The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) was selected to provide three educational sessions for the EHDI Conference in Atlanta, Georgia from February 21-22, 2011. For ten years, the Early Hearing and Detection Intervention Conference (EHDI) has brought local and federal EHDI professionals, deaf educators, advocates, audiologists, and parents together to share experiences and strategies to jump-start deaf and hard of hearing babies’ language acquisition.
One presentation will cover the importance of deaf and hard of hearing mentors in EHDI programs. New parents of deaf or hard of hearing children are often overwhelmed with information regarding various educational, technological, and communication strategies. In this session, the NAD will explain how including deaf mentors in EHDI programs provides parents with the answers that professionals cannot answer and allow parents to make more educated decisions for their children.
In another discussion, the NAD will accentuate how American Sign Language (ASL) enhances the acquisition of English rather than impairs it in its third presentation. Incorporating early acquisition and learning both, ASL and English, maximizes the potential for language proficiency in deaf and hard of hearing infants through the implementation of a dual language approach.
Finally, the NAD will emphasize how deaf or hard of hearing children’s linguistic success depends on both the parents being proactive and involved in their child’s early education program, and on the program establishing and maintaining strong relationships with parents.
The NAD is excited to bring its advocacy efforts to the upcoming EHDI Conference. This is a rare opportunity for the NAD to have a direct dialogue with the key players in the EHDI field. See the EHDI Conference website. For more information, visithttp://ehdiconference.org/.