How to Get a 504 Plan for Your Child With Hearing Loss

If your child has hearing loss, good grades do not always mean they have full access at school. In this episode, Dana Ann Hawkins, MS, CCC-SLP, shares her family’s real-life journey navigating a Section 504 plan for her daughter after getting hearing aids.

We break down what a 504 plan for hearing loss actually is, how it differs from an IEP, and why schools sometimes wrongly deny accommodations when a child appears to be doing “just fine” academically. Dana walks through the exact school accommodations that can make a difference for children with hearing loss, including preferential seating, teachers facing students when speaking, repeated directions, classroom audio support, and testing accommodations.

You’ll also hear what happened when Dana was initially told hearing loss was not a qualifying medical condition, how she advocated effectively through documentation and email, and why even approved 504 plans can still fail without proper follow-through.

This episode is essential for:

•  parents of children with hearing loss 
•  parents navigating school accommodations 
•  educators and school administrators 
•  speech-language pathologists 
•  pediatric audiologists 
•  disability advocates 

Topics covered:

•  how to get a 504 plan for hearing loss 
•  school accommodations for kids with hearing aids 
•  hearing loss and classroom access 
•  Section 504 rights for students 
•  standardized testing accommodations 
•  Bluetooth streaming and classroom technology challenges 

If you are trying to make sure your child has equal access in the classroom, this episode offers practical advice, advocacy tips, and real-world insight to help you navigate the process with confidence.

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Transcript

Friday Audiogram Kickoff

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS 0:00

This is the Friday Audiogram. Let's go. What was advocacy like during that time?

Denied Because Grades Look Fine

The Email That Forces A Rethink

Dana Ann Hawkins, SLP 0:07

So I thought it would actually be pretty smooth. After she got the hearing aids, I contacted her school. I let them know she has her hearing aids, that this is a medical condition, and I was interested in getting her a 504 plan. So a 504 plan in school is not an IEP, it's not that individual education plan, but it's a plan based on health needs and what accommodations a student needs and able to access that education with whatever condition they may have. So we brought in a list of communication accommodations from her audiologist, such as preferential seating, having repeated directions, sitting near the teacher, having the teacher look at her before they talk to her. And her teachers were wonderful. They started implementing this right away. And then this was back in October, and we were told that she would have a meeting in December to formally establish this plan. So when you have a 504 plan, the whole team meets. So it's her teachers, the administration, a hearing itinerant, mom, dad, whoever is there, the parents, this whole team meets to go through what is happening and what accommodations would help her access that education. So for my daughter, when we went into that meeting, we talked about how well she's doing at school. The teachers went around and discussed she's in advanced reading, that she's having no problems in school. She's getting good grades. The teachers talked about how friendly she is. She talks socially with other kids and they had no issues in school. And at that point, they denied her 504 plan. They said she's doing so well that she didn't need it. So at that point, I was taken aback a little bit. Just being in the special education world and being an SLP, I do know that hearing loss is a medical condition. And her school at that point said it wasn't. So that I was taken back a little bit at that point because I have six people in the room that are telling me hearing loss is not a medical condition. And as a parent, I was taken aback because I know that it is. This is my daughter, so I want to make sure I'm advocating for her. And I was taken aback why the school wasn't wanting to participate in that. And then I realized they just didn't know much about it. They just weren't knowledgeable about hearing loss. They said they haven't had many students that have hearing loss, which I was kind of a little bit taken aback of because there are other students that have hearing loss, but maybe they didn't need those accommodations. So we went back into the meeting. That first meeting ended with the denial. And I left going, I'm not happy about that. I am part of the team member, and every parent out there should know if they go to their students, whether it's an IEP meeting, a 504 plan, they are part of that team and they can advocate for themselves and their child. So at that point, I left and I knew I needed to do something else. So I came up with a letter that I emailed out to everybody explaining the process of a 504, what the conditions are that need to be met, and what they didn't follow legally. My biggest issue was that a 504 plan is the medical condition without any mitigation. So Emma at that point had hearing aids. They said how well the hearing aids worked. They already were doing the preferential seating. They said that worked so well for her. The teachers explained where she was sitting within the classroom. They said they repeated directions for her. So she was already getting all those accommodations, and that's why she was succeeding. But a 504 plan is based on whether they would succeed without all of that. And that's what our school didn't understand. They saw her succeeding, but they didn't realize that the 504 plan is based without that, without those hearing aids, without the seating, without having her teachers repeat directions. So we did reconvene after that message. We brought in a hearing itinerant, which I thought definitely should have been part of the team to start with. And then we had a whole new evaluation, and then the 504 did go through.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS 4:13

Well, Dana, your advocacy, of course, this is your child, and you want the best education for your child, the best experience for your child. And I love the fact that you were able to take a step back, but I'm sure at that time you're feeling all these feelings. I'm angle, the you're feeling all these feelings. Anger, denial. You know about hearing loss and the impacts that it has, whereas that administration, they didn't. And I'm so grateful I had the experience during my school-based externship to sit in on a few IEP 504 plan meetings. And it really did expand my understanding of you have to meet the parents where they're at, and we have to discuss what accommodations we have to implement for the child, for these students. And my hope is that this episode, if there's a parent out there who's experiencing something similar, they follow the Dana Ann Hawkins protocol of advocate for your child. Don't give up, don't stop, because they deserve the greatest education, the best education, and the best experience while being educated in the school. So thank you for sharing that because I'm sure it was a challenging, windy road, Dana, for sure.

Dana Ann Hawkins, SLP 5:39

It wasn't. It's actually still continuing. So when that meeting is done, that doesn't mean that they will have those accommodations all the time and be set for the rest of the school year or even the years following. So for example, my daughter right now has this standardized testing. So that's once or twice a year. Every kid in the school sits on their computer for about two to three hours and takes, whether it's reading or math, the full testing for the state. And one of her accommodations is that her laptop, so they have a Chromebook, streams directly to her hearing aids. So all the other kids wear the wired headphones. And when this came about, I did email the school and asked, how would this look for Emma? She needs to be able to stream them to her hearing aids and not have those wired headphones. So this was about two weeks ago. And then her testing happened today, or it started yesterday, her testing, and I asked her how it went. And she said that the principal called her to the side and told them that they weren't able to figure out her laptop to stream to her hearing aids. So she had two choices yesterday. She could either skip the testing and sit quietly in the office while her friends did the testing and then make up the testing in two weeks after spring break. Or she could just put the headphones on over her hearing aids and take the testing. And Emma ended up, she knew it would be a quiet environment where she does the best in. She didn't want to be taken away from her friends and put in the office for a couple hours and then have to do that testing again at a different time. So she did choose to go ahead with that testing, but they didn't meet those accommodations that she needed. And then this happened again, I would assume is happening right now while we are speaking because she has another day of testing. And I called them last night. And as of last night, they still hadn't figured out her laptop. So it is frustrating from a parent standpoint because you know what your child needs. You know, technology nowadays has so many different aspects of how this could work. And it's simple Bluetooth technology. It streams to her phone, it streams to her home computer, it could easily stream to the school computer.