Program Pairs Deaf Students With Neighborhood Kids

[Miss-Delectable]

Program Pairs Deaf Students With Neighborhood Kids - Education News Story - KETV Omaha

A program at the Boys Town National Research Hospital pairs deaf or hard-of-hearing children with children who don't have hearing disabilities so the pairs can learn from each other.

The program has the attention of people across the nation, the hospital said.

"It's a Monday through Friday course that services children with varying degrees of hearing loss, and also children -- neighboring children -- who come and be partners with our children with hearing loss to develop language and learning skills," said Cathy Carotta of Boys Town National Hospital.

It is also a national pilot program. There are cameras in the room, and teachers from around the country can watch the children interact and learn from what the teachers are doing.

"The greatest window of growth you will ever see (is) from birth to 6 years of age," Carotta said.

Children without disability pick up sign language. Hard-of hearing children use activities such as building with clay and representational play to show that they understand their peers.

Boys Town said it has had a program for preschool kids for 25 years.

 

[jillio]

This is a wonderful idea, provided that the learning is mutual. When chidlren are paired inthis way, it evens out the numbers so that no one group is dominant over the other, and they truly can have a mutual learning experience.

My son's deaf school was paired with a hearing mainstream school. The hearing students who were taking ASL and the deaf students were paired up for all kinds of extracurricular activities. The hearing students ASL skills improved, and they began to see their peers as just average teenagers like themselves who just could not hear, and used a different language. The deaf students were able to develop some positive relationships with hearing students, and experience a change intheir perspective as well. As many of the dea students had come from mainstream schools where they had been bullied because they were different fromt he majrity, and had come from hearing families where many of them felt cut off, it was a wonderful experience for both groups. That is the stuff of understanding, an with understanding, we can wipe out the intolerance and mistreatment that is so prevalent in our society.