NYSTCE Deaf and Hard of Hearing 063 common mistakes
NYSTCE Deaf and Hard of Hearing 063 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating 'deaf and hard of hearing' as one instructional profile and recommending the same placement, service delivery model, or communication approach for every student described in a scenario.
Candidates memorize a single preferred philosophy (often the one emphasized in their own preparation program) and then apply it to all cases, ignoring the wide range of hearing levels, age of onset, amplification use, and family communication choices that drive individualized decisions.
What to do instead
Before answering, write down the specific student variables in the stem (age of identification, degree and type of hearing loss, amplification history, language exposure, family hearing status and communication mode, additional disabilities). Match the recommendation to those variables, and reject any option that prescribes one approach for all deaf and hard of hearing learners.
Confusing the roles of the teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, the educational interpreter, the speech-language pathologist, and the audiologist when selecting who is responsible for a service or decision.
Candidates know each profession exists but not the boundaries of practice, so they pick the specialist whose title sounds most related to the keyword rather than the professional legally and ethically responsible for that task.
What to do instead
Build a role chart: the teacher of DHH designs and delivers specialized instruction and consults with general education staff; the interpreter conveys messages faithfully without tutoring or disciplining; the SLP addresses speech, language, and listening goals; the audiologist manages assessment, fitting, and verification of amplification. Practice sorting tasks into these four columns until it is automatic.
Choosing an option that removes the student from the general education setting whenever a support need appears, rather than selecting the least restrictive environment with supplementary aids and services.
Candidates equate 'more support' with 'more restrictive placement,' a common assumption that conflicts with IDEA's presumption in favor of the general education classroom with appropriate supports.
What to do instead
When a stem shows a student struggling in general education, first look for the option that adds services in that setting (itinerant teacher, interpreting, FM system, note-taking, captioning, consultation). Choose a more restrictive setting only when the stem provides evidence that supports in the general setting have been tried and documented as insufficient.
Misreading audiological data: interpreting a pure-tone audiogram, speech banana, or aided versus unaided thresholds incorrectly, or confusing degree of loss with functional hearing ability.
Candidates memorize degree labels (mild, moderate, severe, profound) but do not practice reading the graph, so they misplace the speech spectrum or assume that a given decibel level guarantees a specific level of access to speech.
What to do instead
Practice reading audiograms until you can locate the speech banana, identify the configuration (flat, sloping, rising, cookie-bite), and state what speech sounds are likely inaudible unaided. Always distinguish unaided thresholds, aided thresholds, and functional performance, and check whether the stem specifies which one it means.
Conflating language development with speech development, so that a student with intelligible speech is assumed to have age-appropriate language, or a student who does not use spoken language is assumed to have a language disorder.
Candidates from listening-and-spoken-language backgrounds tend to treat speech production as the primary indicator of language competence and overlook signed language milestones and modality-specific assessment.
What to do instead
Separate the two constructs explicitly in every scenario: ask whether the concern is phonology/articulation, morphosyntax, vocabulary, pragmatics, or discourse, and ask which language (spoken English, ASL, or another) is being assessed. Remember that a deaf child acquiring ASL follows the same developmental milestones and timelines as a hearing child acquiring spoken language.
Selecting assessments or interpreting scores without accounting for the language of administration, norming sample, and accommodations, such as using a spoken-English-normed test to judge an ASL-dominant student's knowledge.
Candidates focus on the construct being measured (e.g., reading comprehension) and overlook whether the test's language demands, norms, and administration procedures are valid for a deaf or hard of hearing student.
What to do instead
For any assessment item, ask three questions: In what language and modality was the test given? Was the norming sample comparable to this student? Were appropriate accommodations (interpreted directions, extended time, captioned or visual presentation) used without invalidating the construct? Choose the option that matches the assessment to the student's language and experience.
Treating an FM/DM system or cochlear implant as a complete solution, without addressing acoustic accessibility, classroom noise, seating, maintenance, or the need for daily checking.
Candidates learn the technology labels but not the operational realities, so they pick 'provide an FM system' as a stand-alone fix and miss the conditions required for the device to work.
What to do instead
For technology items, verify the full chain: teacher microphone worn and charged, receiver coupled to the student's device, background noise controlled, device checked daily by a responsible adult, and student taught to self-advocate when the signal is poor. Reject options that present a device as sufficient without monitoring and environmental supports.
Answering about the role of the educational interpreter or the use of a student's IEP accommodations in ways that violate professional practice, such as asking the interpreter to explain content, grade work, or serve as the student's aide.
Candidates who have seen interpreters in classrooms absorb informal practices and do not know the formal ethical standards governing the interpreter role, including confidentiality and the prohibition on dual roles.
What to do instead
Memorize the interpreter's core functions: convey all messages accurately and completely, maintain confidentiality, remain impartial, and disclose conflicts of interest. Any option that has the interpreter teach, discipline, tutor, or summarize content is wrong; the correct option routes those tasks to the teacher of DHH or classroom teacher.
Ignoring the family's language and communication background, or writing recommendations that require parents to adopt a single method without respect for informed choice and cultural and linguistic diversity.
Candidates default to a school-centered perspective and forget that families make communication decisions, that many deaf children have hearing parents with no prior exposure to deafness, and that many are from multilingual or immigrant households.
What to do instead
In family-centered items, choose options that provide unbiased, complete information about all communication options, connect families with deaf adult role models and parent-to-parent support, use qualified interpreters for meetings, and honor the family's informed decision even when it differs from your personal preference.
Missing the implications of additional disabilities or of a late identification, and attributing all academic difficulty to hearing loss alone.
Candidates anchor on the hearing loss as the sole explanatory factor and fail to consider that the profile may include a learning disability, attention deficit, autism, or vision loss, or that delayed amplification and language exposure have cumulative effects.
What to do instead
When a stem describes a student whose progress is unexpectedly poor given appropriate access and instruction, consider the full eligibility picture and the need for further evaluation rather than assuming the hearing loss explains everything. Also check the age at identification and amplification fitting, because late identification changes the expected language trajectory and the intervention priorities.