On Cue
Volume 24 Issue 1
http://www.cuedspeech.org/PDF/OnCue2010forward/OnCue_Spring2010.pdf
Volume 24 Issue 1
Cued Speech and Educational Laws: First in a 3-part series
Welcome to the world of deaf education. This can be a complex, confusing, nerve-wracking, confrontational and unpleasant process of evaluations, programming choices, and regular follow-ups as regards to the education of our children who are deaf and hard of hearing.
The focus of this three-part series is to introduce the laws that govern the educational programming for our children, break down the special education process and hopefully provide parents and educators with resources so that they can more confidently advocate for their child’s or student’s best educational experience.
Part I provides a brief overview of educational laws in the United States.
The three major educational laws that impact our children and students are:
NCLB—No Child Left Behind
ADA—Americans with Disabilities Act
IDEA—Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act
No Child Left Behind
This act supports ALL children in their ability to access and benefit from their education in the regular education classroom. As stated in the Act, the purpose of NCLB is to… “…ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.”
Educators are required to use research-based instruction to improve academic achievement of all students. The term Response to Intervention (RTI) encompasses practices that are applied prior to the special education identification process. Three levels of support are provided to all students: Tier 1 – Core Intervention, Tier 2 – Targeted Group Intervention, and Tier 3 – Intensive, Individual Intervention. This tiered process is designed to ensure that the level of support required for students to make progress in the regular education classroom is achieved. Then, continued documentation of student achievement deficits may be better assessed as a learning disability rather than a result of a lack of appropriate instruction.
The inclusion of the terms fair, equal, significant opportunity, and high-quality education in the definition of NCLB is significant when considering our children’s educational needs. Cued Speech fits perfectly within this framework. Given that the language of the regular classroom is English, a cued language transliterator (CLT) provides equal access for the child with hearing loss via cued English without the need for interpretation between two different languages.
Furthermore, reading skills that are taught by addressing the “sounds” in words are accessible for all students, including those with hearing loss. It is also important to remember that academic achievement standards and state academic assessments in the elementary years include phonemic skills, which are the basis for developing strong reading skills. State assessments include presenting items that require students to break words into sounds or combine sounds to create words. With cued English, these auditory-based tems can be presented visually to students, thus providing for a fair assessment of phonemic skills. Using Cued Speech, children who are hearing and those with hearing loss alike would have a multi-modal strategy for learning these phonemic skills. A “significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education” for all students in the regular classroom can be met with the use of Cued Speech.
ADA and SECTION 504
The Americans with Disabilities Act is designed to protect people with disabilities from discrimination and gives them an equal opportunity to participate in all aspects of community life, including their education.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 falls under the ADA. Section 504 specifically protects the rights of individuals with disabilities who participate in programs and activities that receive federal funds (programs include public school systems). Under Section 504, illegal discrimination of individuals with disabilities in schools includes exclusion from school activities, the unnecessary provision of unequal or separate services, and disability-related harassment. This law also protects parents and school employees who
advocate for children with disabilities from retaliation by others.
Section 504 also requires school districts to provide “free appropriate public education” (FAPE) for all students. The provision of a free education means providing education and related services without cost to the student with a disability or his/her parents or guardians. This excludes auxiliary fees that children and families are required to pay (e.g., fees for participating on a school sports team or field trip).
Under Section 504, children with disabilities will be provided with access to an education. Modifying classroom policies and practices may be necessary to provide a free and appropriate education. Schools must give primary consideration to the preferred mode of communication unless it can be demonstrated that another equally effective means of communication exists. Cued Speech services that provide access to a child’s education are included under Section 504. These services include cued language transliteration services provided by a qualified CLT. Related services are also required (e.g., speechlanguage, occupational and physical therapies, counseling and social work services, and working with a teacher of the deaf). School districts must also provide students with equal opportunity and access to non-academic and extracurricular activities.
Section 504 services must be provided unless doing so would result in a fundamental alteration of the program, or would result in undue financial or administrative burdens. The Department of Education U.S. Department of Education) has never accepted an argument for undue financial burden under as a reason for not complying with Section 504.
IDEA
The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) has several purposes, which include:
• ensuring that all children with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) through special education and related services and that these services are designed to meet the students’ unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living;
• ensuring that the rights of children with disabilities and their parents’ rights are protected;
• assisting states, local educational agencies and federal agencies to provide for the education of all children with disabilities;
• assisting states in implementing an interagency system of statewide, comprehensive, coordinated, multidisciplinary early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families;
• ensuring that educators and parents have the necessary tools to improve educational results for children with disabilities by supporting system improvement activities; coordinated research and personnel preparation; coordinated technical assistance, dissemination, and support; technology development and media services; and
• assessing and ensuring the effectiveness of the efforts to educate all children with disabilities.
In addition, Title I of IDEA 2004 designates cued language services as part of early intervention services provided for at-risk children. Furthermore, Part 300 of IDEA regulations include “cued language transliteration” in the area of interpreting services.
So what does this all mean? It means that any child with a documented disability who is eligible for special education services will have a qualified team, including the parents/guardians, develop an Individualized Education
Program (IEP) to serve his or her specific educational needs.
These children and their parents and guardians have rights protected by IDEA. Early intervention services are required and this law describes how they are carried out. Compliance with IDEA also ensures the effectiveness of each child’s program, and that support is provided to both the educators and parents or guardians in order to best serve these children.
I hope that the information presented here helps to clarify the requirements in the major national education laws as they pertain to students who are deaf and hard of hearing.
The next part of this series will outline the requirements of eligibility for services under these laws, and the differences between Section 504 and IDEA.
If you have questions or comments about this article, please feel free to contact Nicole Dobson at NiCueSSS@ gmail.com.
http://www.cuedspeech.org/PDF/OnCue2010forward/OnCue_Spring2010.pdf