To: hpotter@magic.org
From: bethha@SLP.org

Henry,

I'm sorry to hear Joey's diagnosis, but glad to know that at least you've caught it early and will definitely be getting her help when she needs it most.

I'm also glad to hear that you have such an urgent interest in learning more about your daughter's situation. Coincidentally, I do have more information about the development of literacy in deaf and hard of hearing children. Recently, a friend of mine who is a special education teacher published a pamphlet about it. If you click on this Link

(application/msword, 172 KB)

you can see it online. Also, she has her deaf students keep journal entries and some of them publish their entries online. Click here to read a couple and read the feelings that deaf students have when tackling the issue of literacy.

I have a really good friend who happens to be really interested in this topic and she keeps what is called a "Weblog." If you click on this link, it will take you to her webliography and you can contact her there if you'd like more in-depth information about this. A good place to visit on her blog is a page that has a poem written by one of her deaf friends. If you click here, it will take you straight there, if you really want to get into the feelings that are involved when it comes to literacy for the deaf.

Finally, my cousin is also a speech language pathologist who is interested in this topic and she sent me an e-copy of a Powerpoint presentation she put together for one of her Aural Rehabilitation classes (this class addressed issues that SLPs face when trying to help people with hearing losses compensate for other speech and language skills that have been lost as well). If you click on this link

(application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, 138 KB)

you can view a copy of it, too. You can never know too much!

I hope this helps somewhat. If there's anything else I can help you with, let me know. Good luck!

Beth