Speech and Language

Speech and language are incorporated into the educational curriculum every day. Highly skilled teachers of the deaf, in conjunction with the speech pathologist, assess and teach each child in daily separate class periods devoted to speech and language. In addition to separate class periods, speech and language are taught throughout the school day.

In the CID preschool-kindergarten, the children take part in a dynamic emerging literacy educational program designed to help them develop alphabet knowledge, phonologic awareness, print awareness and pragmatic and social language, with hearing children serving as natural language models. In the primary department, language and speech work continue throughout the day during reading, literature, math, science and social studies. Goals and expectations are individualized for each student. Time is spent on social skills instruction and the children are encouraged and helped to use their language and speech in all school activities, including physical education, art and music, computer instruction, lunch and recess. 

Learning new vocabulary and learning how to use new types of sentence structures are everyday occurrences. Parents are an important part of this vital, exciting educational process. Teachers regularly review each child's progress in speech and language to help plan appropriate instruction, and the speech pathologist evaluates progress formally once or twice during each school year. Scores approaching the average range in comparison to hearing peers lead to planning for mainstream educational placement.

CID graduates go to mainstream elementary schools, high schools, colleges and universities.