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UCF deaf grant: UCF receives deaf grant of $1.1 million - OrlandoSentinel.com
Kids with hearing loss are the targets of a $1.1 million federal grant awarded last month to the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida.
The grant from the U.S. Department of Education will go toward a new program that will train speech-language pathologists to work with deaf and hard-of-hearing children whose families do not speak English.
"It's a wonderful blessing," said Linda Rosa-Lugo, associate professor in the UCF Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Rosa-Lugo grew up in a family where young cousins and neighbors had hearing loss and struggled to communicate in a world where outsiders spoke English but their families spoke Spanish.
Learning to understand and speak one language when you're hard of hearing is tough enough, but learning two is especially challenging, she said.
Florida has many speech-language pathologists, however, few know how to help children with hearing loss who come from homes where English is not the primary language, she said.
The UCF-USF collaborative grant will go toward training 40 new speech-language pathologists over the next five years to do just that, with a special focus on helping kids age three and younger, she said.
"Students in the program will be trained to help parents who want their children to be able to speak and hear as well as they can given what hearing they have and the technological aids they will be using," said Rosa-Lugo. "They will have to understand second-language acquisition, and work with families in a culturally responsive way."
The need for such a service is growing, said Rosa-Lugo, who works with 10 school districts in Central Florida. In Orange County more than 300 students are deaf or hard of hearing, and in Osceola County 81 have hearing loss.
The new program helps schools comply with a new state law that requires public schools to provide deaf and hard-of-hearing students access to appropriately trained specialists. Both universities are recruiting graduate students for the program, which will begin in January.
Kids with hearing loss are the targets of a $1.1 million federal grant awarded last month to the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida.
The grant from the U.S. Department of Education will go toward a new program that will train speech-language pathologists to work with deaf and hard-of-hearing children whose families do not speak English.
"It's a wonderful blessing," said Linda Rosa-Lugo, associate professor in the UCF Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Rosa-Lugo grew up in a family where young cousins and neighbors had hearing loss and struggled to communicate in a world where outsiders spoke English but their families spoke Spanish.
Learning to understand and speak one language when you're hard of hearing is tough enough, but learning two is especially challenging, she said.
Florida has many speech-language pathologists, however, few know how to help children with hearing loss who come from homes where English is not the primary language, she said.
The UCF-USF collaborative grant will go toward training 40 new speech-language pathologists over the next five years to do just that, with a special focus on helping kids age three and younger, she said.
"Students in the program will be trained to help parents who want their children to be able to speak and hear as well as they can given what hearing they have and the technological aids they will be using," said Rosa-Lugo. "They will have to understand second-language acquisition, and work with families in a culturally responsive way."
The need for such a service is growing, said Rosa-Lugo, who works with 10 school districts in Central Florida. In Orange County more than 300 students are deaf or hard of hearing, and in Osceola County 81 have hearing loss.
The new program helps schools comply with a new state law that requires public schools to provide deaf and hard-of-hearing students access to appropriately trained specialists. Both universities are recruiting graduate students for the program, which will begin in January.