What Do Special Education Teacher Candidates Say About Supporting Language and Communication Skillsof Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children?

Language and communication skills in children have an important place for full participation in social and independent life. Families and teachers have a great role to play from early childhood onwards, especially for children with DHH to be included in an environment rich in language and communication skills. Thus, based on the idea that it is significant for teacher candidates who will work in this field in the future to know why language and communication skills are significant for DHH children, what they should pay attention to while teaching, and what kind of arrangements should be made, the study aims to determine the opinions of teacher candidates about supporting DHH children’s language and communication skills and determine their perceptions about what kind of competencies teachers should have in communication skills. The study that included 76 teacher candidates studying in the Department of Special Education was conducted in line with phenomenology design in qualitative research method. The interview form was utilized as the data collection tool, the data were collected through interview technique and evaluated with content analysis. The main themes obtained are “Factors affecting the development of communication skills, Importance of supporting communication skills, and Components of effective intervention.†Participants emphasized the cooperation with families in early diagnosis and intervention, accessibility of the services provided to DHH children, and measures to monitor and increase the quality of practices.