DBC: EHDI Reform Needed Now

The Deaf Bilingual Coalition represents stakeholders from all over the US and internationally who believe that Deaf babies and children deserve the basic human right to cognitive, social and emotional development, and have an inherent right to visual languages (in the US and Canada, those languages being American Sign Language, ASL.)

ASL is the third widely studied and used language in the US. It is taught in high schools and colleges across the nation.

Yet currently, 90% of Deaf babies are born to hearing parents who know very little about visual languages, or the importance of ASL, or even how Deaf babies acquire language.

The DBC’s goal is to help spread awareness that Deaf babies have a right to be bilingual in ASL and English (written and or spoken).

An Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) conference is being held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Chicago, Illinois on March 1st and 2nd of this year. EHDI is a federally funded program under the Center for Disease Control (CDC) which administers grants to states to set up their own early detection and intervention services.

National organizations and bilingual (ASL and English) leaders have worked hard the past three years increasing awareness of EHDI issues.

The main issue at present is that the EHDI national directors and EHDI conference committee planners have failed to equally include Deaf professional participation and have kept Deaf people’s access to being presenters and keynote speakers to a minimum. The irony of this is that those overseeing the EHDI system are attempting to implement a system which is ostensibly for the benefit of Deaf babies, yet one WITHOUT the meaningful participation of Deaf adults.

Last year, the DBC, other organizations and Deaf leaders met with EHDI directors and conference planners to voice concerns about the imbalance and bias present that favors pathological approaches, not only in the yearly EHDI conferences but also in all parts of the EHDI system, national and statewide. Our goal was to start a productive dialogue in order to work together to resolve the problematic issues.

WHAT OCCURRED: The EHDI directors and conference planners ignored the recommendations given to them last year and have proceeded to plan another conference devoid of a proper and necessary balance that includes Deaf representatives as keynote speakers, presenters, and conference planning representatives. EHDI directors and planners rejected 60+% of the presentation proposals (abstracts) that were submitted by Deaf professionals.

Those who had abstracts rejected were from the National Association of the Deaf, the American Society for Deaf Children, the Laurent Clerc Center in Washington, DC, along with superintendents of Deaf schools and other very well-known and respected Deaf presenters. For the upcoming conference, no Deaf presenters have been chosen to be keynote speakers. Also, there are only two Deaf representatives on the EHDI conference planning committee. In addition, 70% of the presentations will be given by audiologists, with the biggest sponsors of the conference being cochlear implant corporations.

Unethical practices in early detection and intervention programs (including discriminating against Deaf professional participation in all levels of EHDI) have unfortunately lead parents on a path toward adopting a strict “ear-based” pathological view, rather than focusing on beginning language development from birth using a visual language that is 100% accessible to Deaf babies (i.e., ASL). Thus, Deaf babies will grow into adults with every part of their lives being negatively impacted due to language deprivation caused by the strict oral/aural-only approaches that are demanded by the errant Auditory Verbal Therapy philosophies which are usually associated with cochlear implantation. Over the years, there have been millions of Deaf adults who have been negatively impacted by the misinformation their parents received from so-called “professionals” who devalued ASL and propagated myths about speaking and listening.

The DBC is seeking an end to the EHDI system’s unethical practices. We demand that Deaf professionals be equally employed and represented at all levels in the conferences, and programs of EHDI.

Thank you,

John Egbert, http://www.dbcusa.org/

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