Types of Support Services Provided

Respondents were asked about the provision of a number of specific support services designed for deaf and hard of hearing students to such students in the last 4 academic years (1989-90 through 1992-93). The specific support services about which institutions were asked were sign language interpreters/transliterators, who use manual communication for voice to sign and sign to voice interpretation; oral interpreters/transliterators, who facilitate lipreading by silently repeating what is being said, often with facial and/or gestural enhancements and semantic rewording of words or phrases that are difficult to lipread; classroom notetakers, who take notes for deaf and hard of hearing students during class sessions, so that these students can focus their attention on the instructor and/or interpreter; tutors to assist with ongoing coursework, who know the subject area, how to teach it, and how to communicate with deaf and hard of hearing students to provide additional assistance with coursework; and assistive listening devices, which are systems for the classroom or lecture hall that augment and clarify sound, such as personal and group FM systems, loop systems, and infared systems. Respondents were also given an opportunity to list any other support services that the institution provided to deaf and hard of hearing students.

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing and need support services, usually need individualized support services. For example, some students may need interpreters, whereas others may hear or read lips well enough to need classroom notetakers rather than interpreters; other students may require both services. Ideally, what an institution provides is based on what the individual deaf or hard of hearing student needs. Since information about student requests for services is not available from the institutions, it is not possible to ascertain from these data whether the services provided were the only services requested.

It also is not possible from these data to ascertain the quality of the support services that were provided. For example, it would be useful to know whether the interpreters were certified, the assistive listening devices were in good condition, and the tutors were familiar with the coursework that they were tutoring. However, the constrains of a brief PEQIS survey did not allow this kind of detailed information to be collected. Thus, while this survey provides the previously unknown information about the number of deaf and hard of hearing students to whom various support services were provided, it does not provide information about the quality of these services.

Percentage of Institutions Providing Specific Support Services

Three-quarters of the institutions that provided any support services to deaf and hard of hearing students in the last 4 academic years provided classroom notetakers to these students (Figure 4). About two-thirds of these institutions provided sign language interpreters and tutors to assist with ongoing coursework. Assistive listening devices were provided by a third of the institutions that had provided any support services. Oral interpreted were provided by 20 percent of the institutions. About a quarter (29 percent) of the institutions that had provided any support services indicated that they provided some other type of support service. Other services frequently mentioned were testing accommodations (such as extended time or individual sessions), counseling or advising (personal, academic, vocational, or career), assistance with registration, classroom seating arrangements, tape recording of class sessions, and advocacy or consultation with instructors.

Number and Percentage of Students Provided with Specific Support Services

During academic year 1992-93, 2-year and 4-year postsecondary education institutions reported providing classroom notetakers to 8,700 deaf and hard of hearing students (Table 10). Sign language interpreters were also frequently provided, with 8,100 deaf and hard of hearing students receiving this service in 1992-93. Institutions reported providing 5,320 deaf and hard of hearing students with tutors to assist with ongoing coursework, 1,070 students with assistive listening devices, and 970 students with oral interpreters. Other support services of some kind were provided to 3,700 deaf and hard of hearing students in 1992- 93.

Table 11 shows the proportion of deaf and hard of hearing students provided with any support services in 1992-93 that were provided with specific support services. There were not many statistically significant differences by institutional characteristics, due in part to the large standard errors for some items (see Table 1a in appendix A). Sign language interpreters were provided to larger proportions of students who received support services in small and large institutions than in medium institutions. Tutors were provided to greater proportions of students who received support services in institutions in the Central states than in institutions in the West or Northeast. Assistive listening devices were provided to a higher percentage of students who received support services in 4-year than in 2-year institutions, and in large compared with small institutions. There were no other statistically significant differences by institutional characteristics.

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