And in a lot of ways, the state does go above and beyond for parents. So, it’s important to know what New Hampshire offers as well. And I will say that PIC has a webinar coming up in July that parents can register for on understanding their rights in an IEP meeting.

Emily Woodward (24:22.759)
Lauren, how can parents effectively advocate for their deaf or hard of hearing child within the IEP team?

Lauren Martone (24:31.114)
Think that As Rachel mentioned before, the parent role on the team is so important. And the IEP meetings can be very overwhelming. One thing our district recently started doing is inviting the parents into the room immediately, as opposed to holding them like outside, so that they’re not walking in to the entire team already sitting around the table that can feel very overwhelming to begin with. And as we’ve learned, a lot of parents of deaf and hard of hearing students are hearing. So this is a new journey for them. And any way that we can help simplify that process and make them feel more empowered to advocate, I think is important.

Rachel Parkington (25:22.914)
I feel like I probably should have answered this when we were talking about one thing I’d love to see in the state that teams look at is just advocating for the different types of assessments for our deaf and hard of hearing students. I really do feel that expanding what we’re looking at beyond just academics. For our deaf and hard of hearing students is so important and if parents could help advocate for that as well, that’s it’s something I think that would be great.

Lauren Martone (26:00.04)
I love that you mentioned the expanded core curriculum earlier because I think that that’s something that not a lot of people know about unless you’re in a disability category like deaf and hard of hearing, or for myself, my son has a visual impairment. And it’s so important for him, especially now he’s going into middle school to have that as part of his IEP. So, I love that you mentioned that.

Emily Woodward (26:26.483)
What is a common myth or misconception about deafness or hearing loss that you wish would just finally disappear?

Rachel Parkington (26:33.231)
So, I have two that I want to go over. The first one I kind of touched on, it’s that amplification does not return hearing back to normal. Hearing aids, cochlear implants, bone anchored hearing aids, they all work differently. but the premise is that they’re making things louder, they’re amplifying.

Rachel Parkington (27:03.088)
They do that’s a great job of increasing access, but it’s never going to be hearing like someone with typical hearing hears or listens. And I really feel like that is a misconception that I see a lot. Even when I worked with adults in the clinic and they were fit with hearing aids, they’re like, it’s not like when I was younger and I could hear and I was because it’s you’re never going to hear that way again. You are hearing through a hearing aid now.  So, know that amplification, if listening in spoken language, is one of your goals for your child, amplification is important and it’s great. And our students need to use that, but it’s never going to make it back to normal hearing or typical hearing our students are always going to have to work harder, even with their hearing aids on in order to access information. It is one of my jobs as an educational audiologist to make sure that I level the playing field as much as I can for our students. And the other myth that I wanted to add in is because I see it a lot is that if you have a student that has a minimal or mild hearing loss, that’s how it’s classified on the clinical audiologist report know that it’s not they’re not just fine if they have a minimal or mild hearing loss. A minimal or mild hearing loss can be just as communicatively and educationally impactful as a severe hearing loss. So, knowing how to interpret different hearing losses is really important because I think the terms minimal and mild are extremely misleading.  I wish the audiology world would change that terminology, but we’re not there yet. But just know if you see someone with a minimal to mild hearing loss, it does not mean they are quote unquote fine.

Lauren Martone (29:10.538)
Google the Speech Banana. I mean, I hope you don’t cringe and that’s not a resource that you cringe away from, but it was so eye-opening to me to see on the speech banana the number of sounds that are still missed with mild hearing loss. I just that image enough is very eye-opening.

Rachel Parkington (29:32.783)
I love the speech banana. Please Google the speech banana.  I was at a conference and we printed them out and laminated them and we’re handing them out and we were like please take a speech banana. You can plot you can plot your child’s or your own hearing test or audiogram on that speech banana and you can see what sounds you’re missing based on your hearing thresholds. and as you said. As you said, you put in a mild hearing loss, you’re gonna be like, whoa! Yeah.

Emily Woodward (30:09.939)
Interested to find out about the speech banana now. I need to go Google that. Are there any resources both of you would recommend, resources, organizations, or supports that you would recommend for families of deaf and hard of hearing children, especially for those navigating early intervention, school services, communication choices, or the IEP process for the first time?

Lauren Martone (30:32.212)
I would say the Parent Information Center. We also have Hands and Voices, excuse me. On their website, they mention that they’re dedicated to supporting families with children who are deaf or hard of hearing without bias around communication modes or methodology. They are a parent-driven nonprofit organization providing families with resources, networks, and information. To improve communication access and educational outcomes for their children. And we actually will be hosting them coming up in the near future on a podcast as well, two of the parents from Hands and Voices. And then Northeast Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services. And I’d say Here to Learn. We obviously have learned very much from Dr. Rachel Parkington this morning. So they’re here in New Hampshire as well.  I don’t know if you have any others, Rachel.

Rachel Parkington (31:29.696)
No, honestly, the Hands and Voices I feel like is a big one. And they are real we’re really working on having that parent support and peer support through hands in voices. I point a lot of parents to them. So, I think you covered most of them. Those are all really good resources.

Emily Woodward (31:54.833)
Those are excellent resources. I’m gonna throw you a random question now. Before an IEP meeting or busy day, coffee or tea? What is your preference?

Rachel Parkington (32:04.666)
So always coffee. I try to throw the tea out because it’s supposedly healthier. But I love coffee and I love dark roast coffee and I love my job because I get to travel around to different parts of the state and I try all of the local coffee shops.

Lauren Martone (32:23.998)
I’m also always coffee, usually flavored. I prefer ice when it’s nice out, but the other ninety percent of the time living in New Hampshire it’s hot.

Emily Woodward (32:35.507)
Sounds really good. What is one piece of advice you hope our listeners walk away with when supporting or advocating for deaf and hard of hearing children?

Rachel Parkington (32:48.244)
One piece of advice. I feel like if anything, walking away from this, just knowing that there are people that can be and should be in your corner on the team, the educational audiologist, the teacher of the deaf. Those are important team players that should be helping to support your deaf and hard of hearing child thrive in their environment. And I think that, you know, if we don’t have the correct supports in place, are we going to our full potential? Who knows? So if we’re gonna walk with it away with anything, it’s making sure that we’re really advocating for the correct players to be on the team. I also, you know, I say this a lot to teams and parents is I think, you know, we shouldn’t place limitations ever on our children or our students, and especially for my lens, based on their hearing loss. So, I don’t ever want to put a limitation on anyone, especially not based on their hearing loss. And this is this is one of my favorite quotes. It’s from I King Jordan, and he was Gallaudet University’s first deaf president. And if I can leave with anything, it’s this quote, and it’s that, deaf people can do anything hearing people can except hear.

And I just think that’s so impactful to know and understand. so that’s what I’ll leave you with.
Emily Woodward (34:24.017)
Love that. Thank you so much, Rachel and Lauren, for joining us today. This was really great to kind of better understand deaf and hard of hearing school teams, what is involved with the IEP process. I really appreciate your time, information, and resources. Take care.

Lauren Martone (34:40.01)
Thank you so much.

Rachel Parkington (34:40.346)
Thank you.