Making sports more accessible to student athletes with hearing loss.

Preserved background

Making Sports Accessible to Student Athletes with Hearing Loss

Grant Rauterkus of Tulane University and Catherine V. Palmer of University of Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)

Contact Author:

Catherine V. Palmer, PhD

Eye and Ear Institute203 Lothrop Street4 th floor, AudiologyPittsburgh, PA 15260412-647-6089

Background

In June 2010, the United States Government Accountability Office found that students with disabilities did not participate in sports or afterschool activities at the same rates as their peers. These students were 56% less likely to play sports. In consideration of the health and social benefits of athletics, the U.S. Department of Education supplied further guidance in 2013 indicating that one reason for a lack of inclusion was that professionals, students, and families are not aware of students’ rights to the accommodations that may make athletic activities accessible.

The book, Time Out! I Didn’t Hear You was published in 1996 as a resource for high school athletes with hearing loss, their parents, coaches, and educational audiologists. The book was published in order to address some of the gaps that would later be described by the US Government Accountability Office with respect to students with hearing loss participating in high school athletics. The book detailed the technology available to athletes with hearing loss and offered guidance for all involved parties, from clinicians to referees, as to how they could ensure that the athlete could access the sport while following the rules. The goal was...

Organized athletics at the college level whether NAIA, NCAA Division I, II, or III or intramural/club level have the potential to provide students with important social groups, fitness, and financial support for college. With under representation of students with hearing loss in high school athletics, they are vulnerable for under representation at the college level. For these reasons and because the process of inclusion in college athletics starts in a student’s transition from high school, the authors were interested in producing an additional resource for all stakeholders (student athlete, University Disabilities Officer, audiologist,...