Increasing Students' Use of Hearing Aids

Despite the importance of auditory amplification, not all teachers -in a large provincial school for the hearing-impaired were ensuring that students used their hearing aids. The present experiment attempted to increase the percentage of students in a class using hearing aids by providing teachers with feedback and publicly posting the information. Nine teachers and 56 students participated in the experiment. Experimental conditions were analyzed by a multiple-baseline design across groups of teachers. Following baseline measurements, teachers completed evaluation forms on students' use of hearing aids. In addition, they received feedback on the percentage of students in their class observed using hearing aids and this information was publicly posted. The results indicated that the percentage of students using hearing aids increased substantially with the introduction of evaluation forms, feedback, and public posting.