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Date: 01‐21‐12
Event: HLAA Meeting
www.2020captioning.com
1.866.554.2099
THIS TEXT IS BEING PROVIDED IN A ROUGH DRAFT
FORMAT. COMMUNICATION ACCESS REALTIME
TRANSLATION (CART) IS PROVIDED IN ORDER TO
FACILITATE COMMUNICATION ACCESSIBILITY AND MAY
NOT BE TOTALLY VERBATIM. THE CONSUMER SHOULD
CHECK WITH THE MODERATOR FOR ANY CLARIFICATIONS
OF THE MATERIAL.
>> Minda: All right. So this is what we have come up with and
so normally you have microphone. Normally we have
microphone and two projects so I apologize for the inconvenience
but weʹre trying to solve this as much as possible. So today we
have three speakers. We have a speaker from Teltex, Jeff
Williamson, and we also have the campus school for the and saint
Joseph Institute for the Deaf. Jeff will start off and heʹs going to
give us an overview from what his company does and amplified
telephones and assistive technology. We decided that CART was
more important so weʹre going to turn the laptop ‐‐ is that okay?
Will that work?
>> Jeff: Would you mind giving me one minute to look through
this. I did not get my clicker out of the bag.
>> Minda: Okay. Normally this wouldnʹt be an issue but I
cannot see the display so I canʹt hit the keyboard. Iʹm kind of
guessing. Can most of you see the laptop here? I know it is not
as big as that but this is as good as it is going to get. But I did talk
to Minda yesterday. Weʹre going to put this PowerPoint up on
the HLAA Chapter website so youʹll will be able to see it when you
get back home or back to work. So if you miss something here,
you can see it later.
It was interesting, Minda and I attended Nashville two years ago
for the hearing loss organization of Americaʹs national convention.
And she came over to the booth. I donʹt remember seeing her
there. One of my sales directors was there and apparently he
talked to her. And when I got ready to go back to Kansas City,
there was a girl sitting here in this seat and I noticed she had
hearing aids so I thought, well, this is somebody I can talk to.
And I asked her, I said, have you been to the convention? And
she said well, yeah, I was there. That is why Iʹm here. I said, oh,
did you come by our booth? And she said what booth? And I
said Teltex? She said yeah, yeah, I was there. I said I donʹt
remember me get all. she talked to somebody else. The short of it
is, well, weʹre getting ready to start a Kansas City Chapter for
HLAA when I get back. Weʹre really excited about this. And I
thought I have been in this industry for eight years waiting for
somebody to do a Chapter in Kansas City and the only one in this
area was in St. Louis and, so, thankfully we had an opportunity to
chat. We kept in touch over those two years and she invited me
here to do this presentation on technology.
So I have about 52 slides. We wonʹt get through those in 20
minutes. Iʹm going to quickly go over some of that stuff because
some of it is fairly heavy. And weʹll hit some of the highlights and
if you have any questions about anything that Iʹm talking about,
you can stop me at any time. We can go over those questions.
But I donʹt want to bore you with all of this stuff because it can
get ‐‐ it can get intricate and detailed. Weʹll hit some hot topics.
And one thing I would like to mention, Terri (sp), where is Terri
(sp)? She brought in her loop system. She has a chair pad.
Anybody used the chair pad loop system before? Anyone know
what that is?
>> Audience Member: Yes, I do.
>> Jeff: Terri is the only one that has a loop system or chair pad?
Perfect. Who in this room has telecoil equipped hearing aids?
Raise your hand. T‐coil equipped hearing aids? One, two, three
four, five, 67. If you have T‐coil equipped hearing aids I would
encourage you to go over to the white chair next to Minda and sit
on that black pad. What you will see or what youʹll hear is
everything that is going on in here directly transmitted into your
hearing aid through those T‐coils. There is microphone on the
table. Youʹll be picking up my voice and instead of hearing
everything that Iʹm saying specifically, youʹll hear it through that
chair pad. It is amazing technology. I would encourage you to at
least give it a try throughout the day and see what you think about
it because that is the most basic application ‐‐ thatʹs the smallest
loop system there is. And what they do in a loop system, they can
loop this entire room or an entire auditorium. And by doing that,
it just gives access to anyone that has T‐coil equipped hearing aids
the ability to hear what is going on directly into their hearing aids
rather than the microphones so it is a great piece of technology. If
you donʹt have telecoils, please talk to your audiologist. Ask them
about them because it is really ‐‐ it is a sad situation. We have so
many people that come into the office that donʹt have T‐coils.
Their audiologist never informed them about telecoils. They donʹt
have any idea what they do. And you can truly benefit from a lot
of other technology just by having them as a simple feature in your
hearing aid.
Iʹll get ‐‐ Iʹm going to move on here. I spent way too much
time ‐‐ at Teltex, we are a distributer of equipment for Deaf and
hard of hearing. Not only are we a contributor weʹre also a
service center. Anything you buy from our company or receive
from our company through a state program, weʹre going to not
only sell that or distribute that but we also service that. So we
have extended warranty programs. We have full time technicians
on staff in our office which [off mic] so weʹre not too far from
downtown.
Iʹm going to skip over to history or make it very brief. I canʹt get
too far from the microphone. This is certainly a challenge. Some
of the places are court rooms, churches, individuals and state
programs. So we provide services for all of those entities.
The equipment we have available, we have TTYs, amplified
telephones, assistive listening devices, smoke detectors, all kind of
notification systems for people that have an issue with either
hearing a doorbell or wanting to be alerted by a smoke detector.
At night you take your hearing aids out you have a fire in your
home youʹll never hear that smoke detector and it can save your
life. So it is definitely something to be aware of.
Iʹll talk about this first device here from Comfort Audio®.
Anybody heard of a pocket talker from William sounds? A
personal amplifier? This is going to be a whole New World for
you guys. This is exciting.
This little device is about the size of a Bic lighter. Smaller than
this. You can wear a set of headphones. And use it to amplify
the audio or the sound around you about 10 to 15 feet away from
you. You can adjust that volume where you need it. If you wear
telecoil equipped hearing aids you can wear a neckloop instead of
those headphones. Then you have nothing physically touching
your ears and all the audio is coming directly through that loop
and it is ‐‐ that energy is transferred directly into your hearing
aids.
You can use the device for television amplification. If you have a
hard time hearing the TV or your wife or husband has the [off mic]
and youʹre blasting them out. Theyʹre just irritated because the
TV is so loud. You can actually use this to amplify your own
audio or your TV without disturbing anyone else. You can also
connect it to a telephone and amplify into a standard corded
telephone.
One of the things that we found this device to be really good at is
when youʹre driving in the car and you have a passenger, theyʹre
trying to talk to you and you have to drive. Well, if you have
hearing loss, you really ‐‐ youʹre struggling already to hear what is
going on. So your natural tendency is to lipread but you canʹt do
that when youʹre driving. You have to keep your eyes on the
road. So with this device you can actually just put it in a cup
holder there and when theyʹre talking to you, youʹre getting that
audio again directly into your hearing aid. So it is really
beneficial for those that travel a lot. Have long commutes. Have
passengers in the car.
This is the Contego from Comfort Audio®. It is an extension of
the device we just looked at. The big difference here is we have
two pieces to the product. One of those is a transmitter. You can
take that transmitter and if youʹre in church you can give it to your
pastor. He can have that transmitter in pulpit. You can be sitting
in the pews and that audio is transmitted directly into the receiver
and you can control the volume. A lot of churches already ‐‐ I
donʹt want to say a lot. A few churches that offer that service
where you have a receiver you can check out when you come in
and theyʹre amplifying that audio into the receiver and you have it.
Could be your own. You can take it home with you. You donʹt
have to share this device. It can be your own. You can plug the
transmitter into any audio device. That can be an MP3 player, a
television. You could actually use it to amplify your telephone.
We have special connectors that we develop to work with this
system. And one of the ‐‐ what I think is one of the cool things
about this is that not only can you have that remote transmitter so
you can hear people, but, for instance, I could take the transmitter
and I could put it in that other room over here in the library and
anything that is going on over there, we can hear in here if we had
that receiver.
Also, this has a volume control on it when youʹre wearing it. You
can actually turn up the volume with someone that youʹre sitting
next to. If you are getting much talking over here and you canʹt
hear what is going on with the remote transmitter, you can turn
that down. If you really donʹt care what is going on with the
remote transmitter you can turn that volume down so you can hear
who is talking next to you. So you have a lot of flexibility with
this product. They ever using them in courtrooms for lawyers, for
attorneys ‐‐ lawyers and attorneys, Judge, defendants, jurors that
may be denied access to becoming a juror because they have a
hearing loss. This provides them assistance so they can now
participate in that whole situation. And we have got a lot
of ‐‐ this thing is very sophisticated but, at the same time, very easy
to use and a lot of different amplifications.
Iʹm going to touch on the ‐‐ this is a brand new system from
Comfort Audio®. Same manufacturer and, Jane, I donʹt know if
you have seen this. It is a brand new product. We just started to
distribute it two months ago. It is called the Digisystem. With
the Digisystem it is more for ‐‐ it is really geared towards
educational environments. You may have multiple students that
have hearing loss in one environment. And what you do is, you
have your standard behind‐the‐ear hearing aid and it has the
ability to have the direct boot connected to it. It is an FM receiver.
It connects directly to the hearing aid.
What that is now, it is a receiver in your hearing aid. And this is
what it looks like. Pretty standard connection. This is your
programmer so you can program the studentʹs specific settings for
what they need. And the teacher can simply wear this
transmitter, very small transmitter that they can wear it on their
lapel. So when theyʹre instructing that student is hearing
everything.
This is one of the most sophisticated FM systems that Iʹve seen to
date. And itʹs fairly expensive BUT the advantages of this go well
beyond anything thatʹs currently available. Phonak has had
systems where teachers have to go into specific rooms for students
and we shut that watch and turn that one on and how are they
going to hear the fire alarms? Are they going to be distracted by
the bells ringing and those kind of things in this really eliminates
all of those issues just with this one system.
Briefly Iʹll talk about phones. We have a lot of phones in here.
Iʹm going to go through these very quickly. One of the things that
we do at Teltex, we distribute phones for ‐‐ weʹre involved with
about 27 different state programs where we either distribute an
amplified telephone or an amplified device; or, we service that.
We may not sell it to them. Because we have the service we may
service that. On the table over there I have some brochure that
talk about the Missouri TAP for telephone program and is
something that we like to promote because it is a free program to
those that qualify. Qualifications are very simple. If you have to
get an amplified telephone in your home, you have to be a resident
of the state of Missouri; you have to have telephone service to your
home, so a landline; you have to make less than $60,000 a year;
and, you have to have some type of disability, whether that is
hearing loss, vision loss, cognitive or mobility that prevent you
from using a regular telephone. If meet that criteria there are two
places you can go, fill out an application, and get that phone for
free.
Now, when we say it is ʺfreeʺ you actually have been paying for it
for years. Everybody in the state of Missouri that has a telephone
line for their home or business pays 13 cents a month on a tax.
You know all those little taxes that you have on your phone bill?
What is that? Why am I paying all that? 13 cents a month on
your bill is called, ʺMissouri relay surchargeʺ and all of that money
every month 13 cents a month for me and you and you and you
and you, everybody in the state of Missouri, all that money impose
into a pool that provides equipment for those people that need it.
So we encourage you to take advantage of that. It is there for you.
It is a service that is available to you. You have been paying for it.
Take advantage of it. You would be amazed what an amplified
telephone ‐‐ how it can actually change a personʹs life when they
have not been able to communicate with a family member or a
friend for years because they cannot hear on the phone. It
changes their lives. It truly does.
So this is a phone that is a low vision amplified telephone. You
see it has very large keys. Numbers talk back to you each time
you press a button so you donʹt actually misdial because you canʹt
see the keys. It is also amplified so if you have hearing loss you
have got that cross‐over disability. So it does both: Low vision
and hard of hearing and that is just a bigger image of the picture of
the product.
This is another phone. It halls a very large Caller ID. You see it
here. If you have low vision and subscribe to Caller ID you can
see the big numbers come across there and youʹll be able to see
that. It is also amplified so you can hear what is going on. It has
a bright flashing ringer. When the phone rings it will strobe so
youʹll be able to see it as well as hear it.
Those that have weak speech, if you have been through
chemotherapy or radiation or maybe you have had damage done
to your vocal cords or vocal box, your voice box, you may have
weak speech. From that what they have done is they have taken
the receiver hand set here and they have made the amplification
come out of the phone. So people on the other end, they may not
have a hearing loss but because your speech is so weak they cannot
hear you. This amplifies your voice so they can hear you better.
It does amplify somewhat so you can hear them. It also offers
photo dialing if you want to have those ‐‐ those are speed dial and
you can put a picture of a family member or friend in there and
program their numbers so when you lift the handset you just press
that button and dial them directly.
This is one of the cordless phones that is offered ‐‐ actually this is
in our Illinois program. Missouri didnʹt feel like they wanted to
provide Caller ID for residents and ‐‐ I donʹt have one in there.
This is an amplified cordless telephone with a loud ring. You
have all the functionality that you have in a traditional cordless
hand set. It is expandable. If you want to buy extension hand
clips you can do that. And it also has the talking keypad so when
youʹre dialing out, it has talking Caller ID when people are calling
in. Youʹll be able to hear that number being spoken.
This is one of the Cadillac phones that is offered. And this has a
hand set and amplified to 50 decibels which is very loud. You can
make your calls from the base, from the handset, you have Caller
ID, loaded with features. Probably meant for more of the younger
generation that want to take advantage of some of those things.
This is a brand new cell phone from clarity. Coming out here in
probably March and this is ‐‐ theyʹre rating it at 40 decibels.
40 decibels, to give you an idea, 40 decibels you have got 30, 40 and
50. Those are small, medium and large, okay. So at 30 decibels
that is your entry level amplified telephone. It is louder than a
standard residential phone line which is about 15 to 18 decibels in
volume. You go to a 30‐decibel, now youʹre into an amplified
telephone. 40‐decibels is ‐‐ you have got a mild to moderate or
moderate hearing loss. It is fairly significant. You canʹt use a
regular phone.
Well, 50 decibels is high as they go. So if you canʹt hear or have a
conversation at the 50‐decibel level youʹre looking at going over to
Relay Missouri to get a captioned telephone. And Kim I think is
going to talk about the captioning ‐‐ the caption telephone, right?
This is going to be the loudest cell phone available on the market
when it comes out in March. Right now, the loudest telephone
[off mic] the amplified is 22 decibels. So ‐‐ yeah, 22. And at
40 decibels, it is just going to ‐‐ there is nothing else out there. So
weʹre really excited to have this cell phone become available. You
can use it on the AT&T and T‐Mobile networks if youʹre a
subscriber on one of those services. So weʹre really looking
forward to this thing coming out. It does allow you to do SMS
text messages and some of the ‐‐ some of the basic features you can
do on a traditional cell phone. The big thing is, youʹll be able to
hear them.
This is what we call Q90D with speakers. And if we step back a
couple of slides when I was talking if you had radiation or chemo
and maybe had weak speech, you might not be able to speak at all.
There is a situation that I know of personally where a person had a
situation and had to have their tongue removed from a surgery
and in doing that sheʹs unable to speak. So what she can do is go
through a Q90D TTY has the speakers hooked up to this device.
She can call through the relay center, 711, connect with an
operator, and she can see by typing and that relay operator sees
that on her screen, makes a call for her and she is interpreting that
call for the receiver of the call. So basically what happens is, if she
wanted to call me, she would go to the relay operator and my
phone would ring and I would say hello. The relay operator
would say this is operator 1749 and I have an HCO call, hearing
carryover call. Have you ever had one? You would say yes or
no. They would explain to you how it works. Essentially what is
going to happen is Iʹm going to say hello and that operator is going
to type that information back to my friend and sheʹll see ‐‐ and she
will ‐‐ actually I have that backwards. Iʹm going to speak. When
I speak sheʹs going to hear me through those speakers. So Iʹll be
speaking and she can hear me. When she wants to say something
to me because she canʹt speak sheʹs going to type. When sheʹs
typing, the operator is then relaying that information to me. So
sheʹll be able to hear me but when she wants to talk she types it
and the operator will tell me what sheʹs typing. So there are all
kind of devices that allow us to communicate even in extremely
unique and unforeseen circumstances.
For four years while we were distributing product, we had one
amplified answering machine. It was not a very good one. Had
a lot of problems with it. But people were desperate. And for
four years during that time we went ‐‐ they discontinued it and so
we didnʹt have an amplified answering machine. So we talked to
the manufacturer. We need one. We need one. People are
asking for them. Really need one. After four years, all three of
them came out with one. So now we have three options to choose
from with amplified answering machines. Some of them have
different features than the others. Some of them like this one is
more tactile where you have rotary buttons where you can adjust
the speed and the volume so you can hear that information coming
through that speaker here a lot more clearer. So it really is
beneficial if you need an amplified answering machine.
So many people get messages left and they have to listen to them
over and over and over again because they canʹt understand what
the person is saying. The classic thing that happens is people say
oh, you need to slow down when you leave a message. Youʹre
talking to fast. We hear that all the time.
Well, with this, you can actually slow that down. So you can
make it louder and you can slow it down so you can actually hear
what is being said. It is really a great feature and all three of those
answering machines offer that.
This is a brand new product which weʹre expecting to have
available around June. This is going to really change
communication for those with limited mobility. For years the
only thing ‐‐ the only phone that was available to those that were
wheelchair users or those that were bedridden was one product.
And they had to make the best of that one product.
We saw this demonstrated in October at one of our trade shows
and this is from one of our best manufacturers, Clarity, and what
this phone ‐‐ what this phone is going to do for users with limited
mobility is, it is going to allow them to [off mic] where they can
connect remotely with this phone. It is a built‐in microphone.
They can answer the phone remotely with this pendant just by
speaking hello. The phone will answer. If they want to make a
call, they will say, hello. It is voice‐activated. And theyʹll say call
Mom. It will call Mom. It is Bluetooth cable. You can hook up
just about anything that is Bluetooth to this phone. This speaker
is very large and the volume and the clarity that comes out of that
speaker is truly extraordinary. So you can be a long distance way
from that phone and still hear what is going on and theyʹll be able
to hear you clearly because youʹre actually talking into the
microphone that youʹre wearing. So weʹre really excited for this
product to come out.
>> Audience Member: [off mic]
>> Jeff: If yaʹll can keep up with me ‐‐ how much time do I have?
Am I over? I can wrap it up. Sure. We have got a lot ‐‐ I donʹt
know either. I donʹt know either. Iʹll go quick. Weʹve got alarm
clocks that are remote shakers. Weʹve got portable alarm clocks
that run on batteries. There is notification systems that will tell
you the doorbell, phone, intruders are coming in. Front door,
back doorbell button. Shakers. You can plug a lamp into the
back and it will flash the lamp. You can add additional receivers
to that system. We have smoke detectors with digital flashers and
tactile shakers that you can put in the bed between the box springs
and the mattress. We have TV amplifiers. Bluetooth devices.
These are really taking off. A lot of different ways that you can
use Bluetooth with your hearing aids.
Office systems. You have people in an office environment that are
needing to use the telephone. We have solutions for that as well.
Questions? Yes, sir.
>> Audience Member: I have a question. Okay.
>> Minda: Repeat the question.
>> Jeff: Iʹm still learning.
>> Audience Member: Is there similar in Kansas?
>> Jeff: Yes. We have that information also. There is a similar
program in Kansas called Kansas TAP, T‐A‐P.
>> Audience Member: My question is [off mic] a lot of people
have cochlear implants.
>> Jeff: Yes. The question is are these assistive devices
compatible with cochlear implants? And, yes, they are. Because
it is not the cochlear implant that is doing the work. It is the
signal processer. So that signal processer is the device that has the
telecoil in it.
>> Audience Member: Right. Okay.
>> Minda: Thank you. Thank you very much. If you have any
more questions, heʹll hang around afterwards and heʹll answer
your questions. Jeff, is it okay if we use your laptop for the next
two presentations? Okay. So who wants ‐‐ St. Joseph do you
want to go next? Is that fine? What one? Got you.
>> Minda: Okay. Iʹm going to go ahead and begin.
>> Jane Ann: Good morning. Iʹm Jane Ann Gorsky. Iʹm the
director for St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf. First of all, I thank
you for this opportunity for us to meet you and also to tell you
about our school. Iʹve worked at St. Joseph since 2007 first as a
Consultant and then as Administrative Director until I was
promoted to Campus Director since December. My experience
and background is primarily in working with not for profits.
Primarily children and my specialty areas are fundraising,
marketing and strategic planning. The reason I share this with
you is because obviously I knew very little about the world of
hearing loss for children or adults before I started working for
St. Joseph. But over the past four years I have experienced a very
high and gratifying learning curve about the world of hearing loss,
about the communication obstacles, communication options,
excuse me, as well as the obstacles that face people with hearing
loss. So I consider myself very fortunate to know this now and to
be working with St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf. Again, thank
you for letting us share this information. I would like to introduce
to you our program director, Sherrie Roberts. Sheʹs going to tell
you about our school and our program.
>> Sherrie: Hi, thank you for having us today. Weʹre excited to
be here. I have been at St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf since 2004
when I began as a kindergarten and preschool teacher. Then I
was a teacher up until last fall when I promoted to the Director or
Program Director at the school. Prior to working at St. Joseph
Institute for the Deaf ‐‐ Iʹm actually from the East Coast so I
worked out in New Jersey for two years and just prior to that I
actually worked out in Hawaii for a year. That was my first big
adventure out of college. My background is in Deaf education. I
received my Bachelorʹs in Special Education, my Masterʹs in
Secondary Education and then upon moving here to Kansas I
actually enrolled in a program out in California through the [off
mic] where I received a second Masterʹs in Deaf Education. It was
oral Deaf education and then I went on to receive my certification
as [off mic] specialist.
>> Sherrie: Our school of St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf is
located in ‐‐ our school, St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf, is located
in Lenexa, Kansas and we are a school that works with families
and their children who use hearing aids or cochlear implants and
want to learn how to listen and talk. So weʹre actually an oral
option school. Some people know the term auditory oral or use
the term lipreading and spoken language and, so, today actually
we want to share a little bit about the mission of our school and a
brief history and so Jane is actually going to ‐‐ also about the
programs that we offer. Jane is going to talk to you about our
mission and our brief history. Our history is not brief but sheʹs
going to make it brief.
[Laughter]
>> Jane Ann: Our mission at St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf in
Kansas City, Kansas is that we are committed to the auditory oral
education, spiritual and emotional growth, and personal
development of deaf and hard of hearing children, without
discrimination, frequenting the values and traditions of the Sisters
of St. Joseph of Carondelet.
The thing we always get when we say weʹre St. Joseph Institute for
the Deaf. Oh, are you located in St. Joseph, Missouri? No. The
reason weʹre called St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf is because we
were founded by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1837 in
St. Louis. Actually it is a fascinating story but Iʹm going to give it
a little ‐‐ call it the Readers Digest condensed version. At that
time in St. Louis the Bishop determined that there was a need to
serve the deaf and hard of hearing in St. Louis. So he asked the
Sisters that he knew, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet who were
in France who do not even speak English to come over to the U.S.
across the pond and minister to these children.
So they came over to the U.S., found the school to minister to
children and young adults who were Deaf and hard of hearing.
From then on they were approached to serving that community
likes to call our dear neighbor has evolved. Along with the
advance of technology and neuroscience over the last 100 years or
more. The Kansas City campus was the first campus established
by the St. Joseph Institute School system of schools in 1995. That
was followed by Indianapolis campus in 2001.
>> Sherrie: Currently we have three programs at our school. We
have our early intervention program, our school program and our
outreach program. Our early intervention program is for children
birth through age 3 and once a family has chosen the spoken
language option for their child, theyʹre often referred to our school
by area audiologists or Kansas [off mic] or Missouri [off mic] and
our early intervention staff work out of the home to work with the
families and their primary goal or families and children but their
primary goal is educating the family about hearing loss and giving
the family skills to help them facilitate their childʹs listening and
spoken language skills.
Some of the factors that are critical to a childʹs success with
listening and spoken language is early intervention. Early
intervention is very critical because we know that brains are
naturally wired for sound. The brain ‐‐ neuroplasticity is the
brainʹs ability to change and alter its structures, depending on the
external stimulation that it receives. So a brain does not receive
auditory input, it figures out another way to receive that
information which is also or usually primarily through vision.
The earlier that you make use of this natural wiring the easier it
will be to teach the brain how to listen. Research on language has
shown how neuroplastic and how a brain is and how that
plasticity actually lessens with age. The optimum time that a
brain has to do this is typically between the age of birth or birth or
age 4.
That is why the state mandated early screenings ‐‐ early hearing
screenings at birth are so important and critical for parents who
have children for listening and spoken language for their child
because that early intervention is very critical. The earlier that
any disability or need is identified, the earlier that services ‐‐ early
identification and early intervention services can be implemented
with that child and it is very critical ‐‐ critical period for children
learning to listen and how to hear and talk.
The second factor that is very critical to a childʹs success is
appropriate amplification and that is where cochlear implants or
digital hearing aids come in for a child. And that gets the brain
active to sound so they can learn how to use that wiring.
The third is parent education support and involvement. We
consider parents to be really the whole educators in this process.
Theyʹre going to be the childʹs educator for the rest of their life and
parents are really partners in the process. So parent education is
so important for a childʹs success, any child, and for these children
to especially have that involvement and support.
Our other program is our school program. That is for children
ages 3 through early elementary. Many of our children from our
early intervention program transition into our school program.
Our class sizes are small in size and also in student teacher ratio.
We keep our student and steeped teacher ratio 6:1. We like to be
able to individualize the instruction for the students or to meet
their needs. And we assess the students based on their listening
age and put the children in classes according to where their
listening skills are and their language skills in order to best meet
their needs. Our goal is to close that listening and language gap
that the children have in order to give them the skills and prepare
them for the mainstream to mainstream out into their public
schools.
We are a five day a week full day program for children from
8:30 to 3:30. It is a long day of intensive listening and language
and they heavy emphasis placed on academic and instruction so
the children can mainstream with a lot ‐‐ a strong foundation with
academics.
It is a long day but we also make it a day of fun. A lot of ‐‐ we
know that children learn best through play, which play lets
children know how to do best. And so each child also receives
individualized speech and language and listening therapy from
their speech language therapist for 30 minutes daily.
Parent participation is key. Again as I said early intervention,
parents education and support is so important and so we do
require that parents come and participate in weekly therapy
sessions and classroom time so that they can develop skills and
continue to support their child continuing education at home and
language development which is very important.
Our other program is our outreach program. So children that
have mainstreamed out into the mainstream that need support we
do offer outreach services. Those services are really customized
according to what the childʹs needs are. Sometimes it might just
be some support during the transition process. But sometimes
they may need continued support needed such as wanting to do
auditory training with the child in the school to help to continue
their ‐‐ the use of their support and plans and hearing aids and
develop their spoken language skills or might just be some support
with their academic instruction. We also do in‐service training for
the staff out in the public schools who might not be familiar with
cochlear implants and hearing aids and also hear awareness
training for the children out in the school that might not be familiar
with hearing loss just so that they know how to communicate with
the other students in their classroom and what their needs are and
help to incorporate them into their world and to just know how to
help communicate with them just give them their technique.
And then a new program that was actually just rolled out by our
campus in St. Louis is called the ihear program and it is a virtual
in‐home online and HIPAA compliant teletherapy program and if
you want more information about that program feel free to visit
our website. We are not currently delivering that service at our
campus in Kansas City so feel free to look at our website and
contact those people with more information.
So in conclusion just a few things to talk about as far as what
makes our school different from all the other communication
options and programs for children with hearing loss in this area.
One major difference is our emphasis on listening and everything
that we do. Another difference is just our small class size as I
mentioned earlier and you can have small class sizes and also
small teacher to student ratio. Our classrooms are
also ‐‐ classroom acoustics, the classrooms are modified m
examples of modifications just include carpeting on the floors.
We have Soundfield systems that we use to help amplify the sound
for the children and we have tiles and et cetera and different things
that we can do.
Then another important element is our staff qualifications and
experience in this field. Many of our staff or all of our teachers
have gone through teacher training programs for the deaf with
emphasis on oral education and they are familiar with cochlear
implants and hearing aids and how to teach children to learn to
listen and talk and close that language gap and our speech
language pathologists not only have their degree in
communication sciences and disorders but have attended different
programs where their emphasis is on oral education. Many of the
staff have gone on to receive their certification as listening and
spoken language specialists or certified auditory verbal educators
and therapists. I think that is actually our brief presentation. I
donʹt know if anyone has any questions that you would like to ask
of us. If not ‐‐
>> Minda: I have a question. My question is where are these
students that come from Missouri or is it Kansas, where do the
students come from?
>> Sherrie: Great question. Actually we have students because
of where we sit in Lenexa, Kansas, we have students coming from
Missouri and Kansas.
>> Jane Ann: The entire Metro area and the surrounding regions.
Weʹve had students from Tipton, Topeka. We had a family from
India that moved here for this option. [NAME], Missouri, which
is near the Nebraska border. So we do serve the Metro area and
surrounding regions and we also have on the table there, we left a
couple of pieces of items, handouts and this is an article that was in
the Johnson County lifestyle magazine about our school. It is a
great article and tells you about our school. Youʹre welcome to
take. Thank you.
>> Minda: Thank you very much for joining us today. We really
appreciate it. It was a very informative and fun presentation.
Next weʹll have the Kansas School for the Deaf.
>> Speaker: I would like to introduce Joan Macy, Coordinator of
Admissions for the School of the Deaf.
>> Joan: Thank you for allowing me to come and present today.
It is a thrill to be here with you guys and get involved so thank you
very much for allowing me to be here. My name is Joan Macy and
Iʹm the Coordinator for the School of the Deaf. My background is
a teacher. I taught hearing kids for a couple of years and then I
went back and got a Masterʹs in Deaf Education and been in Deaf
education ever since. It is kind of what I have always wanted to
do since second grade. Having a 20‐minute time limit was hard
for me because I could talk to you literally about this for hours and
not run out of stuff to say but Iʹll try to keep it brief.
You will see from the PowerPoint that I handed out I was not
exactly sure who the audience was or what the time line was so I
put a lot of information and I know I wonʹt get through all the
slides today. Feel free to look at them at your leisure and if any
questions pop up or comments, please feel free to contact me at
any time.
A brief little history about KSD, we are the oldest public school in
the State of Kansas. We were established in Baldwin City and last
fall we had our 150th gala. We had people from all over the
United States attend the gala that was 150 years that KSD has been
in this business.
We are ranked as one of the Top 5 schools in the nation but we also
have some technology to partner. We have the National
Championship in football, basketball and volleyball and still hold
on to the claim. We did beat the University of Kansas in ʹ97 and
in the year 1900 so we like to brag about that a little bit. Not too
many times we get a chance to beat KU. Weʹre hanging on to that.
We are the oldest school in Kansas. We have been around longer
than both the major universities, K‐State and KU.
Our KSD campus is located, the current position, in Olathe in 1866
and we have been there ever since. We really kind of have grown
as the City has grown and Metro area has grown. A really great
partnership with the Kansas City Metro region.
We have a 16‐acre facility with 11 different buildings that house
programs from birth to 3, outreach, early childhood, elementary
and secondary so we do have a birth through 12 program.
Currently on our center‐based program, our on‐site Olathe
program we have approximately 140 students. Most of those
students are Deaf students and travel back and forth between
home and school; however, since we are a State agency, we are
mandated to serve any child with hearing loss in the state of
Kansas. We have a residential component for any student that
lives beyond the 25 radius of the school. We have people from
Topeka, Wichita, Garden City, Hays, Great Bend and, obviously,
they cannot go home every day so they come and stay with us for
the week and then they go home on Fridays for the weekend and
they come back either Sunday evening or Monday morning.
One of the most common questions I get about KSD, what does it
cost to go there? There is no tuition at KSD. We are a State
agency. All of our funding comes from the legislature. We are a
free public school for any student in the State of Kansas.
The students that we serve. As I mentioned, our mandate from
the state requires us to serve any student with hearing loss within
the stateʹs boundaries. We do have a few students from Missouri
and those are some special cases where we do have some students
from Missouri that come over but most of our students are from
the Kansas borders.
We can serve any student with any type of hearing loss. It can be
very mild loss to a profound loss so we do have students that
choose to stay with families or other oral friends that spoke and
listen and that mode of communication. There are friends that
choose to sign they can offer sign as well. Those students are
becoming educated in two languages.
We are considered the least restrictive environment for many
students that are Deaf and hard of hearing. Not only support the
auditory oral skills that they might need and some of the other
things they need but also give complete and visual access to both
direct instruction and [off mic].
KSD again is a free and appropriate education and no tuition
incurred by the parent or district for students to attend KSD. We
are a bilingual program which addresses both the American Sign
Language needs as well as the English needs and Iʹll go into that in
a little bit more detail in a couple of slides and explain exactly what
a bilingual program looks like.
A lot of times people think that weʹre just a signing school but we
actually have a language continuum that we work with. We have
students that need a lot of amplification. We have some that have
implants, some have bilateral implants, some use hearing aids, and
some students use no amplification.
And this chart ‐‐ I apologize it didnʹt come out very well on the
Xerox but I thought this is a really interesting chart. It shows the
percentage of our students that actually use cochlear implants.
When cochlear implants first came out everyone thought this is
going to be the end of schools for the Deaf. They wonʹt come any
more. But actually what weʹre finding is we are continuing to get
more and more students with those implants. They need not only
the auditory input but the visual support as well to develop their
English language.
Of the students that we have on campus, we are at 23% of our
students have utilized cochlear implants at some point. That is a
quarter of our population that utilized implants at one point or
another. Of that number of students 83 permanently use cochlear
implants and 8% are bilateral implants and that is really an
interesting factor that again we have got kiddos that are utilizing
that assistive development but they still need the visual access as
well.
The students that dis continued is for a variety of reasons. Some
for medical, never received benefit, some kids just decided they
didnʹt want to wear it so there is a variety of reasons why a child
might stop using it. But for the most part, weʹre seeing the kids
with a pretty good rate using that.
And this chart, I like this chart because it is very clear on what our
program actually is. There is two line that we want our kids to go
when they graduate from KSD. Sign language and English [off
mic]. There are three mow Dallas tits, [off mic] your manual
language or ASL, literacy, your reading and writing and [off mic]
your listening and your speaking and watching the lip reading.
So within our program we have teachers and supervisors and
parents that have been trained to do language planning. Every
single thing that they do has to incorporate how you educate kids
that might need more in the signing area or how do you help the
kids that need more help in the oral area? How do you provide
these services?
Our classrooms are similar to St. Joe we have a small student
teacher ratio. Our classes have six students to 1 teacher and a lot
of times paraprofessionals coming in and working with the student
as well. So with that small ratio weʹre able to really identify what
are the language needs for this particular student and what are the
goals we need to work on to help them achieve more? Again,
through that we draft what is their signing therapy and oral
therapy.
So at KSD, all these [off mic] are incorporated within a studentʹs
IEP. All the services are mandated within the IEP and KSD is
possible for implementing that program. An IEP is an Individual
Education Plan. Paperwork is filled out what the student needs
and what the procedures are that need to be worked on.
So again, that could include ASL instruction, speech language
therapy, auditory training, occupational physical therapy and if
there is any kind of motor movement that might need to be
worked on there. And again that language planning happens not
only for the academic classes but it also happens for every field trip
we take the kids on, any world experience they have and all the for
curricular activity. Something as simple as going to the grocery
store and learning the specific names not only that is fruit but what
kind of fruit? And then learning all that vocabulary building with
the kid. All that goes into our 24‐hour program. Weʹre
constantly working on language planning.
The center‐based program again, the center‐based program is the
program we have in Olathe. We are a fully accredited program by
the State of Kansas as well as advanced nationally recognized
certification and accreditation program that most public schools
have to be accredited by.
Our curriculum is in alignment with the state standards and our
students have to participate in all state mandated programs as well
as all state assessments and guidelines. Weʹre held to the same
standard as any other public school in the State of Kansas.
As I mentioned we are responsible for developing the IEP and
making sure that it is maintained and the goals are met. We do
that in partnership with local School District. Local School
District is always in attendance whenever we have an IEP meeting
so they are there with their family and child as well if the child
chooses to go back to the mainstream program theyʹll know exactly
where theyʹre at.
Again, we do have a student life program which incorporates also
our residential program as well as after school activity, athletics
and all of the extra curriculum activities.
There are programs at our school. Our birth to 3 program which
collaborates with the [NAME] K networks throughout the state of
Kansas. Service networks in Kansas that we collaborate with.
We do provide direct service to families such as home visits. We
also work in partnership with other service providers that are
working with those families and also facilitate parent play group.
I did bring some information ‐‐ I didnʹt know who the audience
would be but I brought some information about our parent play
group and it is on the table over there. You guys if youʹre
interested in it. A couple of times a month families get together
and really provide that parent‐to‐parent support which is just
[coughing] parents can talk through some things together. Kids
get an opportunity to have structured playtime together and
interact and meet the new friend and then the parents might listen
to a speaker, might share some concerns or ideas together or might
just share stories, what is going on with them at that moment in
time.
We have an on‐site early childhood program for children ages 3 to
5. That program we have hearing peer model program which is
really wonderful. Weʹve had it for several years and it has been a
great success. The hearing siblings are paired with students ages
three to five and hearing students in early childhood program as
well so they are given exposure to the English language
development as well as developing their sign language skill so the
hearing peers can then go home and they can better communicate
with their brother or sister and helps facilitate that language
communication that is happening in the home as w it has been a
great, great program. Weʹve had a lot of success and a lot of
positive feedback on that.
We have an elementary program which is kindergarten through
6 and then our secondary program that is 7 through 12 n our
secondary program we collaborate with the school district to allow
our students to have a dual placement option. What that means if
our students would want to take a class that we may not be able to
offer on our site such as culinary art, accounting, I think they have
a jewelry making [off mic] one student goes and theyʹre able to
really ‐‐ pay a fee at the primary school but take the class at Olathe.
Provided with any related services or support they need. KSD
provides the transportation to and from the school. So theyʹre
able to not only have our core curriculum and our electives on
campus but also have the electives that Olathe schools have as
well. Goes from academic programming into their vocational
programming, instruction, automotive, welding. Our students are
truly able to have a full comprehensive educational experience.
I have touched briefly on some of the support services that we
offer and all the related services, speech language therapy,
auditory training, ASL support, bilingual support, instruction,
OTSP, and we have on staff 24 hours a day because weʹre a 24‐hour
program. And in the middle of the night we want to make sure
we have a nurse there to help take care of them and we can get
them through in the morning. All those supports are provided
and mandated in the IEP.
We also work with our students on career training and transition
planning so they can start thinking when youʹre done with high
school what do you want to do with your life? So we work with
getting them postsecondary services and college education that
and sort of thing as well.
I included a slide with extra activities that our students are able to
participate in at KSD. Again, you have athletics but we have
other organizations just like any typical public school does. If
youʹre looking at the education of a child you need to look at not
only their academic piece but also their social well‐being and their
interpersonal skills. They have to have that opportunity to just be
a kid and socialize with a peer group and our organization and
extracurricular activity has allowed the students to have that
normal interaction with a peer group.
In teaching the Deaf, the best practices obviously is to have
language enrich environment that supports the language of the
child. [off mic] auditory oral and that child has access to every
mode to develop their language. Having positive role models that
share that experience and sit down and talk to the kids what was it
like growing up? What was your experience? Getting some
feedback and having positive influence in that childʹs life. Having
some complete and unbarriered access to instruction as well as [off
mic] a little conversations in the bathroom and whisper of who is
going to go to the homecoming dance and all that is modeled
having complete access to that is very important in the childʹs
development.
Having diverse hands‐on experiences. Having active learning
that challenges cognitive thinking and critical thinking at higher
levels. Variety of strategies that improve interaction between
peers. And then of course utilizing all the technology that we
have and at KSD we analyze our program and put this in to
practice every day. Now, the second part of my presentation was
to focus on our outreach.
>> Audience Member: [off mic]
>> Speaker: The second part was more the outreach program.
That component is what I normally am involved in at this point in
the game and that is where we go in and work with all school
districts throughout the state of Kansas. Today we have been in
all 105 counties in Kansas and we have touched on at some point
or other in the past five years. We provide family support.
Evaluation. Auditory loaning equipment as well as Resource
Center on Deaf and hearing loss. If you would like more
information on any of that I do have cards over on the table with
our contact information. I have flyers and things to hand out.
Please help yourself and if I could answer any questions, I would
be happy to do so. Thank you very much.
[Applause]
>> Minda: Thank you to all of our presenters and thank you for
putting up with our difficulties today. Thank you very much.
We can kind of socialize and people can answer questions because
other people have to use this room now. Thank you all for
coming today.
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