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Understanding the Diversity of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Student Experiences

While deaf and hard-of-hearing students are often grouped together due to shared communication barriers, their experiences and learning needs can differ significantly. For example, deaf individuals who primarily use sign language navigate the world through rich visual communication, drawing on facial expressions, body language, spatial awareness, and cultural practices specific to Deaf communities. These differences highlight the importance of responsive, inclusive teaching strategies that honour diverse ways of perceiving, processing, and interacting in learning environments.

In contrast, hard-of-hearing individuals commonly rely on spoken language with or without hearing devices. Within the hard-of-hearing community, there is also considerable diversity, such as:

• differences in the age of onset
• degree of hearing loss
• communication preferences
• use of American Sign Language (ASL) alongside spoken language

Accommodations & Accessibility Services coordinates accommodations for hard-of-hearing students through formal processes. These services support students’ access to learning content and the learning environment in ways that are conducive to their communication style.

Instructors can also proactively integrate common accommodations into the course and instructional design to:

• align the learning environment with students’ communication styles
• build pedagogical and administrative efficiencies
• demonstrate intentional and inclusive teaching practices
• reduce the need for reactive adjustments during the term

By embedding accessibility into your course from the outset, you create a more inclusive, equitable learning experience for all students, and include:

• technological accessibility strategies
• classroom modifications
• course design supports and aids
• instructional practice modifications

Learn more about integrating these accessibility strategies below.

Technological accessibility strategies

• Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART): The Accommodations and Accessibility office provides registered students with real-time captioning of lectures and class discussions. The instructor does not implement this strategy, but can support it in ways outlined in the following resource: Supporting Sign Language Interpretation and Realtime Captioning in Your Classroom.

• Closed captioning: Ensure all video and audio content is accurately captioned. Commonly used sources for captioning include , , and YUJA. 

Classroom modifications

• Preferential seating: Check in with students early in the term to determine their seating preferences that support their hearing and visibility needs. For example, sitting in the front to allow for speechreading* and off to the side so that students can scan the room easily to find who is speaking during discussions may be preferable. Note: This is not always the case, and preference will be based on the individual student’s particular needs.

  * as used here means using the visual clues of the speaker’s lip and facial movements, gestures, posture and body language, along with residual hearing to make use of the speaker’s verbal communication, intonation and context to infer meaning (formerly known as lip reading).

  In other words, speechreading is a communicative aid used in conjunction with other methods to facilitate the reception of information.

• Acoustic considerations: Minimize background noise and improve room acoustics. For example, close-micing and other strategic microphone positioning during lectures can help carry your voice through the room and mitigate poor acoustics and background noise.

• Assistive listening technology: You may be asked to wear a transmitter that directly inputs your voice into a receiver attached to the hearing technology worn by the student, allowing for maximum hearing. These devices strengthen the clarity of what is transmitted rather than merely increasing the loudness of the instructor’s voice.

• Lighting Considerations: Ensure adequate lighting for students who are speechreading. If you are going to dim the lights for a film or PowerPoint presentation, provide instructions before dimming and repeat any comments made while the lights are off once the lights are back on.

Course design supports and aids

Material preparedness

• Provide class materials: Before the start of class, provide the class slides along with any relevant notes to students, so they have organized themes with text to reference during the live lecture. This can be shared on the Canvas platform for all students to access or selectively offered to students who need it for accommodation purposes.

Multimodality

• Providing textual support: Use Assistive Technology (AT) features to provide transcripts or captions of your live or recorded lectures. For example,  includes many AT functions, and because it is built into the Canvas platform, it helps to streamline the work.  

• Integrate visual aids: Utilize visual aids to support text (e.g., diagrams, charts, images). 

• Integrate video aids: Include accurately captioned videos as part of the course readings (e.g., a speech, lecture, discussion, or creative academic feature). 

• Use physical manipulatives: Demonstrate course concepts and ideas using physical formations (e.g., building blocks, 3D models, base-10 blocks) ().

Instructional practice modifications

• Face the student audience when speaking. This is critical in ensuring students can speechread. When you face the whiteboard or chalkboard, students can no longer access the physical cues that enable their speechreading. If it is a math class, for example, and facing the whiteboard is fundamental to course instruction, then CART would be necessary.

• Speak clearly and at a moderate pace. Slowing your speech and removing barriers that block your mouth (e.g., not placing your hand over your chin) allows for better speechreading.

• Repeat or rephrase student questions and comments. This enables students to follow the ongoing discussion, thereby promoting their participation.

• Allow the student more time to respond to oral instructions. Interpretation services, CART, and speechreading may all create a brief delay in communication. Allow a few extra moments for students to respond to directions or questions, and for them to offer their questions.

• Integrate visual indicators for turn-taking. Hand-raising during class discussion provides visual cues for students' speechreading so they know who to turn to at each point in the conversation.

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Reflective Prompts

To evaluate your approach to accessibility in the classroom, consider asking yourself:

• How can I improve my use of visual aids and written materials to supplement verbal instruction?

• How can I use multimedia to promote diverse forms of participation for a single piece of content?

• How can I integrate principles of Deaf Aesthetics and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into my lesson planning proactively to address the needs of diverse learners?

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Learn more: Additional Resources

These strategies for supporting hard-of-hearing students in your course are guided by the Universal Design for Learning 3.0 and Deaf Aesthetics frameworks. Together, they offer inclusive approaches that respect the diverse ways students access, engage with, and demonstrate learning.

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) 3.0: UDL 3.0 is a guide for teaching and learning that fosters learner agency through multimodality, accounting for learner variability. By offering multiple ways to engage, process, and demonstrate their understanding, instructors can ensure that all learners are adequately and equitably equipped to achieve course outcomes.

• Deaf Aesthetics:  is a theoretical framework that emphasizes the visual and multimodal ways deaf individuals perceive, process, and interact with the world, especially within educational settings. It encourages incorporating deaf and hard-of-hearing students’ communicative experiences into course and curriculum design, strengthening UDL’s effectiveness.

U of A resources

1. Centre for Teaching and Learning – Pedagogical practices that offer flexible and accessible options for classroom participation in your specific teaching context

2. Information Services and Technology – Setting up participation and assessment settings/options in Canvas or eClass

3. Accessibility & Accommodations Services – Understanding the duty to accommodate at the ß÷ßäÉçÇø or asking specific questions related to student accommodations

External resources

U of T. .

Weber, Joanne, et al.

CAST. .

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