Editorial Demography is Destiny Each year the Gallaudet Research Institute (GRI) publishes a summary of data from its Annual Survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and Youth. Recently, I read the National and Regional Summary Report for the 1999-2000 academic year (Gallaudet Research Institute, 2001). The data are too extensive to do them justice in the available space, but I would like to comment on some of what to me are important highlights. Readers are advised to contact the GRI directly for national, region, and state breakdowns . At the national level, 43,861 students were identified. I found several trends continuing that have received comment in the past. Children classified as White, non-Hispanic constitute 55% of the deaf/hard of hearing school population, followed by Hispanic at 21%, Black, non-Hispanic at 16%, and Asian/Pacific Islander at 4%. The growth of Hispanic children in programs has been significant over the past three decades. In 1971-72 Hispanics comprised only 7% of the enrollment of deaf and hard of hearing children in the United States (Moores, 1978). A note of caution. As most readers are aware, the term "Hispanic" is an ethnic, not a racial, designation. Approximately 80%) of Hispanics when providing a racial identity classify themselves as White and most of the remainder as Black. Therefore the apparent decline in Black and White students is more apparent than real. It is interesting that although 21% of students are identified as Hispanic, Spanish is spoken in the home of only 10% of families. My assumption is that this suggests that English often becomes dominant in families by the second or third generation. There appears to be an apparent trend to serve growing numbers of children with mild and moderate hearing losses; in fact 15% of students are classified as having NORMAL hearing (less than a 27dB loss in the better ear). Slightly fewer than 50% of students have severe or profound losses unaided in the better ear. Clearly we are accommodating a growing number of hard of hearing children . This explains at least in part the increase in Speech only as the primary method of instruction for 44% of students , a logical situation when 50% of students have less than severe unaided hearing losses. Sign and Speech (49%) and Sign only (6%) probably are used primarily with children with severe and profound losses. Cued Speech is used as a primary method of instruction with fewer than one child in 250 and does not appear to be a major factor. Finally, 30% of students are in special schools of centers, with the rest, in descending numbers in regular education settings (45%), self- contained classes (30%), and resource rooms (13%). Some of the children are double listed, so numbers add to more than 100%. As interesting as the national data are, I was more intrigued by regional differences. In some ways regional differences are obscured by national data.. The four regions correspond to those used by the Bureau of the Census; Northeast, Midwest , South, and West. They seemed pretty clear, although I had some trouble putting Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in the Northeast with Maine and Vermont! It struck me that there were so many differences across the four regions that it was almost as if we were dealing with Volume 146, No. 5, 2001 American Annals of the Deaf Editorial four different countries. For example, White, non-Hispanic children constitute 72% of enrollment in the Midwest, but less than half in the South and West, whereas Hispanics constitute 37% of deaf and hard of hearing students in the West and only 7% in the Midwest. There were large regional differences in hearing loss, method of instruction, and instructional setting. For example , 59% of students in the Northeast and 56% in the South had severe to profound hearing losses, compared to only 39% in the Midwest and 44% in the West. This suggest to me that the latter two regions are doing a more effective job in identifying and serving hard of hearing children. Given the differences in hearing level, it is not surprising that 62% of students in the East and South are taught through...
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Jul 11, 2023
Jill Kries + 4
Open Access
