Helping hearing-impaired students succeed | Indiana - Kokomo Perspective

This session, the Indiana General Assembly is working to address the needs of specialized schools in our state.

House Bill 1484, which State Rep. Edward Clere, R-New Albany, authored and I sponsored in the Senate, would require a number of actions to be taken by the Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education (CDHHE) to better measure language development and communicate English literacy progress to parents.

The proposed legislation would require the director of the CDHHE to appoint an advisory committee to create language developmental milestones, which would be used as a standard for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Indiana. Working with speech-language pathologists and educators, the committee would also determine the type of tools and assessments needed to effectively measure English literacy. Additionally, the CDHHE would provide training and technical assistance to local educational agencies for bench-marking levels of English-language mastery among deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Finally, the CDHHE would be responsible for producing and publishing an online report that compares the English literacy development of students who are deaf and hard of hearing with those who are not.

The goal of HB 1484 is to set a clear standard for assessing education for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing in a transparent way that is accessible to educational agencies, parents of students and the public.

I firmly believe identifying milestones, assessing progression and collecting data are positive steps toward improving an already strong deaf education program in our state. The Indiana School for the Deaf has a long-standing reputation of being one of the best institutes for deaf education in the country.

If passed, this bill would create the additional resources necessary to further support the deaf community in Indiana.

To learn more about HB 1484, visit iga.in.gov.

What do you think?

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