Abstract

“Earlier the better”, being the motto for rehabilitation professionals, lays emphasis on early identification and intervention. Available literature on the subject has shown that early intervention along with appropriate selection of teaching learning process enhances the child’s potential and over-all development of the child. The teaching-learning process includes factors like good infrastructure, teacher preparation, curricular adaptation and evaluation systems. This study is focused upon assessing the special educators’ knowledge, attitude and skill with regards to early intervention for children with hearing impairment. The methodology applied was cross-sectional exploratory survey. Research tools were prepared to assess the above mentioned objectives. The findings of the study revealed that teachers’ who were professionally qualified displayed better skill in handling children with hearing impairment, whereas teachers with short term training scored better in knowledge test and attitude scale.

Keywords: Special Educator, Early Intervention, Children with Hearing Impairment, Knowledge, Attitude and Skill.

[1] Lecturer, Department of Special Education, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore.

[2] Educational Consultant, Freelancer. Mysore.