Infants and Toddlers with Hearing Loss (review)

Media Reviews Infants and Toddlers with Hearing Loss byfackson Roush and Noel D. Matkin, Eds. (York Press, Inc., Baltimore 1994, 360 pages, softcover) This promising book on familycentered services for young children who are deaf or hard of hearing provides professionals and parents with much needed information on familycentered practices. This edited work includes chapters by researchers, audiologists , program directors, teacher educators, counselors, speech and language specialists and practitioners. Authors vary from having limited to extensive experiences with families who have children who are deaf, and chapters range in quality and comprehensiveness . Although this book has just been published some of the information is already dated. For example, information about the early childhood legislation pre-dates the latest reauthorization of IDEA in 1992. The book is organized into five parts. Part I outlines the background and context for providing family-centered services. In part II, early identification and management of hearing loss is described. Part III deals with the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) and includes descriptions of two programs which incorporate family-centered principles in their assessment process. These three introductory sections provide a strong framework for family-centered early intervention services for children who have hearing losses. However, the emphasis on oral communication as the rationale and focus of early intervention , diminishes the significance of a developmental and ecological perspective which address the concerns of the family as well as the growth of the child in all areas of development. Two excellent chapters in part III, F.A.M.I.L.Y. Assessment and D.E.I.P.: A Collaborative Problem Solving Approach highlight this latter perspective . Both of these chapters emphasize the importance of parent participation in selecting and gathering information related to the child and relevant to the family. The D.E.I.P. approach emphasizes the importance of the "discovery-oriented process" in which both parents and professionals "team up" to observe the child and identify strategies to facilitate development. Another chapter on Strategies for Interdisciplinary Collaboration describes the specialists and consultants who form the interdisciplinary team, but neglects to even mention the deaf education specialist. The author of this chapter notes that individuals with "basic manual communication skills" should be available to insure that children from "Total Communication programs" are evaluated appropriately. This comment reflects the author's lack of understanding of the complexity of Sign Language and the importance of evaluating the sign and gestural behaviors of deaf children as measures of their language skills. Part IV includes descriptions of "model" programs. These include the Mama Lere Home, V.I.P. Program (Visiting Infant and Parents) at Clarke School, ECHI-University of Washington , SKFHI, Infant Hearing Resource, and Thayer-Lindsley Nursery. The descriptions of these programs and the two programs in the previous section provide the reader with a limited perspective of state of the art early education programs. Missing from the dialogue are models in which deaf adults participate actively in all aspects of the program and in all professional roles. Programs which utilize American Sign Language as the first language and which provide families with models of development and strategies for language acquisition based on the "normal " parent child interaction models in families which are deaf are absent from this text. While some authors mention ASL or deaf adults as important resources, or "new options" for families, none of the programs described emphasizes a bilingual approach . A strength of the text is the use of "case studies" with families who have children with multiple developmental needs. The interdisciplinary approach illustrating how families participate as active team members is excellent. The final section of the text addresses the preparation of professionals and perspectives of families. The concluding chapter attempts to capture views of families who have participated in early intervention programs . Questions posed to families include: What do you think professionals need to know? How could we improve the education of these individuals ? What was especially helpful? What was frustrating or problematic? While the comments are excellent and should be required reading for all professionals working with families, the selection of families, like the selection of program models, generally excludes parents who are deaf and other families whose experiences and preferences include...