About 40 NIU students volunteered this February to help teach elementary school children about hearing impairments.

Barb Peterson, student education coordinator for the award-winning Learning About Handicaps Program, said the classroom sessions had effected a “significant change” in the attitudes and perceptions of participating children toward handicapped individuals. The program is run by the Family Service Agency of DeKalb County,

The program, now in its seventh year, has received the Governor’s Home Town Award, “recognizing exemplary volunteer programs,” and the National Organization on Disabilities Community Project Award, one of 10 given nation-wide, Peterson said.

“We’ve had positive feedback from teachers,” she said, adding that testing before and after the sessions confirmed a measurable change in student responses to disabilities.

“The biggest problem a person with a disability faces is other people’s attitudes.

“Architecturally-speaking, getting inside buildings has gotten better (for handicapped people), but fitting in (with) society hasn’t,” Peterson said.

During January’s sessions, which focused on visual impairment, students learned Braille and the techniques of being a sighted guide for blind people.

Three NIU departments, the Department of Communication Disorders, the NIU Speech and Hearing Clinic and the Department of Special Education, Educational Psychology and Counseling, work with the program, Peterson said.