As educators working with high school students, the author's face questions such as: (1)" How can students become better self-advocates?" (2) "Are students sufficiently prepared for life after graduation?" (3) "How can students become more motivated in planning their future?" (4) "What can be done to…

As one of the premier pediatric hospitals in the United States, Boston Children's Hospital serves a wide range of children and provides top quality medical care, including a program for deaf and hard of hearing children that extends services beyond the medical scope. Within this program is a unique and particularly critical position--that of…

With the onset of universal newborn hearing screenings and early identification and amplification, children with hearing loss are able to receive education in mainstream classrooms as early as preschool. According to a 2011 report from the U. S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), 52.6 percent of preschool-age children with hearing loss in the…

Child First is a national campaign to ensure that deaf children have their right to language recognized and fulfilled regardless of which educational method is specified in the Individualized Education Program (IEP). Whether the child's family embraces American Sign Language (ASL), speech reading, a system of signs that encodes English, or a…

In this article Megan Mathisen, a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children at St. Anne Grade School in St. Anne, Illinois, describes her work with two boys in second grade and one boy in fifth grade who at the beginning of the school year had reading and language delays. After working with them, her second grade boys are now on grade level and…

The process of developing and implementing a 504 plan is different from that of implementing an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). This author has been a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing students under the Special Education Department in Prince William County Schools for 11 years. She had never had a student referred to the team that handles…

Since the early 1990s, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved cochlear implants for deaf and hard of hearing children, the number of children who have cochlear implants has increased in mainstream settings. Recent research suggests that these students, like their deaf and hard of hearing peers without implants who use sign language,…

Sherri Zummo knew she somehow needed to find a way for her son to live in the world as a person who was profoundly deaf in both ears. He was also diagnosed as legally blind, on the autistic spectrum, and intellectually delayed with other medical and physical issues. As he grew, his special needs increased, behaviors became worse, and the struggle…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has always had "individual" as part of its spirit and its letter. However, as a parent and an advocate who has attended many Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings, Janet DesGeorges has discovered that getting to "individual" can sometimes be a challenge,…

Parents have a lot to consider in a very short period of time following identification of a hearing loss. Loving their child is simply not sufficient. Questions must be asked and answered by parents. How will they communicate with their child and how will their child communicate with them? How will their child form friendships? How will their…

Ann Flannery is one of two transition specialists who serve youth and families statewide through the Post-Secondary Transition Program of the Idaho Educational Services for the Deaf and the Blind. In this article she writes that too often her office was seeing graduates coming back to school after failing to find a path to success. They returned…

Educators, academics, and social scientists conduct educational research across the globe, producing scientific evidence that can inform teaching practice. How can such research aid teachers in using effective practices in their classrooms? How can teachers ensure that educational research is applicable to the diverse groups of learners in their…

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…

According to the author, last year they set out to apply the four-step approach that they found in research from the University of Kentucky to design a unit for their language arts curriculum. They identified the appropriate standards, figured out what skills they would teach in conformance with the standards and what outcomes were expected, and…

During the past few years, the teachers and staff at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES) have reviewed research to identify factors that positively impact language development for deaf and hard of hearing children, and established language and communication practices to reflect what they have learned. Based on the research, which…