Preschool Program

Preschool for children who are deaf and hard of hearing ages two through five is offered to families free of charge Monday through Thursday, September through May.

Parent education and parent participation are emphasized in a rich, English language environment.

Social, emotional, cognitive, and physical growth opportunities are nurtured and activities are planned that encourage children to use their amplified residual hearing, and develop speech and receptive and expressive language skills.

Every child meets daily with a speech and language teacher for individual training. Parents work in the preshcool one day per week and observe and/or participate in the sessions.  Auditory-verbal techniques are used to demonstrate how to teach language effectively at home.

Parents also schedule weekly conferences with their child's preschool teacher and biweekly meetings with their speech and language teacher.

Parent Class and Support Group are attended by all parents twice a month. In this way, parents are given the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills they need to foster their child's overall development, and to share with others the feelings, triumphs and obstacles their family is experiencing.

To enroll in the Preschool Program, parents must first attend the Parent/Infant Program on a consistent and regular basis.

Contact Person: Angie Stokes, astokes@jtc.org

ELL Initiative Key to Family Language Plan

When Araceli and her daughter Stephanie first joined JTC’s Preschool Program, Araceli spoke only a few words of English. To be able to help her daughter in an English language classroom, she needed an interpreter to understand even the simplest instructions from the teacher. Two-year-old Stephanie, like most of her deaf and hard of hearing classmates, had very little spoken language of any kind and, in addition to developing her overall auditory awareness, needed to learn English, sound by sound. The teachers helped Araceli draw up a family language plan that would allow them to learn English together as a normal part of Preschool, while honoring their Spanish language and culture at home.

Today, Araceli and Stephanie are among the first families to complete three years of JTC’s English Language Learners (ELL) initiative, which now includes families whose home languages are Korean, Mandarin, Arabic and Tagalog. Araceli no longer needs an interpreter and is well on her way to meeting her daughter’s needs in both the Latin American community as well as in English-only environments. Stephanie, meanwhile, has developed a spoken vocabulary exceeding 1000 words in English and regularly communicates in Spanish at home. Both are becoming successful bilingual speakers, thanks to their commitment to JTC’s ELL initiative.

In May 2008, the first five families in the ELL program “graduated” alongside their preschool children with accelerated bilingual skills. Bilingualism for deaf children, once met with fear and doubt by most deaf education teachers, is now a hot topic of discussion in the field. Early identification, in concert with professional guidance and advanced amplification, has broken longstanding language and social barriers for young children with hearing loss. And JTC is leading a wave of new approaches for these families.
In a recent issue of AG Bell’s Volta Voices, nationally recognized authority Ellen A. Rhoades writes: Compared to children with one language, “[Bilingual children] have better divergent thinking, greater cognitive flexibility, improved selective attention and a broader level of understanding of other perspectives….” In a study that included both hearing and deaf children in Canada, she concluded that the full benefits of bilingualism are now available to “children with all degrees of hearing loss.” (“Auditory-Based Bilingual Children in North America: Differences and Choices,” Volta Voices, September/October 2008.)

At John Tracy Clinic, the key to successful bilingualism is helping a family to design a family language plan. For families who speak languages other than English in the home, the guidelines for enrollment in Preschool Program expand to include:

1) Have a strong desire to learn English
2) Child has or will soon be obtaining a cochlear implant before the age of 3 years
3) Accept the responsibility to seek out English-speaking models in the community
4) Will practice own English-speaking while in the classroom setting with staff assistance
5) Will act as child’s primary model in native home language in home setting

Enquiries into JTC’s ELL initiative are beginning to come in from other schools and organizations around the country. The next phase will be to collect and analyze measurable outcomes and refine teaching strategies so that John Tracy Clinic’s model can be disseminated through professional presentations and publications in the field.