When, in 1968, 19-year-old Tressa Bowers took her baby daughter to an expert on deaf children, he pronounced that Alandra was “stone deaf,” she most likely would never be able to talk, and she probably would not get much of an education because of her communication limitations. Tressa refused to accept this stark assessment of Alandra’s prospects. Instead, she began the arduous process of starting her daughter’s education.

Economic need forced Tressa to move several times, and as a result, she and Alandra experienced a variety of learning environments: a pure oralist approach, which discouraged signing; Total Communication, in which the teachers spoke and signed simultaneously; a residential school for deaf children, where Signed English was employed; and a mainstream public school that relied upon interpreters. Changes at home added more demands, from Tressa’s divorce to her remarriage, her long work hours, and the ongoing challenge of complete communication within their family. Through it all, Tressa and Alandra never lost sight of their love for each other, and their affection rippled through the entire family. Today, Tressa can triumphantly point to her confident, educated daughter and also speak with pride of her wonderful relationship with her deaf grandchildren. Alandra’s Lilacs is a marvelous story about the resiliency and achievements of determined, loving people no matter what their circumstances might be.

The usual definition of the term “literacy” generally corresponds with mastering the reading and writing of a spoken language. This narrow scope often engenders unsubstantiated claims that print literacy alone leads to, among other so-called higher-order thinking skills, logical and rational thinking and the abstract use of language. Thus, the importance of literacy for deaf children in American Sign Language (ASL) is marginalized, asserts author Kristin Snoddon in her new book American Sign Language and Early Literacy: A Model Parent-Child Program. As a contrast, Snoddon describes conducting an ethnographic, action study of the ASL Parent-Child Mother Goose program, provided by a Deaf service agency in Ontario, Canada to teach ASL literacy to deaf children.

       According to current scholarship, literacy is achieved through primary discourse shared with parents and other intimates, which establishes a child’s initial sense of identity, culture, and vernacular language. Secondary discourse derives from outside agents and interaction, such as expanding an individual’s literacy to other languages. Snoddon writes that the focus of the ASL Parent-Child Mother Goose program is on teaching ASL through rhymes and stories and some facets of the culture of Deaf ASL users. This focus enabled hearing parents to impart first-language acquisition and socialization to their deaf children in a more natural primary discourse as if the parents were Deaf themselves. At the same time, hearing parents experience secondary discourses through their exposure to ASL and Deaf culture.

       Snoddon also comments on current infant hearing screening and early intervention and the gaps in these services. She discusses gatekeeper individuals and institutions that restrict access to ASL for young Deaf children and their families. Finally, she reports on public resources for supporting ASL literacy and the implications of her findings regarding the benefits of early ASL literacy programming for Deaf children and their families.

“Thirty-seven years ago, I vowed to write a truthful book about raising a deaf child.” Rebecca Willman Gernon followed through on her promise with her deaf daughter Amy Willman in this extraordinary new narrative. Many stories have been told about a parent’s struggle to help her deaf child succeed in a mostly hearing world. Amy Signs marks a signature departure in that both Rebecca and Amy relate their perspectives on their journey together.

       When she learns of 11-month-old Amy’s deafness in 1969, Rebecca fully expresses her anguish, and traces all of the difficulties she endured in trying to find the right educational environment for Amy. The sacrifices of the rest of her family weighed heavily on her, also. Though she resolved to place four-year-old Amy in Nebraska’s residential school for deaf students, the emotional toll seemed too much to bear.

       Amy’s view acts as the perfect counterpoint. Interwoven with her mother’s story, Amy’s account confirms that signing served her best. She summarizes life in boarding school as “laughter and homesickness.” She laughed with all of her deaf friends, though felt homesick at times. Amy thanks her mother for the gift of sign, asserting that a mainstream education would never have led her to earn a master’s degree and later teach American Sign Language at the University of Nebraska. Amy Signs is a positive albeit cautionary tale for parents of deaf children today whose only choice is a mainstreamed education.

In her landmark book Inner Lives of Deaf Children: Interviews and Analysis, Martha A. Sheridan explored the lifeworlds — the individual and collective elements and realities that are present within the participants’ existential experiences, their relationships, and their truths — of seven deaf and hard of hearing children between the ages of seven and ten. What she discovered were deaf children with strengths, positive experiences, and positive relationships. Sheridan’s new book Deaf Adolescents: Inner Lives and Lifeworld Development returns to these seven individuals, now between the ages of 13 and 17, to see how their lives have progressed since their first interviews.

Establishing an identity is said to be a primary and necessary task of adolescence. Deaf Adolescents reveals how these young adults all have begun to deal with tasks and situations that lead them to rely more on themselves and others outside of their families. Many of them talk about the athletic challenges that they face, and how their success depends upon their own efforts. They also think about the future while biding their time, taking “a break” from the furious growth that they are experiencing and also enjoying time spent with other deaf friends.

In this volume, Sheridan examines the similarities and differences that these deaf young adults reveal in their views at two developmental points in their lives. Her renewed study has advanced the quest to determine what pathways and spaces can foster productive, healthy, satisfying, actualized deaf lives.

To learn how Chinese parents raise their deaf children, Alison Callaway in 1994 conducted extensive research in the city of Nanjing. There, she interviewed the parents of 26 deaf children while also carefully analyzing a large collection of letters written by other parents to the supervisor of a nursery school that was the center of her research. She also made fact-finding visits to several other schools and programs for deaf preschoolers, and had discussions with teachers, administrators, and staff members. The results of her study form the remarkable body of information presented in Deaf Children in China.

     Callaway crafted a comprehensive interview with 133 questions, 106 of which were strictly factual while 27 asked parents for their views, attitudes, reactions, and perceptions concerning various issues. Through detailed background analysis, she was able to enhance her interpretations through a balanced assessment of the cultural influences in China, such as the role of the family and the government's “one-child” policy. Although she speaks Chinese and is raising her Chinese son, she consciously monitored with even greater care any potential biases from her own Western antecedents that might affect her research.

     Deaf Children in China provides a striking profile of the views and attitudes of well-educated Chinese parents with preschool-age deaf children. Callaway's inclusion of a survey of 122 English mothers of deaf children reveals the differences between Western and Chinese parents, who rely upon grandparents to help them and who frequently search for medical cures. Yet, she also discovered that many issues cross cultures and contexts, especially the problems of achieving early diagnosis and intervention for all deaf children, and optimizing early development of language in deaf children of hearing parents. Her pioneering work will fascinate and enlighten readers invested in the development of deaf children for years to come.

When Richard Medugno and his wife Brenda learned in 1993 that their 17-month-old daughter Miranda was deaf, they grieved, as many hearing parents do. Soon, however, Medugno seized hold of the need to take positive action for Miranda. Deaf Daughter, Hearing Father recounts the remarkable story of their journey during the past fourteen years.

Medugno first researched the best communication mode for Miranda. Quickly dismissing the speech pathology model, he and his wife chose ASL alone as the best, natural language for Miranda. He surrounded his daughter with opportunities to learn ASL, by arranging to meet deaf individuals and families, and also by hiring deaf babysitters. He also determined to learn ASL himself, to ensure communication with his daughter. As Miranda neared school age, Medugno spearheaded a transcontinental search for exactly the right school for her education. So that Miranda could attend the California School for the Deaf (CSD), the Medugno family moved from Toronto, Canada to Fremont, CA.

In Deaf Daughter, Hearing Father, Medugno shares practical information on many of the common challenges faced by hearing parents. He provides a list of games that hearing and deaf children can play together, an important consideration for many families. His enthusiasm for all possibilities, from exploring the potential of video phones to helping stage CSD musicals, reveals his abiding devotion to Miranda. Such a foundation has enabled her to feel proud, confident, and happy in her pursuits. At the same time, Medugno recognizes that the rewards of having a deaf daughter are far greater than he could have hoped for or imagined.

Deaf Education in America: Voices of Children from Inclusion Settings provides a detailed examination of the complex issues surrounding the integration of deaf students into the general classroom. Author Janet Cerney begins her comprehensive work by stressing to parents, educators, and policymakers the importance of learning the circumstances in which mainstreaming and inclusion can be successful for deaf students. This process requires stakeholders to identify and evaluate the perceived benefits and risks before making placement and implementation decisions. The influences of the quality of communication and the relationships built by and with the students are of paramount importance in leading to success.

In conjunction with these principles, this thorough study examines the theory and history behind inclusion, including the effects of the No Child Left Behind education act. Cerney incorporates this knowledge with interviews of the deaf students themselves as well as with their interpreters and teachers. To ensure complete candidness, the students were surveyed in their homes, and the interpreters and educators were questioned separately. Through these exchanges, Cerney could determine what worked well for the deaf students, what barriers interfered with their access to communication, and what support structures were needed to eliminate those barriers. As a result, Deaf Education in America offers concrete information on steps that can be taken to ensure success in an inclusion setting, results that reverberate through the voices of the deaf students.

This in-depth collection by 17 renowned international scholars that details a developmental framework to maximize academic success for deaf students from kindergarten through grade 12. Part One: The Context commences with an overview of the state of general education and that of deaf learners, followed by a state-of-the art philosophical position on the selection of curriculum. Part Two: The Content considers critical subjects for deaf learners and how to deliver them, including mathematics, print literacy, science, social studies, and physical education. This section also addresses the role of itinerant services, as well as how to teach Deaf culture, provide for students with multiple disabilities, and facilitate school-to-work transitions.

 

The difficulty that deaf and hard of hearing students have in attaining language and literacy skills has led to postulations that attribute their struggle to a developmental deficit. Recent research reveals, however, that deaf students acquire language structures, produce errors, and employ strategies in the same fashion as younger hearing students, though at later ages. The ability of all students to learn language and literacy skills in a similar manner at different stages forms the foundation of the Qualitative Similarity Hypothesis (QSH).

       This volume describes the theoretical underpinnings and research findings of the QSH. It presents the educational implications for deaf and hard of hearing children and offers reason-based practices for improving their English language and literacy development. This collection also stresses the critical importance of exposing educators to the larger fields of literacy and second-language learning. Providing this background information expands the possibility of differentiating instruction to meet the needs of deaf students. Deaf Students and the Qualitative Similarity Hypothesis includes commentary on the QSH for both first- and second-language English learners and reflects on how the QSH can effect a better future for all language students.

In 1988, Sandi and Larry Zobrest sued a suburban Tucson, Arizona, school district that had denied their hearing-impaired son a taxpayer-funded interpreter in his Roman Catholic high school. The Catalina Foothills School District argued that providing a public resource for a private, religious school created an unlawful crossover between church and state. The Zobrests, however, claimed that the district had infringed on both their First Amendment right to freedom of religion and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Bruce J. Dierenfield and David A. Gerber use the Zobrests' story to examine the complex history and jurisprudence of disability accommodation and educational mainstreaming. They look at the family's effort to acquire educational resources for their son starting in early childhood and the choices the Zobrests made to prepare him for life in the hearing world rather than the deaf community. Dierenfield and Gerber also analyze the thorny church-state issues and legal controversies that informed the case, its journey to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the impact of the high court's ruling on the course of disability accommodation and religious liberty.

The 19th International Congress on Education of the Deaf (ICED) in 2000, held in Sydney, Australia, brought together 1,067 teachers, administrators and researchers from 46 countries to address an extremely wide selection of topics. Experts from around the world discussed inclusion of deaf students in regular educational environments, literacy, audiology, auditory development and listening programs, hearing aids, programming for children with cochlear implants, signed communication in education, bilingual education, early intervention (including the rapidly emerging area of newborn hearing screening), education in developing countries, deaf students with multiple disabilities, and deaf students in post-secondary school education.

     The 19 chapters of Educating Deaf Students: Global Perspectives present a select cross-section of the issues addressed at the 19th ICED. Divided into four distinct parts – Contemporary Issues for all Learners, The Early Years, The School Years, and Contemporary Issues in Postsecondary Education – the themes considered here span the entire student age range. Authored by 27 different researchers and practitioners from six different countries, this book can be seen as a valuable description of the zeitgeist in the field of education of the deaf at the turn of the 21st century and the millennium.

Durante más de treinta años, The Silent Garden les ha ofrecido a los padres de niños sordos todo el apoyo y la información imparcial que necesitan para que sus hijos desarrollen su pleno potencial. Esta nueva edición en español, que contiene los cinco primeros capítulos de la tercera edición actualizada en inglés, aporta ayuda a los padres para afrontar aquellos retos tan únicos y complejos a los que se enfrentan. De un modo accessible, práctico y, sobre todo, imparcial, El Jardín Silencioso pone al día a los padres rápida y minuciosamente sobre los muchos y contradictorios puntos de vista que existen acerca del bienestar de los niños sordos. Los autores Paul W. Ogden y David H. Smith, ambos sordos, presentan ejemplos y estudios que les servirán de guía a los padres en un ámbito que a la mayoría les es desconocido. El Jardín Silencioso expone temas como el de las estrategias que los padres pueden adoptar para abordar la situación, el de cómo crear un ambiente familiar sano, el de cómo fomentar la independencia y el de cómo tener en cuenta el punto de vista de los hermanos del niño sordo. Cada tema viene acompañado de historias auténticas que enriquecen la discusión. Siempre en tono alentador, El Jardín Silencioso les otorga recursos a los padres para que se conviertan en los mejores defensores de sus hijos. A lo largo del libro, los autores destacan que cada opción se adhiere a una situación personal diferente y ponen hincapié en que todos los niños sordos tienen la capacidad de llevar una vida enriquecedora, productiva y estimulante.

       La narradora Paty Corcoran es originaria de la Ciudad de México y ha trabajado como traductora, intérprete y locutora durante casi diez años. Vive en el sur de California con su esposo y sus tres hijos, donde también trabaja como guía turística bilingüe. Paty se graduó con honores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México con una licenciatura en Ciencias de la Comunicación.

For over 30 years, The Silent Garden has offered parents of deaf children the support and unbiased information needed to fully realize their children’s potential. This new Spanish edition, which contains the first five chapters of the completely updated 3rd English edition, will help parents navigate the complex and unique challenges they face.  Accessible, practical, and, above all, open-minded, El Jardín Silencioso educates parents quickly and thoroughly about the many conflicting points of view on what is best for their deaf children. Authors Paul W. Ogden and David H. Smith, who are both deaf, present examples and research that guide parents through often unfamiliar territory. El Jardín Silencioso covers the topics of communication, coping mechanisms for parents, creating healthy family environments, fostering independence, and understanding the perspectives of siblings. Always encouraging, El Jardín Silencioso empowers parents to be the best advocates for their deaf children.

       Audiobook narrator Paty Corcoran is a native of Mexico City and has worked as a translator, interpreter, and voice-talent for almost ten years. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children, where she also works as a bilingual tour guide. Paty graduated with honors from Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City with a degree in Communication Sciences.

The education of deaf or hard of hearing children has become as complex as the varying needs of each individual child. Teachers face classrooms filled with students who are culturally Deaf, hard of hearing, or post-lingually deaf; they might use American Sign Language, cochlear implants, hearing aids/FM systems, speech, Signed English, sign-supported speech, contact signing, nonverbal communication, or some combination of methods. Educators who decide what tools are best for these children are making far-reaching ethical decisions in each case. This collection features ten chapters that work as constructive conversations to make the diverse needs of these deaf students the primary focus.

     The initial essays establish fundamental points of ethical decision-making and emphasize that every situation should be examined not with regard for what is “right or wrong,” but for what is “useful.” Absolute objectivity is unattainable due to social influences, while “common knowledge” is ruled out in favor of “common awareness.” Other chapters deal with the reality of interpreting through the professional’s eyes, of how they are assessed, participate, and are valued in the total educational process, including mainstream environments. The various settings of education for deaf children are profiled, from residential schools to life in three cultures for deaf Latino students, to self-contained high school programs. Ethical Considerations in Educating Deaf Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing offers an invaluable set of guidelines for administrators and educators of children with hearing loss in virtually every environment in a postmodern world.

In 21 essays on communicative gesturing in the first two years of life, this vital collection demonstrates the importance of gesture in a child’s transition to a linguistic system. Introductions preceding each section emphasize the parallels between the findings in these studies and the general body of scholarship devoted to the process of spoken language acquisition.

Renowned scholars contributing to this volume include Ursula Bellugi, Judy Snitzer Reilly, Susan Goldwin-Meadow, Andrew Lock, M. Chiara Levorato, and many others.

In 1982, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Amy Rowley, a deaf six-year-old, was not entitled to have a sign language interpreter in her public school classroom. Lawrence Siegel wholeheartedly disagrees with this decision in his new book The Human Right to Language: Communication Access for Deaf Children. Instead, he contends that the United States Constitution should protect every deaf and hard of hearing child’s right to communication and language as part of an individual’s right to liberty. Siegel argues that when a deaf or hard of hearing child sits alone in a crowded classroom and is unable to access the rich and varied communication around her, the child is denied any chance of success in life.

In The Human Right to Language, Siegel proposes that the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution be enforced so that Amy Rowley and her peers can possess that which virtually every other American child takes for granted – the right to receive and express thought in school. He asserts that the common notion of a right to “speech” is too infrequently interpreted in the narrowest sense as the right to “speak” rather than the broader right to receive and transmit information in all ways. Siegel reveals that there are no judicial decisions or laws that recognize this missing right, and offers here a legal and constitutional strategy for change. His well-reasoned hypothesis and many examples of deaf children with inadequate communication access in school combine to make a compelling case for changing the status quo.

Of the more than 400 studies presented at the 18th International Congress on Education of the Deaf, the 20 most incisive papers were selected, rewritten, and edited to construct the trenchant volume Issues Unresolved: New Perspectives on Language and Deaf Education. The resulting book provocatively challenges the invested reader in four critical areas of deaf education worldwide.

Part 1, Communication: Signed and Spoken Languages, addresses matters that range from considering critical periods for language acquisition, researched by Susan D. Fischer, to assessing the impact of immigration policies on the ethnic composition of Australia’s deaf community, intriguing work by Jan Branson and Don Miller.

Part 2, Communication: Accessibility to Speech, continues the debate with works on the perception of speech by deaf and hard of hearing children, contributed by Arthur Boothroyd, and automatic speech recognition and its applications, delineated by Harry Levitt.

Educational issues are brought to the forefront in Part 3 in such engrossing studies as Lea Lurie and Alex Kozulin’s discourse on the application of an instrumental-enrichment cognitive intervention program with deaf immigrant children from Ethiopia. Stephen Powers offers another perspective in this section with his retrospective evaluation of a distance education training course for teachers of the deaf.

Part 4, Psychological and Social Adjustment reviews progress in this area, with Anne de Klerk’s exposition on the Rotterdam Deaf Awareness Program, and Corinne J. Lewkowitz and Lynn S. Liben’s research on the development of deaf and hearing children’s sex-role attitudes and self-endorsements. These and the many other contributions by renowned international scholars in the field make Issues Unresolved a compelling new standard for all involved in deaf education.
 

Throughout the last two centuries, a controversial question has plagued the field of education of the deaf: should sign language be used to communicate with and instruct deaf children? Never the Twain Shall Meet focuses on the debate over this question, especially as it was waged in the nineteenth century, when it was at its highest pitch and the battle lines were clearly drawn. In addition to exploring Alexander Graham Bell's and Edward Miner Gallaudet's familial and educational backgrounds, Never the Twain Shall Meet looks at how their views of society affected their philosophies of education and how their work continues to influence the education of deaf students today.

The 21st International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED) witnessed revolutionary exchanges on the vital themes in education. Presenters addressed topics encompassing seven major strands: Educational Environments, Language and Literacy, Early Intervention, Unique Challenges in Developing Countries, Educating Learners with Diverse Needs, Technology in Education, and Sign Language and Deaf Culture. These presentations and ensuing dialogues raised many complex questions. Partners in Education: Issues and Trends from the 21st International Congress on the Education of the Deaf features all of the keynote addresses by renowned luminaries in deaf education: Breda Carty, Karen Ewing, Nassozi Kiyaga, John Luckner, Connie Mayer and Beverly Trezek, volume editor Donald F. Moores, Peter V. Paul, Antti Raike, Claudine Storbeck, James Tucker, and Alys Young.

Most critically, the contributors to this collection explore the many multifaceted challenges facing the world’s deaf students. Deaf children are being diagnosed with overlays of disabilities; more deaf children are growing up in poverty; and many deaf children represent minority racial/ethnic groups or are immigrants to their country of residence. The situation for deaf individuals in the most impoverished countries of the world is desperate and of crisis proportions. This volume brings these themes to light through its exceptional synthesis of the outstanding discourse that took place at ICED 2010, including abstracts from 30 celebrated conference presentations.

The obstacles to valid and meaningful assessment of deaf and hard of hearing children and adolescents are great, yet professionals are regularly asked to conduct comprehensive evaluations to determine resource and program eligibility, test modifications in school, classroom and home recommendations, and referrals. In this important new text, the authors define the skills required of the examiners, explain the complex nature of these assessments, and describe ways to intelligently use existing tests.

Authors Margery S. Miller, Tania Thomas-Presswood, Kurt Metz, and Jennifer Lukomski bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to this in-depth treatment of topics essential to educators and school psychologists. They cover such critical areas as test construction and measurement; the diversity in American Deaf culture; the role of parents in the assessment process; neuropsychological assessments; nonverbal methods for assessing intelligence; and the need for sign language competency when testing cognitive and language skills.

The text concludes with recommendations for the development of valid and reliable tests for all students who are deaf and hard of hearing.

In developed nations around the world, residential schools for deaf students are giving way to the trend of inclusion in regular classrooms. Nonetheless, deaf education continues to lag as the students struggle to communicate. In the Bua School in Thailand, however, 400 residential deaf students ranging in age from 6 to 19 have met with great success in teaching each other Thai Sign Language (TSL) and a world of knowledge once thought to be lost to them. The Rising of Lotus Flowers: Self-Education by Deaf Children in Thai Boarding Schools reveals how their institutionalization allowed them to foster a unique incubator of communication and education.

Charles B. Reilly, a teacher and community organizer in Thailand for eight years, and Nipapon Reilly, a Deaf Thai citizen, studied the students in the Bua School for 14 years, with periodic follow-ups thereafter. They found that the students learned little from their formal instructors, but that they were able to educate each other in time spent away from the classroom. Older students who had learned TSL in the dorms and on the playground successfully passed it on to six-year-olds who had virtually no language at all. The Reillys’ study uncovers an elaborate hierarchy of education among these students, with each group using games and other activities to teach and bring other classmates up to their level. Named for the much admired aquatic plant that blooms in Thailand’s bogs, the Bua School epitomizes the ideal of The Rising of Lotus Flowers, which also offers analytical evidence of the continuing value of residential schools in deaf education.

Revealing inequalities and sensory hierarchies embedded in the latest medical technologies and global biotechnical markets

What happens when cochlear implants, heralded as the first successful bionic technologies, make their way around the globe and are provided by both states and growing private markets? As Sensory Futures follows these implants from development to domestication and their unequal distribution in India, Michele Ilana Friedner explores biotechnical intervention in the realm of disability and its implications for state politics in the Global South. 

A signing and speaking deaf bilateral cochlear implant user, Friedner weaves personal reflections into this fine-grained ethnography of everyday negotiations, activist aspirations, and the space of the family. She places sensory anthropology in conversation with disability studies to analyze how normative sensoria are cultivated and the pursuit of listening and speaking capability is enacted. She argues that the conditions of potentiality that have emerged through cochlear implantation have, in fact, resulted in ever narrower understandings of future life possibilities. Rejecting sensory hierarchies that privilege audition, Friedner calls for multisensory, multimodal, and multipersonal ways of relating to the world. 

Sensory Futures explores deaf people’s desires to create habitable worlds and grapple with what their futures might look like, in India and beyond, amid a surge in both biotechnical interventions and disability rights activism. With implications for a broad range of disability experiences, this sensitive, in-depth research focuses on the specific experiences of deaf people, both children and adults, and the structural, political, and social possibilities offered by both biotechnological and social “cures.”

For over 30 years, The Silent Garden has offered parents of deaf children the support and unbiased information needed to fully realize their children’s potential. This completely revised third edition is a must-have resource that will help parents navigate the complex and unique challenges they face. Accessible, practical, and, above all, open-minded, The Silent Garden educates parents quickly and thoroughly about the many conflicting points of view on what is best for their deaf children.
       Authors Paul W. Ogden and David H. Smith, who are both deaf, present examples and research that guide parents through often unfamiliar territory. From coping mechanisms for parents to advice on creating healthy home environments, the authors cover a range of topics that impact day-to-day actions and decision-making. The topic of communication is discussed extensively as communication access and language development are crucial not only for intellectual growth, but also for positive family and social relationships. The authors look at American Sign Language, listening and spoken language, written English, and various other modes of communication available to deaf children. Different educational options are presented, and technology—including the debate about cochlear implants—is reviewed. Deaf children with special needs are considered here as well. Each topic is accompanied by real-life stories that offer further insight.
       Always encouraging, The Silent Garden empowers parents to be the best advocates for their deaf children. Throughout, the authors emphasize that each choice is highly personal, and they stress that all deaf children have the potential to lead rich, productive, and exciting lives.

Also available in Spanish - El Jardín Silencioso: Una guía para los padres para criar a un niño sordo is a condensed Spanish edition that features the first five chapters of The Silent Garden. Topics covered include coping mechanisms for parents, creating healthy family environments, fostering independence, and understanding the perspectives of siblings.

Silent Life and Silent Language presents a fictionalized account of life at a Midwestern residential school for deaf students in the years following the Civil War. Based on the experiences of the author, who became deaf at the age of nine and entered a residential school when she was twelve, this historical work is remarkable and rare because it focuses on signing deaf women’s lives. One of only a few accounts written by deaf women in the 19th century, Silent Life and Silent Language gives a detailed description of daily life and learning at the Indiana Asylum for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb.

       Kate M. Farlow wrote this book with the goal of giving hearing parents hope that their deaf children would be able to lead happy and productive lives. She sought to raise awareness of the benefits of deaf schools and was an early advocate for the use of American Sign Language and of bilingual education. The Christian influence on the school and on the author is strongly present in her writing and reflects an important component of deaf education at the time. Descriptions of specific signs, games, ASL story nights, and other aspects of the signing community during the 1870s will be of interest to modern students and researchers in linguistics, deaf education, Deaf studies, and Deaf history. Farlow’s work reveals a sophisticated, early understanding of the importance of access to language, education, and community for deaf individuals.

Rendered in lovely, full-color illustrations, Silent Observer traces the early life of author Christy MacKinnon in Nova Scotia at the turn of the century. Born in 1889, the author lost her hearing from “the Winter fever” at the age of two. Her story tells of a simple, charming life on her family’s farm by the bay and in the schoolhouse where her father taught her in their hometown of Boisdale.

Silent Observer is an affectionate, poignant memoir of childhood as seen through the eyes of a vivacious young girl. Teachers, parents, and children will share in their enjoyment of this beautiful, sensitive story of a harder but wonderful time that has passed.

With the rate of cochlear implantation reaching 80% to 90% of all deaf children, some as young as five months old, Surgical Consent: Bioethics and Cochlear Implantation arrives at a critical juncture. This comprehensive collection features essays by Priscilla Alderson, Inger Lise Skog Hansen, Hilde Haualand, volume editor Linda Komesaroff, Paddy Ladd, Harlan Lane, Karen Lloyd, Eithne Mills, Paal Richard Peterson, Gunilla Preisler, Kristina Svartholm, and Michael Uniacke. These worldwide renowned ethicists, educators, and Deaf leaders express their diverse perspectives on the bioethics of childhood cochlear implantation according to their discipline and a number of themes of inquiry: human rights, medical and social ethics, psychology, education, globalization, identity, life pathways, democracy, media, law, and biotechnology.

Drawing on current research, this volume presents the varying reactions around the globe to the high rate of implantation. These views contrast sharply with the medical perspective of deafness overwhelmingly promoted through the media and by the cochlear implantation industry. At the same time, the contributors aim to disrupt the binaries that have long dominated the field of deafness — speech versus sign, instruction through speech and sign systems versus bilingual education, and medical intervention versus cultural membership in the Deaf community.

Surgical Consent begins and ends with the voices of Deaf people. Their articulate and, at times, raw insights clearly delineate the issues of power, positioning, and minority-majority group relations that are inherent in the dominant hearing culture’s understanding of diversity and globalization.

Despite the idealism represented by the No Child Left Behind law’s mandate for accountability in education, deaf students historically and on average have performed far below grade level on standardized tests. To resolve this contradiction in deaf education, this collection presents a spectrum of perspectives from a diverse corps of education experts to suggest a constructive synthesis of worthy ideals, hard realities, and pragmatic solutions. Contributors to this study include volume editors Robert C. Johnson and Ross E. Mitchell, Ed Bosso, Michael Bello, Betsy J. Case, Patrick Costello, Stephanie W. Cawthon, Joseph E. Fischgrund, Courtney Foster, Christopher Johnstone, Michael Jones, Jana Lollis, Pat Moore, Barbara Raimondo, Suzanne Recane, Richard C. Steffan, Jr., Sandra J. Thompson, Martha L. Thurlow, and Elizabeth Towles-Reeves.

These noted educators and researchers employ experiences from Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Illinois and California to support their findings about the dilemma facing deaf students and their teachers. They assess the intent and flexibility of federal law; achievement data regarding deaf students; potential accommodations and universal design to make tests more accessible; possible alternatives for deaf student not ready for conventional assessments; accounts of varying degrees of cooperation and conflict between schools and state education departments; and the day-to-day efforts of teachers and school administrators to help deaf students measure up to the new standards. By presenting these wide-ranging insights together, Testing Deaf Students in an Age of Accountability provides a unique opportunity to create genuine means to educate deaf students for the only test that matters, that of life.

Both Gina A. Oliva and Linda Risser Lytle know what it is like to be the only deaf student in a mainstream school. Though they became successful educators, they recognize the need to research the same isolation experienced by other deaf and hard of hearing persons. In this way, they hope to improve education for current and future deaf students. Their efforts have culminated in Turning the Tide: Making Life Better for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Schoolchildren.
 
       Turning the Tide presents a qualitative study of deaf and hard of hearing students who attended mainstream schools. The authors conducted three focus groups in different regions in the country, enlisting six to eight participants with diverse backgrounds for each session. They also gathered information from 113 online respondents who answered the same questions used in the focus groups. The respondents discussed many issues, including the difficulties of finding friends and social access, the struggle to establish an identity, the challenges of K-12 interpreting and class placement, and the vast potential of summer and weekend programs for deaf students. Their empowering stories clearly demonstrate that no deaf or hard of hearing student should be educated alone. The authors also elicited comments on other changes that parents, advocates, and other allies could work toward to improve further the educational environment of deaf children.