Abstract Details

<< Back to Schedule

10/09/2015  |   3:00 PM - 4:15 PM   |  SAC Auditorium

Early Childhood Education at the Clerc Center: Sharing Our Practices

The Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center (Clerc Center), located on the campus of Gallaudet University, is a federally funded program established to guide effective practices in the education of deaf and hard of hearing children in the United States. The Kendall School Early Childhood Education (ECE) Program at the Clerc Center is a national demonstration program designed to implement and share effective, evidence based practices. The core of the program centers on designing and implementing supports and services to a) facilitate strong early language foundations, and b) promote cognitive, literacy, and social emotional development of children who are deaf and hard of hearing with diverse background characteristics (i.e. hearing levels, additional disabilities, home language of the family, benefit from listening technologies). This presentation will share information about the Kendall ECE Program, and discuss considerations for replicating similar supports and services in other settings. Included will be topics essential to designing a multi-sensory environment to support development of young children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Also addressed will be considerations related to establishing partnerships between professionals and families to support family competence and confidence in developing the skills to provide their child with accessible language (language provided in a manner in which a child has the likelihood of being able to learn and interact with it), from the earliest age possible. Video examples of resources and supports used within the Kendall School ECE program will be shared.

• • Participants will be able to discuss practices used in the Early Childhood Program at the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center
• • Participants will be able to identify at least two strategies and/or resources from the presentation applicable to their work.

Presentation:
This presentation has not yet been uploaded.

Handouts:
No handouts have been uploaded.

Debra Trapani (Primary Presenter), Clerc Center, Debra.Trapani@gallaudet.edu;
Debra Trapani is the principal of Kendall Demonstration Elementary School at the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center. She has worked as a parent-child educator, a teacher of students from preschool through secondary school, a literacy specialist, and an administrator of the Delaware School for the Deaf and statewide programs in Delaware before coming to the Clerc Center. Growing up deaf, Trapani was a student in several deaf education settings in California before graduating from a school for the deaf. She is the proud parent of two beautiful elementary-age children, one deaf and one hearing. Her dream is for all deaf children to have “access”.