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A Profile in Perseverance
Kari Hamrick Can't Hear, but Boy Can She Talk! By Teri Brown
That's a problem many oral/deaf children are facing in school. People see the hearing aids or FM devices and assume they can hear, not understanding that what Kari and others like her are hearing is very different from what a hearing child hears. Even children with a captioner are missing instrumental parts of what is going on around them. Without a strong support system within the school, failure is very possible.
Five months into high school, the lack of understanding of her unique needs as an oral/deaf student and the lack of support finally made it impossible for Kari to keep up. Her family decided it would be best to find an alternative situation for her. The high school didn't consult with the family or even follow the IEP (Individualized Education Plan).
"It's a real shame," says her grandmother. "We had been lulled into a sense of security because the IEP was followed meticulously at her previous school. There weren't any all-school in-services and little to no follow up from the teachers concerning class work, etc."
Her grandmother says that hearing is the only hidden disability. "If you are blind or have trouble walking, people see that, understand it and make allowances. With these oral/deaf kids, it is difficult because people either don't see their hearing aids or, if they do, assume this allows them to hear everything, and that just isn't true."
"High school was hard, and I mean hard," says Kari. "The homework was harder, and you would get twice more homework than you did in elementary school."
The school is currently providing a tutor for Kari, but the drop in her grades was devastating to a young woman who had always been an academic success. Her sessions with the tutor have shown that Kari can do the work if given the proper support, but the repercussions of her high school experience linger.