A Survey of the Use of Hearing Aid and Assistive Devices among the Hearing Impaired in Selected Schools

Abstract

The study examined the use of Hearing Aids and Assistive devices among the Hearing Impaired pupils in selected schools. 320 pupils were purposefully selected from 16 schools stratified into three geographical zones of the federation. The classes used were classes four and five, while 40 volunteered teachers and parents were also selected to respond to a carefully worded ten items questionnaire through a mail system and follow up exercises both on telephone and personal visits. The findings revealed that few pupils used hearing aids and other assistive devices in the school system, due to their ignorance on its importance as well as lack of adequate monitoring procedure on behalf of other pupils, teachers and parents alike. There are inadequate provisions of these devices in schools due to parent's poverty and and lack of technical know-how. Most pupils used body-worn aids at the expense of the newly sophisticated technological usable ones. The study concluded that the effectiveness of hearing aids and other assistive devices for the pupils in the school system however depend on adequate monitoring techniques as well as adequate diagnosis by the audiologists.