Lawmakers made several changes this session to how the state delivers services to deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Advocates said they weren’t included throughout the process, leading to a bill they say favors oral and spoken language education.
Senate Enrolled Act 473 makes a variety of broad health reforms, including several changes to the "continuum of care” for deaf and hard-of-hearing children.
Advocates said they reached out to lawmakers with concerns over an earlier version of the bill, which resulted in some language protecting access to services for Deaf education and American Sign Language. But, some advocates are concerned the lack of input from the community could cause more harm.
Geoffrey Bignell, director of advocacy for the Indiana Association of the Deaf, through an interpreter, said among other things, the legislation requires the state to provide what are called ASL specialists. But, he said that role is defined by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education.
“That agency doesn't have much involvement from the Deaf and ASL community,” Bignell said. “It's more of a medical perspective, not a cultural and linguistic perspective.”
Bignell said the medical perspective of deafness views it as something that needs to be “fixed or repaired.”
“We want to make sure that our language and culture is on the table as well,” Bignell said. “We’re a fully functioning person, who just is deaf. We have our own culture and linguistics, but we can function in society the same as a hearing person.”
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In the same way that English is its own language and America has its own culture, Bignell said ASL is its own language and the Deaf community has its own culture. He said by not having the Deaf community involved in decisions like the ones made in SEA 473, lawmakers are missing the importance of protecting Deaf culture.
Bignell said Deaf advocates weren’t invited into the conversation with lawmakers like other stakeholders typically are. Instead, he said they had to do the work to sit down with lawmakers and the author of the bill. He said lawmakers should be working to include the Deaf community in the legislative process — especially on issues that affect them.
“To see how a bill that would affect us so strongly would proceed without input from the Deaf community we thought was inappropriate,” Bignell said. “It was a big concern.”
Bignell said the Deaf community still had concerns with language in the final version of the bill, even if advocates worked to improve language from earlier versions. He said the Deaf community being left out of the loop isn’t a new issue.
“It seems like it's the same, same old story when we approach legislators and explain how it would impact the Deaf community,” Bignell said. “We try to get their attention, or get them to listen to us. That's our big concern, is we find it important that they listen to us — the deaf community. That we have input in the bill.”
SEA 473 makes several other changes including what agencies are in charge of certain services for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Bignell said advocates are concerned that switching agencies could result in more focus on oral and spoken language education with less people to advocate for ASL and Deaf education.
Abigail is our health reporter. Contact them at aruhman@wboi.org.