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Queens Chronicle - School For Deaf Works With New Technology
Advances in technology have played a major part in new programming at Jackson Heights’ Lexington School & Center for the Deaf. New communication technology has influenced everything from changes in the school’s curriculum to construction of its state-of-the-art theater.
The school has been providing educational services to the deaf and hard of hearing communities since 1865. It was originally located in Manhattan, first in a brownstone and then in a building on Lexington Avenue and 68th Street.
The institution moved to Queens in the late 1960’s. Hunter College was looking to expand its facilities, and the city offered the Lexington School money to help cover the cost of its relocation to 30th Avenue and 75th Street.
Two years later, the school had another reason to celebrate: Clothing designer Ralph Lauren and his wife, Ricky, donated over $2 million to the school for its performing arts center, specifically designed to serve deaf and hard of hearing spectators and performers.
The Ralph and Ricky Lauren Center for the Performing Arts features the latest technology for the deaf and hard of hearing communities, from its “sprung stage,” which helps students sense vibrations for use as performance cues, to its ceiling audio panels, designed to enhance sound for the audience.
The theatre, which accommodates 427 spectators, also includes four plasma screen TVs to offer closed-captioning and better views of sign language interpreters on stage.
Its extensive back-stage system includes cameras and a video intercom system to help deaf and hard of hearing stage crew members communicate.
Federal grants awarded to the school have allowed it to develop programming directly linked to its performing arts center. Superintendent Regina Carroll said thanks to the same federal grant, awarded to the school twice, Lexington has received $110,000 each year for the past six years.
Part of the grant money was used to hire a full-time dance teacher, as well as a new artist-in-residence each year. The artist works with multiple classes to teach students about a particular art form. He or she also works with older students to help them prepare school performances, which are presented to their peers as well as the larger community several times a year.
The goal is to make students aware of their own potential and provide interaction between them and the outside community.
Recent advances in communication and hearing aid technology have also made a big difference.
Carroll estimates about 80 of the school’s 350 students, from the infant program through age 21, now have cochlear implants. The electronic implants, which rest behind the ear and are surgically attached beneath the skin, are designed to enhance the users’ auditory stimuli. But that also changes the way they’re taught, especially as young students. Roughly half of the school’s preschoolers already have the implants.
While all the classes at Lexington incorporate spoken language and sign language (which was implemented at the school in the 1980s), there are now special classes for preschoolers to help them make sense of their auditory stimuli and develop their listening and spoken language skills first, before transitioning them into using sign language. Carroll also hopes to implement these auditory-oral classes for older students.
The school serves families from all five boroughs, which means it must also adapt its programming to integrate the languages spoken at students’ homes. Carroll estimates between 15 and 20 different languages, from Spanish to Russian, are represented. The school offers bilingual classes and wants to expand its language services with additional full-time tutors.
But with advances in telecommunications technology, Carroll points out that the school can almost immediately dial interpreters in many different languages to help facilitate, for example, communication between home and school.
“The devices for communication are just exploding,” she said, noting the emergence of video phones and other digital gadgets.
The school also continues to provide an umbrella of core services to supplement to its classes and help students transition into college and the workforce. Many of the programs are also open to the local community.
Lexington has both vocational training and counseling programs to assist deaf and hard of hearing people with job placement. Carroll also notes that several students continue their education at mainstream colleges.
A mental health clinic specializes in deafness, but also serves the community at large, whether the client is a hearing parent looking for help communicating with a deaf or hard of hearing child, or a deaf or hard of hearing person looking for personal counseling.
Advances in technology have played a major part in new programming at Jackson Heights’ Lexington School & Center for the Deaf. New communication technology has influenced everything from changes in the school’s curriculum to construction of its state-of-the-art theater.
The school has been providing educational services to the deaf and hard of hearing communities since 1865. It was originally located in Manhattan, first in a brownstone and then in a building on Lexington Avenue and 68th Street.
The institution moved to Queens in the late 1960’s. Hunter College was looking to expand its facilities, and the city offered the Lexington School money to help cover the cost of its relocation to 30th Avenue and 75th Street.
Two years later, the school had another reason to celebrate: Clothing designer Ralph Lauren and his wife, Ricky, donated over $2 million to the school for its performing arts center, specifically designed to serve deaf and hard of hearing spectators and performers.
The Ralph and Ricky Lauren Center for the Performing Arts features the latest technology for the deaf and hard of hearing communities, from its “sprung stage,” which helps students sense vibrations for use as performance cues, to its ceiling audio panels, designed to enhance sound for the audience.
The theatre, which accommodates 427 spectators, also includes four plasma screen TVs to offer closed-captioning and better views of sign language interpreters on stage.
Its extensive back-stage system includes cameras and a video intercom system to help deaf and hard of hearing stage crew members communicate.
Federal grants awarded to the school have allowed it to develop programming directly linked to its performing arts center. Superintendent Regina Carroll said thanks to the same federal grant, awarded to the school twice, Lexington has received $110,000 each year for the past six years.
Part of the grant money was used to hire a full-time dance teacher, as well as a new artist-in-residence each year. The artist works with multiple classes to teach students about a particular art form. He or she also works with older students to help them prepare school performances, which are presented to their peers as well as the larger community several times a year.
The goal is to make students aware of their own potential and provide interaction between them and the outside community.
Recent advances in communication and hearing aid technology have also made a big difference.
Carroll estimates about 80 of the school’s 350 students, from the infant program through age 21, now have cochlear implants. The electronic implants, which rest behind the ear and are surgically attached beneath the skin, are designed to enhance the users’ auditory stimuli. But that also changes the way they’re taught, especially as young students. Roughly half of the school’s preschoolers already have the implants.
While all the classes at Lexington incorporate spoken language and sign language (which was implemented at the school in the 1980s), there are now special classes for preschoolers to help them make sense of their auditory stimuli and develop their listening and spoken language skills first, before transitioning them into using sign language. Carroll also hopes to implement these auditory-oral classes for older students.
The school serves families from all five boroughs, which means it must also adapt its programming to integrate the languages spoken at students’ homes. Carroll estimates between 15 and 20 different languages, from Spanish to Russian, are represented. The school offers bilingual classes and wants to expand its language services with additional full-time tutors.
But with advances in telecommunications technology, Carroll points out that the school can almost immediately dial interpreters in many different languages to help facilitate, for example, communication between home and school.
“The devices for communication are just exploding,” she said, noting the emergence of video phones and other digital gadgets.
The school also continues to provide an umbrella of core services to supplement to its classes and help students transition into college and the workforce. Many of the programs are also open to the local community.
Lexington has both vocational training and counseling programs to assist deaf and hard of hearing people with job placement. Carroll also notes that several students continue their education at mainstream colleges.
A mental health clinic specializes in deafness, but also serves the community at large, whether the client is a hearing parent looking for help communicating with a deaf or hard of hearing child, or a deaf or hard of hearing person looking for personal counseling.