I include this section because I feel that young deaf and hard
of hearing children miss out on a most incidental learning. How important is
this to a child's education? I've heard it said that as much as 90% of what we
know is learned through incidental learning. In
Facilitating Hearing and Listening in Young Children
by Carol Flexer, Ph.D.,
she says:
"A child with a hearing impairment, even a mild or unilateral impairment, cannot casually overhear what people are saying, or the events that are occurring
(Davis, 1990). Children with normal hearing often seem to passively absorb information from the environment and to constantly have little antennae to pick up every
morsel of information. A child who has a hearing problem may seem oblivious to environmental events, "out of it," not to know what is occurring, unconnected to his
or her environment, or have to be told everything.
Because of the reduction in signal intensity and integrity with distance, a child with a hearing problem may have a limited range or distance of hearing; that child
may need to be taught directly many skills that other children learn incidentally."
In order to help you gain a better understanding of just how
important Incidental Learning is, I've gathered a few links on the subject.
