Possibilities and challenges of digital online learning for school children with hearing loss: lessons from three Nordic countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

The ongoing pandemic and its subsequent restrictions have changed the way in which schoolchildren participate in education on a global scale.

Students and teachers in many countries needed to quickly create and use digital online teaching materials to meet new educational needs.

While there has been great variation in the approaches which different countries have adopted, online education is likely to become increasingly common in the near future across Europe.

Students with disabilities are likely to be affected more than others when teaching takes place online due to teachers´ limited experience in tailoring digital online education to children´s individual needs.

Children with varying degrees of hearing loss (HL) are affected in specific ways, and a lack of face-to-face communication might lead to various difficulties.The project is a collaboration between educators and psychologists and focuses on two overall goals:to investigate the availability and use of online learning platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic for children with HL in three Nordic countries, that is Sweden, Norway, and Estonia, andto document and analyze the potential benefits and constraints of digital online learning on the mental health, social inclusion, and school achievement of children with HL.

We will use questionnaires and focus group discussions to study the impact of digital online learning on students with HL, their parents, and teachers.

In addition, we will test the suitability of different learning materials for children with HL and collect information about their hearing levels, use of hearing aids, and their linguistic and socio-economic background.

Students with HL deserve special attention to avoid that new online teaching methods create barriers to their learning, inclusion, and mental health.

Our results will help to design adequate teaching materials and provide general guidelines for educational policy for children with HL.