Hearing Impairments in Young Children (review)

Comments, Questions, and Answers by Alan B. Crammatte The Comment, Question, and Answer department is published as a service to professional readers and parents of deaf children. It is an attempt to provide practical information on the basic aspects of deafness, particularly in relation to education. Although all questions submitted cannot be used, those considered to be of greatest interest to readers will be published. Answers are prepared by competent authorities. Material submitted must contain the writer's name and address. Address questions and comments to: Alan B. Crammatte, 897 Windsong Drive, Arnold, MD 21012. COMMENT—TDDs for nationwide use are taking hold in the private sector. Two national corporations announced last fall the installation of TDDs for customer use: The Dreyfus Service Corporation at its Long Island service subsidiary and Eastern Airlines at its reservation center in North Carolina. To call Eastern dial 1-800/3253553 ; call Dreyfus Service Corporation at 1-800/ 227-1341 (residents of New York state call 516/ 794-5309, collect). To the Editor: Since the AAD requires that manuscripts be in the American Psychological Association format, may I suggest that the author index of the AAD be in the American Psychologist format, a see reference from each joint author's name to the first author? The present joint author (JA) format for the author index consumes space and confuses the researchers. Thank you. A Reader Editor's Note: Usually anonymous letters to the Editor are not printed, but the present one is about Annals policy and it is constructive and polite, so here it is. For those readers too lazy to hunt up the annual index, the JA format to which Reader refers follows: Joint Author format Smith, John. [Full title of article, which sometimes required two or more lines] American Psychologist format Smith, John, see Jones, Tom Reviews Hearing Impairments in Young Children, Arthur Boothroyd, Ph.D., 239 pp., Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632, 1982. The current emphasis on providing early intervention services for hearing-impaired persons by schools and programs has made the need for proper staff training imperative. While the recent CEASD study on Parent-Infant programs in the United States cited the majority of staff members currently serving infants and families as being trained teachers of the deaf, Dr. Boothroyd repeatedly states that training programs do not adequately prepare teachers of the deaf, audiologists, or speech-language pathologists for this task. The information provided could well serve as a textbook for programs which emphasize this area or as a guide to field professionals. The book provides a global approach to child development and in-depth information related to the development of hearing-impaired children . Since Boothroyd's approach is global, he does not limit himself to one particular curriculum or methodology to be used in working with infants. Each chapter is clear and informative and reference sections provide additional resources on each topic. Hearing Impairments in Young Children will be a valuable tool for anyone involved in an existing Parent-Infant curriculum. The chapter on special cases concerning multiA .A.D. I November 1984 395 Reviews ply handicapped children is one that has not previously been addressed as well or as clearly. Linda Taconis, M.S. Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind Talladega, Alabama 35160 The Other Side of Silence: Sign Language and the Deaf Community in America, Arden Neisser, 301 pp., $15.95, Alfred A. Knopf, 201 East 50th Street, New York, NY 10022, 1983. Rarely does a novice to the American deaf community command such insight as Ms. Neisser displays in this work. Attempting to present the deaf community's point of view regarding sign language, she has weaved her story with interviews from a variety of individuals across the country. Her frank analyses of the complexities , contradictions and paradoxes rampant in the use and abuse of American Sign Language are refreshing. However, the book is offset by glib remarks and questionable conclusions: "MSSD is one of the supreme comic-tragedies of deaf education" (p. 136); "NTID ... there was a great discrepancy between the stated aims and the actual accomplishments of the institution, a gap that was filled by indifference and jargon" (p. 192). These are strong...