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Cincinnati's two schools for the deaf are trying to grow, even as technology to overcome deafness ensures more hearing-impaired students can attend mainstream schools.
In an effort to attract students, St. Rita School for the Deaf in Evendale held the third open house in its 90-year history on Tuesday to tout several new programs.
A high school "signing choir" acted out several popular songs on stage as an audience of about 100 learned about the school's day care, preschool, elementary and residential programs.
The school of 136 students has had flat enrollment for the past decade, said executive director Gregory Ernst, and attracting new students is a challenge in an age of cochlear implants and mainstreaming.
Cochlear implants are surgically placed behind the ear.
The electrical devices send sound impulses to the brain. Children with implants often can function as hearing children do, without the need for sign language.
Much of St. Rita's growth is in a program geared to infants and youngsters with disabilities beyond deafness. In the preschool, hearing children learn alongside deaf children.
Everyone learns sign language and acceptance, said Daniel Johnson, a 17-year-old senior from Cleveland.
"If I did not come here, I'd be lonely or left out," he said. "Here, a lot of the little kids look up to me."
At Ohio Valley Voices, a school founded by parents of deaf children, enrollment has grown from 12 to 39 in five years.
Children begin attending as infants and "graduate" into mainstream schools by third grade.
The Montgomery school is one of a handful so-called oral schools nationwide, which favor teaching deaf children to speak rather than using sign language.
Director Maria Sentelik said research shows toddlers learning to talk may be slowed by sign language.
The private school will move from its Montgomery location next fall into a renovated church in Loveland. The 21,000-square-foot facility will cater to 50 students full-time and others part-time, said Sentelik.
When Ohio Valley Voices opened five years ago, some in the deaf community resisted it, because they viewed deafness and the use of sign language as part of their identity, said Dr. Daniel Choo, an associate at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Others believed the new school would steal students from St. Rita.
That hasn't happened, said Ernst. Now that deafness is being diagnosed younger, more parents are making decisions for their hearing-impaired children younger, he said, which is why St. Rita expanded its infant and preschool programs.
The school also educates 13 students with cochlear implants now.
"The cochlear implant has changed the face of deafness forever," said Sentelik of Ohio Valley Voices.
"However, cochlear implants are not manna from the sky; you can't just get them and learn to talk. Without intervention you won't learn to talk. ...
"We're open to any learning ideas that are going to help the child."
By Denise Smith Amos
In an effort to attract students, St. Rita School for the Deaf in Evendale held the third open house in its 90-year history on Tuesday to tout several new programs.
A high school "signing choir" acted out several popular songs on stage as an audience of about 100 learned about the school's day care, preschool, elementary and residential programs.
The school of 136 students has had flat enrollment for the past decade, said executive director Gregory Ernst, and attracting new students is a challenge in an age of cochlear implants and mainstreaming.
Cochlear implants are surgically placed behind the ear.
The electrical devices send sound impulses to the brain. Children with implants often can function as hearing children do, without the need for sign language.
Much of St. Rita's growth is in a program geared to infants and youngsters with disabilities beyond deafness. In the preschool, hearing children learn alongside deaf children.
Everyone learns sign language and acceptance, said Daniel Johnson, a 17-year-old senior from Cleveland.
"If I did not come here, I'd be lonely or left out," he said. "Here, a lot of the little kids look up to me."
At Ohio Valley Voices, a school founded by parents of deaf children, enrollment has grown from 12 to 39 in five years.
Children begin attending as infants and "graduate" into mainstream schools by third grade.
The Montgomery school is one of a handful so-called oral schools nationwide, which favor teaching deaf children to speak rather than using sign language.
Director Maria Sentelik said research shows toddlers learning to talk may be slowed by sign language.
The private school will move from its Montgomery location next fall into a renovated church in Loveland. The 21,000-square-foot facility will cater to 50 students full-time and others part-time, said Sentelik.
When Ohio Valley Voices opened five years ago, some in the deaf community resisted it, because they viewed deafness and the use of sign language as part of their identity, said Dr. Daniel Choo, an associate at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Others believed the new school would steal students from St. Rita.
That hasn't happened, said Ernst. Now that deafness is being diagnosed younger, more parents are making decisions for their hearing-impaired children younger, he said, which is why St. Rita expanded its infant and preschool programs.
The school also educates 13 students with cochlear implants now.
"The cochlear implant has changed the face of deafness forever," said Sentelik of Ohio Valley Voices.
"However, cochlear implants are not manna from the sky; you can't just get them and learn to talk. Without intervention you won't learn to talk. ...
"We're open to any learning ideas that are going to help the child."
By Denise Smith Amos