Providers

ASDC believes that medical, audiology, and educational professionals serving deaf children and their families have a responsibility to:

• Be informed about the successes of deaf persons from all walks of life, including those who use American Sign Language, as their primary language and those who do and do not use cochlear implants.
• Recognize the benefits of early language, including sign language, and work to ensure that deaf children’s language development, whether signed, spoken or both, progresses at a rate equivalent to that of their hearing peers.
• Refer parents to a wide range of information sources, including deaf individuals, families with deaf children, schools for the deaf and local, state and national parent and deaf adult organizations.

We need to erase:

• Misconceptions that sign language will harm a deaf child’s language development.
• Misconceptions that supporting visual language means excluding spoken language approaches.

Additional Resources