CAI as a Supplement in a Mainstreamed Hearing-Impaired Program

Abstract

Hennepin Technical Centers staff serve 64 severely to profoundly hearing-impaired students from Minneapolis and 13 west metropolitan districts in centrally located secondary day school programs in the suburb of St. Louis Park. In the mainstream, a great deal of time is spent mastering the language of instruction as well as the concepts presented. Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) has proven to be a valuable supplement to both special class and resource room instruction. Tutorial and drill and practice programs supplement instruction in language, vocabulary, reading, and math development in special classes. In the resource room, CAI provides drill and practice on vocabulary, language, and concepts from a large array of mainstreamed classes. Computer time has become a sought after reinforcer in behavior management programs. Well over 500 programs have been developed by our staff to meet our students' specific needs using authoring systems on the Apple microcomputer. Making hardware and software easily accessible to students and staff has been the key to integrating CAI into the program.