Jedidiah Figueroa is in first grade at Gideon Pond Elementary, just outside Minneapolis.
In addition to being a top-notch sledder, his reading and writing skills are right up
there — at or above his grade level.
And for a child who's hard of hearing, that's exceptional.
Statistics show that on average a deaf person graduating from high school has a third or
fourth grade reading level.
Dr. Daniel Koo is a neuroscientist with Georgetown University.
Most deaf children are the only deaf person in their home.
About 90% have hearing parents.
Most of them have limited communication or no exposure to sign language.
And as a result, either these children come into the school with a weak first language
or no first language.
Kitri Kyllo runs the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program in Jedidiah's school district.
A lot of language that hearing children pick up, they pick up through what they overhear,
vocabulary and language around them, not through direct communication.
Kids who are deaf and hard of hearing don't have that opportunity.
Jedidiah's mother had suspicions early on, but doctors didn't diagnose his hearing loss
until he was 18 months old.
Everything I picked up about hearing loss said you know the first three, three and a
half years, you know, well, we were already halfway lost.
We hadn't had any language input.
Now I've got a very limited time schedule to get language in this child and get him
ready for school, and the pressure is on.
But I couldn't talk to him.
Janet had to find a way to communicate with her son.
The obvious choice for deaf parents is American Sign Language.
But it's surprisingly complicated for a new user.
I couldn't get proficient at it.
And I didn't have somebody to help me and correct me.
The general public, I believe, thinks that when you sign, you are signing the language
of English, which is not true at all.
American Sign Language is a separate language by itself with a different grammar, different
syntax.
To become fluent in American Sign Language requires just as much effort as becoming fluent
in any second language, a big job for a busy mom.
[reading] A stranger zipped up on the strangest of cars…
Janet stumbled upon an alternative: Cued English.
Cued English uses eight hand shapes and four hand placements, along with the natural movements
of the mouth.
That's enough to visually represent every sound in the English language.
Words that look the same on the mouth like mom, bob, pop, look different for cues because
it's mom, bob, and pop, so the hand shapes changes.
Cued English was created at Gallaudet University to give deaf and hard of hearing kids visual
access to the sounds of English — so they could learn to read more easily.
It's working well in Kitri's program.
We have seen a significant improvement in kids' reading and writing skills since the
implementation of cued English in our program.
[reading] Then one day, it seems while the plain bellied…
Cued speech was developed to help deaf kids become better readers; to give them access
to the language of the home.
Gingerbread Man comes every year.
But for me it meant as soon as I had that system and I knew all those hand shapes and
placements, I could say whatever I wanted to say to my baby that I hadn't been able
to talk to.
…and I saw the Gingerbread Man.
So is there a place for American sign language in Jedidiah's life?
You bet.
His mother wants him to be bilingual.
We know, by having worked with deaf and hard of hearing children for a long time, and hearing
the experiences of deaf adults, that the social communication that happens through American
Sign Language is critical.
Dr. Koo learned to read through cueing, and he found a sense of belonging through signing.
Nowadays he prefers to use signing to communicate, but he recommends both languages for deaf
and hard of hearing children.
The hearing world uses predominantly English.
American Sign Language is the language of the community, a place where people support
each other, relate to each other, and where identity is developed.
So I think that combining both languages can spell success for children.
He's one of the best readers in the class.
[reading] Nat…Nate and Pam…
And he's a bright guy.
He's worked really hard.
My greatest hope for him is that he will be able to do what he really wants to do, and
to be able to learn what he wants to learn.