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Why is California AB 2072 Bill is Dangerous to Deaf babies and children in school?
Read below from parents and Educators:
Fatal Flaw #1 The Bill’s over emphasis on communication options which implies that parents should pick only one option. Parents should not be forced to say no to any opportunity. Picking one option over another would only rob the child of the ability and opportunity for full language acquisition. Remember that In order for a child to learn to communicate, he or she must have a developed language foundation. That development comes from access to and consistent exposure to language. Metaphorically, when a parent is offered “soup or salad” they need to know that they can just say “YES”.
Fatal Flaw # 2: Audiologists are legislatively being put into a situation where they become the de facto first contact early intervention. Audiologists are trained to focus on the hearing, and a “fix it” approach. They can not see, what parents need to see, that the result of a hearing test is not the result of an intelligence test. The vast majority of audiologists do not know the importance of a child becoming bilingual in English & ASL and the positive impact that can have future academic results. The vast majority of audiologists do not have early intervention training. The vast majority do not have a parents’ experience of raising a deaf or hard or hearing child. The vast majority have not accessed the experiences of Deaf adults which are, so to speak, the living end result of our system.
Fatal Flaw # 3: Eliminating the restriction on only consumer based organizations for support. Without this important restriction, early intervention is opened up to the forces of the business and specifically to those organizations that are associated with their products or services. This is a tragic mistake. Deaf and hard of hearing children should not be treated as a market to be exploited. They and their parents need to be serviced by those consumer based organizations whose concern is about the success and happiness of their children.
We are currently struggling with a problem of tragic portions, as California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell pointed out in his 2007 State of Education Address, “Closing the Achievement Gap for the Deaf”
In English-language arts, (2-12 grade)
• 92% of our deaf students are not at Grade Level
• 85% of our hard-of-hearing students are not at Grade Level
• As measured on the California Standards Test
In Mathematics, (2-12 grade)
• 90% of our deaf students are not at Grade Level
• 82% of our hard-of-hearing students are not at Grade Level
• As measured on the California Standards Test.AB 2072 is fatally flawed 3 ways:
On behalf of the entire Deaf community, I am writing in opposition to AB 2072, yet another money-grabbing effort by capitalists hell-bent on short-term profits and deferring long-term problems for our government to inevitably bail out. The days of corporate welfare are now nearing its end, but you wouldn’t know this with the so-called “California Coalition”. This “coalition” purports to represent the best interests of the Deaf child, but if you look closely, you will see that there is not one Deaf organization or leader in this “coalition”.
This is simple, really. There are two views of Deaf children; one as human beings with every right to grow into good citizens, the other as money-making appartuses. In order for people like this “coalition” to glean profits off Deaf children, they urgently need society AND governments to perceive Deaf children as disabled, and that the “fix” is to “just” pour money and efforts into the “ear”- be it amplification, implantation, or enlargement. They need parents of Deaf children to constantly grieve, and to seek help in the form of audiologists; of which a runaway percentage are in private practice and regularly work with this “coalition”. The audiologists steer them away from actual BEST PRACTICES in education and child-rearing, and into an endless cycle of follow-up appointments, surgeries, shuttling between private anti-education programs, and so on until parents reach the point of frustration (which is usually after around 7-10 years of not signing with their child, and seeing their child fall further and further behind in school.)
We all know what happens to our citizens when they don’t receive education. Off to the welfare rolls they go to. Oh, while we are at it, let’s continue throwing good money after bad. Here’s a real good story; this “coalition” has been actively seeking ways to funnel PUBLIC money into PRIVATE money-making schemes. See the Alexander Graham Bell Association’s Children’s Legal Advocacy Program (“CLA”) where they successfully sued a southern California public school district into paying a family’s PRIVATE anti-education program for their Deaf child. This is only the beginning. This “coalition” will not stop until they have stripped California dry and have all Deaf children in private programs and bill it all to the good and hard-working tax-payers of California. Don’t let them do to us what Enron did to California.
So, I can imagine that our honorable Assemblypeople and Senators would want to look at ACTUAL success stories where Deaf children receive actual education, their families are happy, and everybody turns into a tax-paying and contributing citizen of California. There are indeed PROVEN results out there. But first, let’s look at the problem before jumping to solutions. 69% of families of Deaf children do not regularly sign with them. Our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, in his 2007 State of Education address, http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/in/se/agdeaf.asp, explained, “Historically, deaf and hard-of-hearing children have struggled to acquire literacy and other academic skills. This is not because they cannot hear. If hearing loss, in and itself caused academic failure, then all students with hearing loss would be failing, and they are not.” and, “It is a well-established fact in the field of deaf education that the deaf students who are most likely to succeed academically are those children…[who] have access to the visual language of their families (American Sign Language), and they acquire that language at the same rate that hearing children of hearing parents acquire spoken language… [consequently], they enter school with age-appropriate language skills, and they are well prepared to develop literacy skills.”
There are approximately 12,000 to 16,000 school-aged Deaf children in California, and 90% of them do not attend real educational programs where they are taught Advanced Placement English, Calculus, International Studies, Desktop Publishing, Web Design, and so forth (like the 1,000 students who attend the California Schools for the Deaf). 76% of these students in California are the only Deaf child in their areas. Now, Superintendent O’Connell informs us that… “only 8 percent of our Deaf students and 15 percent of our hard-of-hearing students score proficient or advanced on the California Standards Test for English-language arts.”
If 90% of our Deaf children are in programs all over California where they are not taught using American Sign Language and English, then it’s no wonder why only 8%-15% score proficient! (By the way, 55% of the most recent graduating class at the California School for the Deaf, Fremont, had passed the California High School Exit Examination. They had either signing parents since birth or attended actual educational programs since their formative years.) So, you see the correlation here. Something is terribly wrong, and this “coalition” is riding on that wrongness to enrich their wallets, starting with their agents, the audiologists.
Deaf children as normal and future tax-paying citizens…what a terrifying thought to this “coalition”! If society and our governments perceive Deaf children as normal to begin with, we all will be able to see through this latest scheme from the “coalition” clearly.
The California Deaf community is organizing, and becoming more attentive to the political stunts spurred by this “coalition”. For far too long we have been shut out of the political process, and the most innocent victims, our Deaf children, have paid the highest price. Deaf children is everybody’s business in California, and shouldn’t serve as money-making schemes which California will eventually and inevitably have to step in and bail out.
Standing up for the Deaf child could become a banner cause for you, with the entire Deaf community and our hearing parents and allies rallying around you. We are far bigger than this “coalition”, and the actual experts.
Assemblymember Audra Strickland
Assembly Health Committee
Dear Assemblymember Strickland,
I would like to go on record in opposition to AB 2072. It is my hope that any further movement in addressing the very critical issues related to language acquisition in deaf/hard-of-hearing infants will not be undertaken without meaningful consultation. This particular bill has moved forward without consultation with the extremely knowledgeable, articulate and highly motivated community of both deaf and hearing professionals and parents that recognize, both through research and personal experience, American Sign Language as a natural language that is effortlessly acquired by deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals that engage visually with their world.
I am a Professor and Coordinator of the Deaf Education Teacher Training and Masters Programs at the California State University, Northridge. I have been immersed in the literature and in the implementation of best practices in language acquisition and promoting language skills in deaf and hearing children for the past 30 years. Most regrettably, our field has been plagued with the implementation of one practice or procedure after another, with the hopes of “fixing” the language and literacy problems of deaf children. All have been unsuccessful! The language of “all communication options” has been presented to parents for many many years as if there were a set of equally viable choices, any one of which would result in successful outcomes for children. This simply has not been shown to be the case!
There is a large, and growing, community of professionals and parents invested in promoting the ensured success of deaf and hard of hearing children. The reports of low language proficiency have historically been perceived to be directly the result of a child’s deafness. However, research indicates that it is the delay in access to language that accounts in large part for these persistent gaps and deficits.
We are opposed to the notion of “options” as a meaningful way of approaching early intervention! Why must parents choose? If children are meaningfully presented with an easily accessible visual language – American Sign Language, and are also presented with whatever support is available to promote listening and speaking skills, the children will gravitate toward the modalities that best suit their needs! Let them have it ALL! There is absolutely no research to support the idea that the development of ASL skills inhibits a child’s ability to develop spoken English skills. Quite the contrary! Many many children, all over the world, grow up with more than one language as bilinguals or trilinguals, and do it quite proficiently! Why should we force the mentality of making a “choice”?
I strongly encourage you to oppose AB 2072 and encourage you to seek out consultation on the ramifications of perpetuating the myth of “a range of communication options” as the best approach in ensuring the successful outcomes for deaf/hard-of-hearing children.
Thank you,
Ellen Schneiderman, Ph.D.
Professor
Coordinator, Teacher Training and Masters Programs in Deaf Education
Deaf Bilingual Coalition's Blog 