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NAD Participates in 2008 National EHDI Conference
By advocacy | March 14, 2008
Part Three: Workshops and Wrap Up
Workshops and other presentations at the National Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) Conference covered a range of topics such as deaf adults’ perspectives on early intervention for deaf and hard of hearing children, language and educational outcomes, partnering with families and family support, professional development for early intervention providers, American Sign Language, cued language, educational rights, and civil rights to effective communication. Workshops were given by presenters from the NAD, Gallaudet University, Maryland School for the Deaf, the American Society for Deaf Children, and other organizations and entities.
Many other topics were covered, too, such as development of spoken language, auditory access, cochlear implants and brain development, hearing aid use, coordination of medical services through the “medical home,” follow-up evaluation after the hearing screen, data tracking, and more. Presentations were made by representatives from state EHDI programs, hospitals, universities, early intervention providers, a cochlear implant manufacturer, and others.
The NAD is pleased that the views of the deaf and hard of hearing community were included in the conference agenda. As was pointed out during the opening plenary session, the need to include all stakeholders in EHDI programs is vital to ensure successful outcomes for deaf and hard of hearing children and their families. The NAD will continue its efforts to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing individuals and perspectives are included in future national EHDI conferences and in the implementation of EHDI programs in every state.
Topics: General |
March 15th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I am truly glad to see NAD participation in the EHDI. Partnership with other professionals whose interest are to promote the success of language development and education of Deaf children is a very important goal.
I truly hope NAD make a strong statement that visual language is a key contributor to success in education. However they should also state that all form of language development should be used. (ASL, Speech, Listening).
Yet visual language “ASL” is critical especially early on. Try to visualize teaching a deaf child the word “Tree”. Eventhough I have not seen scientific research but my guess would be the deaf child would grasps the understanding of “Tree” in it’s visual form before they understand it with speech. So why should we procastinate the opportunity of a deaf child from understanding things sooner when a mechanism is available visually.