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reviews The Conference of Educational Administrators Serving the Deaf: A History, Richard G. Brill, Ph.D., 181 pp., $15.95, paperback, Gallaudet University Press, Washington, D.C, 1986. The Conference of Educational Administrators Serving the Deaf by Richard G. Brill traces the history of the organization of schools and programs for the deaf in the United States and Canada from its founding in 1868 through 1985. It reflects such important landmarks as the establishment of standards for administrators and programs, guidelines for the management, evaluation and accreditation of schools for the deaf, the development of captioned films for the deaf, and diligently monitors proposed legislation relating to the education of the deaf. The professional journal of the Conference, American Annals of the Deaf, has the distinction of being the oldest educational journal in the United States. This single volume summarizes the accomplishments in deaf education for more than 100 years, making past achievements readily accessible to all who may be interested in the administrative framework of schools for the deaf in the U.S. and Canada. It should be of special service to those outside of deaf education who are involved in making decisions affecting future opportunities for the deaf. Richard Brill has performed a valuable service to educators and all those interested in deafness by summarizing the achievements of the past so that we may chart more clearly an optimum course for the future. Margaret S. Kent, M.D. Principal (retired), Maryland School for the Deaf Frederick, Maryland A Guide to Colleges for Hearing Impaired Students, M.A. Liscio, editor, 472 pp., $26.95, paperback, Academic Press, Inc., New York, 1986. A greatly defective publication, this guide does not, for example, list Gallaudet University as one of the four-year colleges in the District of Columbia and has other omissions just as glaring. A reader of this book would assume that the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, California State University at Northridge and Gallaudet University either had no program for hearing impaired students or else had programs similar to any other colleges, most of which never have had a deaf student. The reader wanting information on colleges or universities for hearing impaired students would be far better off using the guide published jointly by Gallaudet and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf for $5 and ignoring this overpriced, inaccurate, misleading guide. McCay Vernon, Ph.D. Editor, American Annals of the Deaf The Hearing Impaired Child in the Ordinary School, Alec Webster and John Ellwood, 181 pp., $26, hardcover, $15.50, paperback, Croom and Helm, Dover, New Hampshire, 1985. Interestingly, our RL. 94-142 has its parallel in the 1981 Education Act being implemented in the United Kingdom. It is forcing local school authorities overseas to carry out their responsibilities to children with special needs. As a result, the book is an outgrowth of the need for teachers in regular public schools, who have no specialist qualification or experience, to be better informed about hearing impairment. The erudite authors state at the outset that they intend to avoid getting involved in emotional or controversial issues. They go on to cover basic facts of deafness, background information on the nature, etiology and implications of hearing loss. They offer suggestions on the management of hearing aids, steps to follow in order to ensure maximum involvement of the hearing impaired child in the neighborhood school from preschool to secondary education and beyond. The regular school teacher, speech therapist, educational psychologist and other support personnel, who lack training and experience in the field of hearing impairment could benefit themselves and the children in mainstream education by a careful study of the book. It is one thing to discuss the informative contents of the book and another thing to discuss the authors' philosophical approach. In spite of their efforts to avoid debatable conclusions, their subjective feelings surface. They feel that modern technology, particularly, radio hearing aids, have made it more feasible for hearing impaired children to be placed in neighborhood schools. They consider the acquisition of speech a priority item in order to get along in a hearing society. They assume that hearing children in the neighborhood are crucial to the overall development...

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