TUTORING DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING STUDENTS

Richard Orlando, Mary Ellen Gramly, Janet Hoke¹

TUTORING AS AN ACADEMIC SUPPORT SERVICE

A widely used service. As discussed in this report, tutoring generally refers to the traditional practice of meeting periodically or as the need arises to help a given student acquire or strengthen a particular knowledge or skill. Typically, tutoring serves as a supplement to more formal instructional activities such as lectures, labs, assigned readings, and papers. However, some of the applications of tutoring discussed in this report may overlap with basic academic preparation as described in another report in this series. This is most likely to occur in the areas of English and mathematics.

Tutoring ranks with interpreting and notetaking as one in a triad of fundamental academic support services for deaf and hard of hearing students at the postsecondary level, particularly among those in mainstreamed settings. Among almost 2,000 two and four-year colleges identified as providing services to these students during the 1989-93 period, two-thirds cited the use of tutoring as a special service to assist their deaf and hard of hearing students with their ongoing coursework (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1994).

As reported in the 1995 edition of College and Career Programs for Deaf Students (Rawlings, Karchmer, DeCaro, and Allen, 1995), of 62 postsecondary educational institutions offering special programs for deaf students, 61 provide some type of tutoring support for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Yet in spite of tutoring's widespread use as a service for deaf and hard of hearing students at the postsecondary level, little has been written about tutoring as a special service for these students, and there appears to be little published research on the subject. In large measure, good tutoring practices apply regardless of disability. While this report will focus particularly on special considerations in tutoring deaf and severely hard of hearing students, much of its contents discuss tutoring practices in a more general way.

Why the special need for tutoring? Deaf and hard of hearing students may be in need of tutoring for all the reasons they have in common with their hearing peers, such as poor study skills, failing grades, and class absences. But beyond these, additional factors may be present, all involving communication in one way or another.

Understanding lectures. English may not be the primary language for a deaf student. His/her first language and preferred mode of communication may be American Sign Language (ASL) or an English-based variation. And even though the lecture is interpreted, its accuracy and timing remain subject to the typical problems of language translation. Also, many deaf students and most hard of hearing students depend upon speechreading and amplification for understanding lectures, inevitably resulting in gaps and inaccuracies in what they receive through the spoken lecture.

The problem of understanding a lecture may be compounded when more than one deaf or hard of hearing student is registered in the same class and their communication needs do not coincide. In any event, classroom discussion can be particularly difficult for deaf and hard of hearing students to process. These and related problems involving communication, together with suggestions for their resolution, are discussed in other reports in the series.

Reading and writing proficiency. Most college-level courses include assigned readings from the textbook and other sources, and instructors assume their students can read and process these materials independently. As indicated in the introductory report, many (but by no means all) deaf and hard of hearing students enter college without this assumed level of reading proficiency. As a consequence, they may not be able to meet their instructor's expectations in extracting information independently from their readings. Depending on the course and the particular student, his/her tutor may devote as much or more time to tutoring on textbook content as on lecture content.

¹ In the order listed above, the authors are associated with National Technical Institute for the Deaf (Rochester, New York), Columbus State Community College (Columbus, Ohio), and Gallaudet University (Washington, D.C.).