In this article, Felicia Johnson presents a portrait of her daughter Shelby, who was diagnosed as profoundly deaf at the age of 6 months. At ten months, she was diagnosed as an achondroplastic dwarf, and at 18 months old she was discovered to be missing 50 percent of her myelin sheath. Believing in Shelby's independence, Johnson refused to do…

When working as a teacher of deaf students, Melissa Herzig's school was a magnet high school just five minutes from the border of Mexico, where 95 percent of the students were Latinos. The deaf students' experiences with languages may involve using American Sign Language (ASL), a sign language they may have learned in their home country,…

Early in 1992, Ruth Heitin embarked upon her career as a private special education consultant. As a special education advocate, she serves as an independent specialist, offering a second opinion on educational issues. In general, this type of advocate works for parents, either directly or through a nonprofit group, but their real clients are…

Deaf students with significant disabilities face unique challenges with state standards and grade-level expectations. Their teachers, too, face unique challenges. Material making, breaking concepts and tasks down into component parts, providing time and motivational opportunities for developing background knowledge and foundational skills, and…

The February 2011 National Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) conference marked its tenth annual event. During the opening plenary, speakers looked back and described the progress and accomplishments of past years. They highlighted activities of the various federal agencies, medical organizations, and individuals who helped move EHDI…

Parents of children who are deaf and who have disabilities often face barriers in ensuring that their children receive the services they need. Some of these barriers include lack of awareness about deafness-disability constellations, shortages of professionals knowledgeable about how deaf children learn or the impact of the disability on deaf…

When administrators, teachers, and other professionals join parents in developing meaningful goals for deaf and hard of hearing students, it is exciting, rewarding, and fun; it is also considerable work. However, the result is critical. These goals can be the key to success for deaf and hard of hearing students, especially when delineated in each…

People cannot protect their children--hard of hearing, deaf, or hearing--from exposure to evil. The prevalence of evil, perhaps especially ordinary evil, is particularly high for those with disabilities, including hard of hearing and deaf people. Everybody bears witness to ordinary evil, or will do so in the not-too-distant future, despite good…