The Rowley family's struggle began when Amy entered kindergarten and culminated five years later in a pivotal decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. In effect, the Court majority concluded that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act did not mandate equal opportunity for children with disabilities in classes with typical children; a disappointing decision for disability advocates.

The Supreme Court decided that schools were required only to provide enough help for children with disabilities to pass from grade to grade. The Court reversed the lower courts' rulings, which had granted Amy an interpreter, setting a precedent that could affect the quality of education for all individuals with disabilities.

From the time Amy entered kindergarten in Peekskill, New York, her parents battled with school officials to get a sign language interpreter in the classroom. Nancy and Clifford Rowley, also deaf, struggled with officials for their own right to a communications process in which they could fully participate. Stuck in limbo was a bright, inquisitive child, forced to rely on partial lipreading of rapid classroom instruction and interaction, and sound amplifiers that were often broken and always cumbersome.

R.C. Smith chronicles the Rowley family's dealings with school boards, lawyers, teachers, expert consultants, advocates, and supporters, and their staunch determination to get through the exhaustive process of presenting the case time after time to school adjudicative bodies and finally the federal courts. The author also documents his own "coming to awareness" about how the "able" see the "disabled."

In the series Health, Society, and Policy, edited by Sheryl Ruzek and Irving Kenneth Zola.

Case Studies in Deaf Education provides comprehensive materials that will prepare prospective teachers to work with the diverse spectrum of students who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/Dhh) and empower them to better understand these complex and unique learners. The text presents an extensive series of case studies that are balanced and unbiased in both language and instructional approaches and that encourage readers to use background details, academic data, and evidence-based practices to make informed educational decisions.

       The authors address the diversity of d/Dhh students by examining a multitude of learner characteristics that influence communication and educational services. These characteristics and their interactions include a student’s background experiences, language and communication mode (sign and/or listening and spoken language), language and academic proficiency levels, use of assistive hearing devices (hearing aids or cochlear implants), and family dynamics. The case studies are supported with authentic supplemental materials, such as audiograms and Individualized Educational Plans, and are accompanied by discussion questions, activities, resource lists, and a glossary of essential terms. Case Studies in Deaf Education will help teachers and allied professionals develop the knowledge and skills to use a collaborative, problem-solving process that leads to the provision of quality, effective services for students who are d/Dhh.

       The accompanying Instructor’s Manual contains key information for each case study and provides PowerPoint slides that can be displayed during in-class or online discussions. Find it at the GU Press website as a downloadable file.

Within the past few decades, there has been great progress in deaf education in Latin America and growth in the empowerment of their Deaf communities. However, there is little awareness outside that region of these successes. For the first time, this book provides access, in English, to scholarly research in these areas. Written by Latin American Deaf and hearing contributors, Change and Promise provides a counter argument to external, deficit views of the Latin American Deaf community by sharing research and accounts of success in establishing and expanding bilingual deaf education, Deaf activism, Deaf culture, and wider access for deaf children and adults.
       Change and Promise describes the historical, cultural, and political contexts for providing bilingual deaf education in Latin America. Bilingual deaf education uses students’ sign language, while simultaneously giving them access to and teaching them the majority spoken/written language. This book describes current bilingual deaf education programs in the region that have increased society’s understandings of Deaf culture and sign languages. This cause, as well as others, have been championed by successful social movements including the push for official recognition of Libras, the sign language of Brazil. Change and Promise covers this expanding empowerment of Deaf communities as they fight for bilingual deaf education, sign language rights, and deaf civil rights.
       Despite the vast political and cultural differences throughout Latin America, an epistemological shift has occurred regarding how Deaf people are treated and their stories narrated, from labeling “deaf as handicapped” to being recognized as a linguistic minority. This panoramic study of these challenges and triumphs will provide an invaluable resource for improving outcomes in deaf education and help to secure the rights of deaf children and adults in all societies.

Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most linguistically, culturally, and geographically diverse regions of the world, home to more than 2,000 languages. As in the rest of the world, Deaf people live throughout the widely varying sub-Saharan communities, equally rich in their signed languages. An emergent body of scholarly research on sub-Saharan signed languages (SSSL) and related Deaf community organizing has created the opportunity to gather together the informed perspectives presented in this revolutionary collection. Drawing examples from all regions of sub-Saharan Africa—Western, Eastern, Central, and Southern—16 contributors join the volume editors in illuminating the circumstances pertaining to cross-border, cross-regional, and global engagements in sub-Saharan Deaf communities.

       This collection centers upon two interrelated purposes: to examine sub-Saharan African deaf people’s perspectives on citizenship, politics, and difference in relation to SSSL practices, and to analyze SSSL practices in relation to sociopolitical histories and social change interests (including addressing aspects of culture, gender, language usage, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and ability). The editors have organized these themes under three main sections, Sub-Saharan Signed Languages and Deaf Communities, The Politics of Mobilizing Difference, and Citizenship. Such wide-ranging subjects as the ethics of studying Kenyan signed language, sign language and Deaf communities in Eritrea, and overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers to HIV/AIDS education drive home the importance of the unique and varied research in this collection.

Deaf education in New South Wales has made tremendous progress since the end of World War II, yet issues remain for students from their early years of education through secondary high school. Naomi Malone traces the roots of these issues and argues that they persist due to the historical fragmentation within deaf education regarding oralism (teaching via spoken language) and manualism (teaching via sign language). She considers the early prevalence of oralism in schools for deaf students, the integration of deaf students into mainstream classrooms, the recognition of Australian Sign Language as a language, and the growing awareness of the diversity of deaf students. Malone’s historical assessments are augmented by interviews with former students and contextualized with explanations of concurrent political and social events. She posits that deaf people must be consulted about their educational experiences and that they must form a united social movement to better advocate for improved deaf education, regardless of communication approach.

This remarkable volume examines the process by which three deaf, French biographers from the 19th and 20th centuries attempted to cross the cultural divide between deaf and hearing worlds through their work. The very different approach taken by each writer sheds light on determining at what point an individual’s assimilation into society endanger his or her sense of personal identity.

Author Hartig begins by assessing the publications of Jean-Ferdinand Berthier (1803-1886). Berthier wrote about Auguste Bébian, Abbé de l’Epée, and Abbé Sicard, all of whom taught at the National Institute for the Deaf in Paris. Although Berthier presented compelling portraits of their entire lives, he paid special attention to their political and social activism, his main interest.

Yvonne Pitrois (1880-1937) pursued her particular interest in the lives of deaf-blind people. Her biography of Helen Keller focused on her subject’s destiny in conjunction with her unique relationship with Anne Sullivan. Corinne Rocheleau-Rouleau (1881-1963) recounted the historical circumstances that led French-Canadian pioneer women to leave France. The true value of her work resides in her portraits of these pioneer women: maternal women, warriors, religious women, with an emphasis on their lives and the choices they made.

Crossing the Divide reveals clearly the passion these biographers shared for narrating the lives of those they viewed as heroes of an emerging French deaf community. All three used the genre of biography not only as a means of external exploration but also as a way to plumb their innermost selves and to resolve ambivalence about their own deafness.