"I Can't Follow What's Happening": Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students' Experiences of Communication Access in Inclusive Classrooms

Sec. Special Educational Needs Şaziye Seçkin-Yılmaz 2 1. Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Türkiye 2. Fenerbahce Universitesi, Ataşehir, Türkiye The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon. Select one of your emails You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers: Please enter your email address: If you already have an account, please login You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here This qualitative meta-synthesis examined the classroom experiences of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students in inclusive education settings, with particular attention to communication access and participation. A systematic search of Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus was conducted for peer-reviewed English-language qualitative studies. Following the screening process, 14 studies (12 qualitative and 2 mixed-methods) were included in the qualitative meta-synthesis. The findings were organized into four interconnected themes: factors shaping communication access, classroom participation experiences, social and emotional experiences, and coping and adaptation strategies. Across the included studies, communication access emerged as a central factor influencing students’ participation and sense of belonging in inclusive classrooms. Communication access was shaped by environmental conditions, pedagogical practices, communication norms, available communication modalities, and the effective use of hearing technologies. Limited communication access was linked to reduced participation, social isolation, listening fatigue, and withdrawal, whereas more accessible and multimodal learning environments were associated with more positive participation and peer experiences. The synthesis further showed that DHH students actively developed both adaptive and avoidance-based coping strategies in response to communicative demands within school environments. Overall, the findings suggest that effective inclusion requires more than physical placement in mainstream classrooms and depends substantially on the communicative accessibility of educational environments. Implications for classroom practice, school organization, and teacher preparation are discussed. Classroom participation, communication access, deaf and hard of hearing students, Inclusive education, student experiences © 2026 Büyükköse and Seçkin-Yılmaz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. *Correspondence: Duygu Büyükköse All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.