celly37

Hi, I would really like to run a small daycare for deaf, HOH and hearing children. I am currently in school for Early Childhood education and have taken two ASL courses... my question is, should I apply to bloomsburg university for their deaf education program or take their interpretation program? Their deaf education program puts a lot of emphasis on speech development, and speech therapy, which i do not believe in teaching young deaf children. Should I just take the interpretation courses and run a small private daycare where ASL is the main language, NOT speaking(for deaf and HOH)?

Deafness

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Frisky Feline

Have you ever worked with the daycare before? It will gives you more a social network lead to you to know if you can handle by running a small darecare for deaf, hoh and hearing. Also, check with deaf school to see if their have any deaf infant program to see if they are looking for a daycare where workers know some ASL or something like that.

good luck.

C.C.Sinned

IMO I would include speech development and speech therapy. Just to be able to offer every option available at the daycare center. Parents like the centers with the most to offer.

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CSign

I agree with you. In the early years it's important to address all the needs of the child, and at least provide them with the opportunity to develop speech skills if it's in the cards for them. As the child gets older, it becomes more clear about what areas need more attention.

But, unless you're going to be a SLP you're not going to be providing direct services in that capacity. It's always good though, to have a solid foundation in all thing DHH if you want to work with the community.

RoseRodent

Personally I think you need to offer the widest package. You can't offer services which are restricted to speech and language professionals so there may not be much point in major blocks on speech development, but you can certainly support their work more actively than your standard daycare placement. You have to be in a non-judgemental place as a service provider, you can have your mission statement and such, but if people have chosen (or may choose) the aural/oral/CI route you can't look down on that choice, it's their choice. Many have not yet made decisions - a daycare child is very young, a number of parents will still be in the early shock phase (for many hearing families the diagnosis of childhood deafness is a terrible shock at first) and they may know very little, may not know if they will choose signing or choose aural/oral or both, whether to go Deaf ed or mainstream as the child grows up, whether the hearing will stay the same or get worse, whether they might choose a CI or would not, whether the child could be an implant candidate or not... many people are not fixed in their minds at this stage what they want to do and will want to keep their options wide. Focussing in on ASL at this early stage is likely to attract only children from long time Deaf families. Which is fine if there are enough of them to keep you afloat financially. You don't really want people to feel they'd have to move their child to another provider if they decided to change paths.

Since you are not going to be expected to be a speech development specialist then perhaps take the course you think is most directly relevant to your desire to be in the ASL medium as much as possible, but see if you can get access to the support of speech development aspect another way, maybe a short placement shadowing someone in that role. Your role in daycare is to support anything that has been recommended by the SLT/SLP. It's useful if you know plenty about that so you understand the processes at work, but the curriculum as it were is set by the SLP, you are more providing an environment in which to practice those skills.