Posted on Mar 01, 2018
This week our program was Toolkit for Teachers of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students presented by Jamie Monaco. Ursula Monaco-Sweeny proudly introduced her daughter. Jamie said she has known Rotary through her parents since she was a child.
Jamie graduated with a Baccalaureate in Child Development, from Escondido High School and Palomar. She was attracted to helping deaf people and has been doing so for several years.
 
96% of deaf children are born to healthy parents. People who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) may have speech that is difficult to understand due to the inability to hear their own voice. Being deaf does not affect their brain – they need to be helped to communicate
 
Students with hearing impairments vary greatly in the degree and type of hearing loss they experience. Each person with a hearing loss will respond differently to amplification, and it is important to note that hearing aids do not completely correct hearing loss. Many students rely primarily on lip reading.
 
Some students can overcome some of these problems to varying degrees through great investments of time, energy, and effort by parents and educators, such deficiencies continue to be fairly common within the hearing-impaired population.
 
Many students with hearing impairments can and do speak. Most deaf students have normal speech organs and have learned to use them through speech therapy. Some deaf students cannot monitor or automatically control the tone and volume of their speech, so their speech may be initially difficult to understand. Understanding improves as one becomes more familiar with the deaf student’s speech pattern.
 
American Sign Language (ASL) serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the US. ASL is also widely learned as a second language.
 
Following her excellent presentation, Jamie Monaco responded to several questions from the Rotary audience.
 
     Website: Deaf Community Services of San Diego: http://www.deafcommunityservices.org/