Early Intervention: The Missing Link

blondon704 said:
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Which is odd because the interpreter they have go with him to his special needs class is not fluent in ASL, she took ASL 101 and 102 in college and is a certified aide so she is allowed to interpret for my son.
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That is really disturbing. The school district has hired an interpreter for a language that she is not fluent in and only took two classes in? And she is expected to keep your son informed as to what is going on in class? That sounds like a very bad joke and also grounds for a lawsuit about the school district's incompetence.


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eta about the compromising. We were at an IEP at the end of last year and one of the teachers was perplexed during the meeting. She kept coughing and flipping through her notes and she would start to say a sentence and then stop. They were trying to rule as to whether or not he should have been put in summer school. The crazy school board lady was there again and she was arguing that "he hasn't met his iep he isn't being taught correctly he isn't accelerating blah blah blah" she kept cutting this poor teacher off and then finally I looked at her slammed my hands on the desk and said "ok I have heard enough, you sit here trying to tell me what is best for my son whom you've never met and cut off the people trying to speak who do know my son. Just shut your mouth and let's listen to what she has to say because I am just done listening to you." I have never seen a teacher grin so hard in my life. But I totally felt she was trying to keep quiet because she had her bosses there and I think she was just pressured to her "opinion" which I knew wasn't hers but oh well. My outburst got the out come I wanted haha.
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Glad you got the outcome you wanted, but this story sounds disturbing also. But I can't help but wonder where the school board employee was headed. If she was the one saying that your son wasn't being taught correctly, was she going to offer to have your son taught in a school with more deaf students in another school district? I can't help but wonder.
 
Call me crazy, but I swear that woman in the video was observing my classroom a couple of months ago...wonder if it was her. Lol
 
Jazzberry said:
That is really disturbing. The school district has hired an interpreter for a language that she is not fluent in and only took two classes in? And she is expected to keep your son informed as to what is going on in class? That sounds like a very bad joke and also grounds for a lawsuit about the school district's incompetence.




Glad you got the outcome you wanted, but this story sounds disturbing also. But I can't help but wonder where the school board employee was headed. If she was the one saying that your son wasn't being taught correctly, was she going to offer to have your son taught in a school with more deaf students in another school district? I can't help but wonder.
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I agree Jazzberry. An ASL level 1 or 2 signer/aide should not be "interpreting" for a deaf child. You should have in written into his IEP that he have a certified interpreter in this other program if it's really addressing his needs. I wonder though, how accessible of a program is it if he needs an interpreter to communicate with other students.

Also, if someone was saying he wasn't making progress... Well, I'd look really closely into it.

It doesn't seem on the surface that these two placements are the most appropriate for him. Of course I don't really know, as I don't have all the details... But if you're having doubts Blondon, I'd pay attention to your gut feelings. Know that this isn't in any way a criticism... School districts are notorious for not fully meeting the needs of DHH students- throw something else in the mix and it can get a little hairy.
 
the school board lady is the one expecting more speech. i am in more agreement with the teachers on that. she was offering him to go to summer school to enhance his speech to where it should be for a `normal` 3 year old, what her idea of normal was i don't know. his interpreter only got the job as a last resort he had a fluent one last year but she moved. sorry for the choppyness i am on my wii lol. i will give a better description when i get back. :)

ETA sorry about that. Anyways let me explain a little better. We have not had an IEP meeting since the end of last year that is when I had my little mini freak out on the lady from the school board. Last year at the end of the school year at the time of the meeting my son had been signing to me 10fold compared to just the few short months before when he first started in March (IEP was done in june). I felt the teachers were doing an excellent job obviously doing more than what I had been able to do at home. When we go in to the meeting the wench (i will refer to her as that from now on lol) kept telling me that he should be progressing to more speech and he should have been doing more and more. That is why she didn't think the teachers were doing a good job with him. I begged to differ because like I mentioned he was signing so well. This year however I think they are focusing more on vocal and I am just wondering if they are just feeling pressured by the school board. That is why I am waiting until the parent teacher conference to see what exactly their thoughts are and if there is need for me to call another IEP. That is a little more information on that.

As for the interpreter. I don't know if you guys had seen but I had posted a few days ago about how there was an article in the paper a few weeks ago about how in the state of WV there were 400 Deaf children in the school system and only 75 licensed interpreters in the entire state. That is why she isn't certified they are basically doing what is available to the school system. WV is just not a state full of options or opportunities. Trust me if moving were an option it would have been done. I know some people would say do it for your children and trust me I would if I could and have contemplated long and hard as to what it would mean, I actually have an interview with my company to become the manager of my own clinic which would mean relocating so my fingers are double crossed for that. But 4 children are kind of hard to move at this point. I would like to think I am utilizing all of my best options at this time. Hopefully in the future I will be able to get him in to a very good school not that his isn't it just isn't what I was hoping for. Right now he likes his school he seems very happy with the things he learns daily and I think that right now as long as he is happy I am not going to mess it up. I am going to keep doing sign here and pushing for them to sign there and when he gets a little older let him have the option.
 
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Nice video. Makes me so sad that it's like that in some places: the pity faces and "bad news," the lack of deaf models, and discussion of vocational limitations (!). I'm so very glad we encountered an environment in which so much was different from what people encounter elsewhere: there was no "I'm sorry" or "you should be grieving" from doctors or other medical staff and instead the very matter-of-fact medical report accompanying audiological test results included a recommendation to incorporate ASL in my daughter's life ASAP, our audiologists use ASL fluently (and 2 have been HOH themselves), despite having limited experience with deaf kids prior, our wonderful early intervention team provided an ASL-using SLP, involved a Deaf mentor in determining where and how EI services would be conducted, and shifted all services to a school for the deaf with which they'd never worked before. Everything focused around the specific needs of this particular child, not around what had always been done, or based on notions of what's best for all deaf/hoh children. I know so many in our area who have benefitted from this approach, and hope the successes resulting from it encourages others to challenge the status quo. It's a proof point for what's recommended in the video -- it IS possible to do it in the real world.
 
Bottesini said:
It would be nice if medical professionals were retrained. A positive outlook can make a lot of difference in anyone's life.

It will be a real battle to change the way things are done presently.

Even on a deaf website, you see parents of deaf children coming in using scare tactics and trying to convince that it is necessary for development to implant babies at a very young age.
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There is nothing more I can add. You, and the video, have said it all.:ty:
 
blondon704 said:
I wish that oppurtunity was available everywhere^^ I truly did feel outnumbered. I had all of these so-called "specialists" telling me that after "training" and lots of work my son would be able to talk and understand speech. Not once did they tell me he will suffer from massive ammounts of stress or even sickness related to trying to read peoples lips or forcing his ears to hear something that he can't. They all told me that with intense training he would become used to it and learn how to speak. I feel terrible for the past for me taking him to speech therapy twice a week for 6 months until finally putting him in a school where he is being taught to listen.

This video is very eye opening. Every other line is things I have felt. Outnumbered, uneducated, and alone although it was really MY DECISION in the end I feel it was theirs...
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You are so very right. That intensive training comes at a high price for the deaf child. You are the rare parent that is not willing to make their child pay that price.
 
Jazzberry said:
That is really disturbing. The school district has hired an interpreter for a language that she is not fluent in and only took two classes in? And she is expected to keep your son informed as to what is going on in class? That sounds like a very bad joke and also grounds for a lawsuit about the school district's incompetence.




Glad you got the outcome you wanted, but this story sounds disturbing also. But I can't help but wonder where the school board employee was headed. If she was the one saying that your son wasn't being taught correctly, was she going to offer to have your son taught in a school with more deaf students in another school district? I can't help but wonder.
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The school board member was coming at it from a financial perspective. She did not want to send to out of district beause then the home school looses the financial assistance from the state and federal government for accommodating a student on an IEP. They want to write the greatest need into the IEP with a minimal amount of accommodation, because that is financially beneficial to the school system. However, it sets the student up for failure. Which a board member would not be overly concerned with, either. Hold them back in enough grades, and you can continue to receive the state and federal assistance for accommodation until the kid turns 21. By that time, they will have another student firmly entrenched in this cycle.
 
jillio said:
The school board member was coming at it from a financial perspective. She did not want to send to out of district beause then the home school looses the financial assistance from the state and federal government for accommodating a student on an IEP. They want to write the greatest need into the IEP with a minimal amount of accommodation, because that is financially beneficial to the school system. However, it sets the student up for failure. Which a board member would not be overly concerned with, either. Hold them back in enough grades, and you can continue to receive the state and federal assistance for accommodation until the kid turns 21. By that time, they will have another student firmly entrenched in this cycle.
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That is really depressing.

However, I was surprised to read Blondon saying that the school board employee kept saying that her son was not being instructed properly. That seems to be putting the school district at fault and I would think that if a lawyer for the school district had been sitting in the room, he or she would have shut down the school board employee faster than a NY minute.

ETA: I just reread Blondon's post #26. I think I get it now. Originally her son was being instructed in sign and making progress. But the school board employee wants her son to spend more time learning how to speak, which would presumably take time away from his learning how to read, write, and learn various subjects including history, science and arithmetic. Yes, that does sound like a setup for failure. Jillio, thanks for explaining how school politickz actually works.

I've no problem with D/d/hh kids being taught how to speak or speak better but I don't think it should be done at the expense of academic subjects and I also don't think it should be done if a child is not making any progress.
 
Jazzberry said:
That is really depressing.

However, I was surprised to read Blondon saying that the school board employee kept saying that her son was not being instructed properly. That seems to be putting the school district at fault and I would think that if a lawyer for the school district had been sitting in the room, he or she would have shut down the school board employee faster than a NY minute.
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Unions.

If the public funding was attached to the student, not the school board, then by law of competition, schools would be compelled to provide the best education possible to attract students and therefore funding. Thus the most successful and therefore the most funded schools would have the means to provide top rate teachers and services.
 
DeafCaroline said:
Unions.

If the public funding was attached to the student, not the school board, then by law of competition, schools would be compelled to provide the best education possible to attract students and therefore funding. Thus the most successful and therefore the most funded schools would have the means to provide top rate teachers and services.
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That sounds like a great solution. I wonder if there are any countries that run their schools that way?
 
Jazzberry said:
That is really depressing.

However, I was surprised to read Blondon saying that the school board employee kept saying that her son was not being instructed properly. That seems to be putting the school district at fault and I would think that if a lawyer for the school district had been sitting in the room, he or she would have shut down the school board employee faster than a NY minute.

ETA: I just reread Blondon's post #26. I think I get it now. Originally her son was being instructed in sign and making progress. But the school board employee wants her son to spend more time learning how to speak, which would presumably take time away from his learning how to read, write, and learn various subjects including history, science and arithmetic. Yes, that does sound like a setup for failure. Jillio, thanks for explaining how school politickz actually works.

I've no problem with D/d/hh kids being taught how to speak or speak better but I don't think it should be done at the expense of academic subjects and I also don't think it should be done if a child is not making any progress.
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You are getting some examples of why those of us that advocate for deaf students can show such frustration when someone comes along and posts innacurrate information about how great things are.:roll: Yes, a well rounded, comprehensive education is often sacrificed to speech. Disturbing, to say the least.

You are welcome.
 
Jazzberry said:
That is really depressing.

However, I was surprised to read Blondon saying that the school board employee kept saying that her son was not being instructed properly. That seems to be putting the school district at fault and I would think that if a lawyer for the school district had been sitting in the room, he or she would have shut down the school board employee faster than a NY minute.

ETA: I just reread Blondon's post #26. I think I get it now. Originally her son was being instructed in sign and making progress. But the school board employee wants her son to spend more time learning how to speak, which would presumably take time away from his learning how to read, write, and learn various subjects including history, science and arithmetic. Yes, that does sound like a setup for failure. Jillio, thanks for explaining how school politickz actually works.

I've no problem with D/d/hh kids being taught how to speak or speak better but I don't think it should be done at the expense of academic subjects and I also don't think it should be done if a child is not making any progress.
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I think many would agree with you on this one.
 
jillio said:
You are so very right. That intensive training comes at a high price for the deaf child. You are the rare parent that is not willing to make their child pay that price.
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Yes! I think that's one of the biggest reasons why we are against oralism. Yes, oral training does give access to the hearing world....but it doesn't give unfettered access. It's like assuming that English as a Second Language classes will give unfettered access to the majority world, for Spanish or French speakers or speakers of other languages.
 
Lots to think about with this. I'm so very thankful that I have taken ASL 1-3 that covered some of these issues. No idea what we will do if DS is Deaf/HOH but I KNOW we will start with ASL.
 
MamaE said:
Lots to think about with this. I'm so very thankful that I have taken ASL 1-3 that covered some of these issues. No idea what we will do if DS is Deaf/HOH but I KNOW we will start with ASL.
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Everything else will fall into place from there.
 
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