I started out at a school for the deaf and learned ASL. Then my parents moved to another state and met a person who said that as long as I was learning signing, I would be limited (obviously we know that is not true!). My parents were shocked and hurt and felt they had deprived me by letting me sign so they put me in a public school. I went from signing everything to everyone to virtually having no way to communicate. They placed me in a self-contained special education classroom- I was the only child who was deaf. My mother tolerated this for a year and then told the school that how was her daughter supposed to learn what normally developing children learn if she stayed in the room full of children with special needs? Also, the special education teacher saw that I was picking up things fast (not language, though, but other things). So I ended up in a regular class, again, no way to communicate with anyone. I pretty much floated my way to third grade where luckily the teacher knew of a deaf person who would volunteer to work one-on-one with me. I went from pre-K academic level to 2nd grade level in Reading just by working with this tutor/volunteer who used signing.
Eventually I ended up in high school taking Honors classes with 4.0 GPA in a public school, truly mainstreamed, without an interpreter and with very few modifications/accomodations. But then one day, I quit high school. Dropped out. I shocked everyone, especially my parents. I tore up my letter of acceptance from Harvard. My parents thought I was in some kind of phase so they let me "vacation" for a week...then the week became two weeks. Then three. Then they knew I wasn't kidding. The only way I would graduate would be if I returned to a deaf school. I said, yes, I succeeded in the academics at this public school. Yes, I learned to speak. Yes, I was fully mainstreamed in the so-called hearing world (how I hate the phrase hearing world). But I am Deaf. I have the right to a social life. I have the right to sit at a lunch table and understand what the conversation is about. I have the right to avoid hours and hours of school work just to catch up to what takes less than half the time for hearing kids. So I graduated from a deaf school. My point to this boring life story? Success means different to different people. I could talk but I didn't understand others. I made an "A" but spent hours and hours trying to research for the test because I didn't hear/understand the teacher's lecture. Providing FAPE is tricky for deaf/hard of hearing students because there's more on the line than just the academics.
Hope this helps.
