The Role of a Special School for Deaf Children in Meeting the Needs of Black and Hispanic Profoundly Deaf Children and their Families

Oscar P. Cohen and Cynthia Grace

Lexington School for the Deaf

Positive feelings about racial identity can enlarge a child’s overall desirable sense of self; negative feelings about racial identity can plant seeds of self-doubt, even among children who are otherwise developing well (Comer & Poussant, 1975). The effects of racism can be observed more directly after eight or nine years of age. It is at this stage where internalization of attitudes about oneself, influenced by powerful individuals in the environment such as parents and teachers, have an effect on a child’s actions or reactions to “reduced expectations” in a self-fulfilling manner. School curricula, television programs, people, and practices regularly convey messages about race that can be troublesome to minority children.

Introduction

Today we are a nation of 240 million people, about 50 million (21%) of whom are Black, Hispanic, and Asian. Federal and private projections estimate that soon after the turn of the century, one out of every three Americans will be non-white. Most of the non-white student population is concentrated in a band of states that begins in New York, stretches southward down the Atlantic coast and then westward, ending in California. California now has a “majority of minorities” in its elementary schools; 46% of students in Texas are Black and Hispanic. In the 25 largest urban school systems, the majority of students are ethnic, racial, or linguistic minorities.

Black and Hispanic children are undereducated in disproportionate numbers across the United States. The failure to educate these children makes them least likely to have the social and academic skills necessary to be eligible for job opportunities, which increasingly reside in the service and technology industries. Unless schools can find a way to educate these children, the problems associated with unemployment and alienation will escalate.

This paper examines the impact of the social realities and dynamics of minority families on the educational development of Black and Hispanic children. More importantly, it examines implications for schools and programs working with Black and Hispanic prelingually deaf children. Finally, a staff training model, specifically designed to increase awareness of the needs of Black deaf children, is presented.

The Hispanic Community

Hispanics are a diverse population; while Puerto Ricans constitute the majority of Hispanics in New York City (60%), Dominicans, Colombians, Cubans, and Central Americans represent a significant percentage of the overall city population. Hispanics, in comparison to other groups in New York City, are fairly young and have a higher fertility rate than the rest of the population: the median age of Hispanics in New York City is 26.7, compared to 32.6 for the general population; approximately 60% of Hispanic families have children under the age of 18; and the fertility rate of 25–34 year old Hispanic women in New York City is about 1.9, compared to 1.5 for non-Hispanic woman in that age range. This results in a disproportionately large number of Hispanic children in the schools, many of whom come from families suffering great economic difficulties.

Language is the unifying cultural characteristic of Hispanic life. It is crucial that educators are aware of the sentimental importance that Hispanics attach to their language, especially in schools that have the resources to interpret and translate from English to Spanish.

Hispanics and Schools

There is a general sense that Hispanic children do not function well in schools and that schools do not function well for Hispanic children; “poor functioning” in this case refers to the high dropout rate, the disproportionate amount of time spent on non-academic teaching, discipline problems among students, and parents who are relatively unresponsive to teacher and school requests. In general, Hispanic families are ethnically diverse, predominantly poor, recently migrated, young, undereducated, and underemployed, all of which may contribute to these school problems.

Hispanics are generally in the lower and working classes of the city’s population. As a result, the daily stress of economic instability may take the child away from the activity of learning and prevent the parent from encouraging academic success. In addition, teacher expectations of student performance are often influenced by the child’s socioeconomic status. According to the concept of generational transmission of values, school authorities tend to expect that the parents’ occupation will eventually be transmitted to the child. Certain courses and occupations are considered realistic and proper, and others are said to be beyond the child’s means. Although parents may not realize it, they collaborate in this effort through their concept of what it means to do well in school; working class parents tend to think that obedience is paramount, while middle class parents encourage inquisitiveness and working as a member of a team.

A second factor related to poor school functioning among Hispanics is their immigrant status. Immigration is a process of acculturation—of learning new ways to behave. It is a slow and anxiety-provoking process that unfolds over a lifetime and places great strain on families. Children are at a pivotal point in this process because they are being torn in two different directions; the teacher’s gain is the parent’s loss of the “old ways.” The immigrant parent sees the school as just one more alien institution that is sometimes puzzling and often difficult to deal with, similar to the courts, the police, and municipal government. To the immigrant parent, education is not a collaborative relationship between the parent and teacher; when a child is in school, in the immigrant’s world view, he or she is the sole responsibility of school authorities. The school becomes a major battle area in the process of acculturation, with teachers as the main actors. Educators must be made aware of the need to nurture biculturalism and bilingualism so the immigrant child may feel at home in both worlds. It is important that the teacher affirms the multiple aspects of the child’s identity.

In addition to poverty and the immigrant experience, a third factor influences schooling for Hispanic children: Hispanic cultural life. The Hispanic family generally has a pronounced sexual division of labor; the father is considered to be the main source of authority and the final arbiter, while the mother is the chief executive who conducts the daily business of running the family. As the primary broker of services to the family, the Hispanic mother conducts relations with institutions, including the school; a teacher who wishes to discuss a child’s performance must deal with her. However, any major decisions require the father’s approval. The teacher must understand this subtle distinction in order to communicate with the family.

There are also gender differences with respect to roles and expectations for children. Traditionally, Hispanic males are thought to be driven by inborn malice and sexual energy, while females are viewed as helpless and in need of protection. Hispanic parents will often discipline their daughters in ways that teachers consider unnecessary and out of proportion, yet even the worst behavior is acceptable for boys. There is often unspoken conflict between a teacher and an Hispanic parent regarding the age of independence; immigrant children are viewed within the traditional Hispanic context, and they may continue to be dependent on their parents far beyond the age that most Americans would consider appropriate. This tendency for parent over-protectiveness may further contribute to school-related problems.

When dealing with Hispanic parents, it is important that teachers present themselves less as professional educators and more as persons with qualities attractive to the parents. Teachers and administrators must show that they are interested in the parent as a human being and not only in relation to the student. Emphasis must be placed on respect and personal interest; professionalism, educational skills, and authority, things we are taught to stand for as professionals, should be minimized.

The Black Community

The American social system sustains and encourages Black culture through racial, mental, physical, and social isolation; Black people live, study, work, and socialize together because of our system of social stratification (Hale-Benson, 1982). As with the Hispanic community, Blacks in America are a diverse group representing Caribbean cultures, African cultures, and the American Black experience. Like Hispanics, Blacks do not fare well in America compared to whites.

There is a duality of socialization required of Black people: children must be prepared to imitate the “hip, cool” behavior of their culture while simultaneously taking on those behaviors necessary for upward mobility. For Black Americans, as for other minority groups, socialization becomes increasingly difficult as they attempt to live in both worlds (Levine, 1977).

Income and Poverty

Regardless of family type, Black families earn significantly less than white families; in fact, they average 60% less. In 1983, half of all Black families living in the United States had incomes below $14,500. Now, almost half of all Black children are poor, making up 44% of the Black population living in poverty; only 1 in 6 white children are poor, making up 36.6% of the white population living in poverty. The gap between Black and white family income has increased over the years; the median Black family income was 10% less in 1983 than in 1970, which is five times the decline among white families. White males earn more than any other group: in 1982, the median income for white male college graduates was $29,000, and for Black male college graduates it was $19,000; for white female college graduates the median income was $18,000, and for Black female college graduates it was $16,000.

Employment and Unemployment

At all ages and educational levels, Black men and women are more likely than white men and women to be unemployed, and those Blacks who are employed earn less money. In September 1984, about 15% of all Blacks and 6% of all whites were without jobs, and almost half the Black teens looking for work were unable to find jobs. Young Black college graduates have an unemployment rate almost as high as that of white high school dropouts; about 1 in 4 cannot find a job. Among Black high school dropouts, the picture is much worse—more than half are unemployed. The unemployment rate among Black teenagers is almost three times that of white teenagers, with only 2 out of 10 Black teens currently holding jobs.

Education

For Blacks, the issue of the 1980s seems to be education for survival; the necessity for continuous adaptation to the American social order has destroyed their opportunities for success and their trust in other people (Johnson & Sanday, 1971). Almost 40% of all Black children are growing up in families where the head of the household did not complete high school; this is twice the rate for white children, who are almost four times more likely than Black children to live in families headed by college graduates.

Black children score fewer correct answers on reading tests than do white children, and the older they get, the worse they score; there is a 19-percentage-point gap between the reading scores of Black and white 17-year-olds. Black students of all ages are poor readers when compared to white students. Although significant reading and math gains were made by many Black children during the 1970s, the gap still remains.

Black students are twice as likely as white students to be suspended from school, to be corporally punished, or to be out of school. Black 17-year-olds are three times more likely than white 17-year-olds to be two or more years behind the modal grade for their age, and almost half of all Black 17-year-old males are either behind in school or have dropped out. In 1982, about 1 in 4 Black 18- to 20-year-olds had dropped out of school, with 40% of the Black female dropouts giving pregnancy as their reason for leaving school (Nobels, 1985).

Schooling

It is generally believed that the American educational system has not been effective in educating Black children. Traditional education has emphasized the shaping of children to fit into an educational process designed for middle class, Anglo-Saxon children. One reason for the high failure rate of some minority students is this mismatch between the school culture and the social, cultural, and experiential backgrounds of the children. Educators need to understand the cultural orientation of the home and community and its relationship to the school performance of Black children (Hale-Benson, 1982). Unfortunately, the Black home environment has been labeled “pathological,” and Black parents have traditionally been accused of failing to prepare their children adequately for school. Minority student performance would improve if the school curriculum and environment were made to reflect their particular learning styles and cultural backgrounds.

Child-Rearing

Black child-rearing practices are shaped by the racism and economic oppression faced in America; they are generally authoritarian in nature, having as their objective the development of toughness and self-sufficiency. Black mothers tend to be more firm and physical in their discipline than white mothers; they must prepare their children to assume appropriate age and sex roles in addition to the racial role, defined socially and politically as being resistant, suspicious, and cautious (Nobles, 1974). Black parents have had to ignore white child-rearing norms, which they have found to be irrelevant to the existential situation of their children.

Henderson and Washington (1975) find that many school practices are inappropriate for treating the educational needs of Black children because their unique cultural attributes have not been taken into account. Within the Black community, a network of significant adults firmly corrects undesirable behaviors whenever they occur, and these behaviors are then reported to the parents. The significant feature of this system is that the child develops an external locus of control; however, in the school situation, adults seem to expect that the locus of social control exists within the child. In addition, parents and teachers seldom communicate, and few Black parents participate in the school’s Parent Teacher Association. The social control apparatus of the school functions in a way that is quite different from the child’s community, and yet it does not immediately include parents in its operation.

The differences in child-rearing practices between Black and white parents may result in cultural dissonance in school. White teachers typically do not function in ways that are consistent with Black children’s expectations of adults. They have no conception of the kind of reality Black children face (Hale-Benson, 1982); for example, white teachers cannot believe that Black parents teach their children to hit anybody who hits them. As a result, teachers expect Black children to behave as “good” little children should. Often, teachers do not behave in the same ways as adults in the community, and only gross acts of impropriety are reported to the parents. Hence, children and teachers have mutually incompatible expectations of each other. The teachers conclude that the child is incorrigible, and the child concludes that the teachers are inconsistent and capricious (Henderson & Washington, 1975).

Minority Deaf Students

The same social, economic, and political factors that have created changes in the general population have affected schools and programs for deaf and hard of hearing children. For example, the student population at the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York City is now 32% Hispanic, 25% Black, and 7% Asian, and these numbers are on the rise. In addressing the needs of racial, linguistic, and ethnic minority deaf students, all of the preceding issues related to cultural values, child-rearing practices, and varying value systems apply. Poor educational performance among minority deaf children seems to parallel that of minority children in mainstream education (Delgado, 1981).

Deafness makes one no less a member of a racial, linguistic, or ethnic minority; however, educators of deaf children and youth have been either unwilling or slow to respond to this proposition. Deaf children who are members of ethnic minorities possess dual minority group membership, often compounding their role confusion and identity crisis. Black deaf individuals, for example, may be discriminated against by white deaf people and by hearing Black people (Anderson & Bowe, 1972). In addition, the significant cultural differences that exist between Hispanic and other linguistic minority deaf students are seldom understood or addressed in the curriculum. Consider the following, which indicate a systematic and systemic lack of attention to racial, linguistic, and ethnic minority deaf students:

•There are hundreds of books on the education of the deaf, yet only one, The Hispanic Deaf: Issues and Challenges for Bilingual Special Education (Delgado), concerns Hispanic children, and one, Black and Deaf in America: Are We That Different? (Hairston & Smith), addresses the needs of Black deaf students.

•Articles addressing the general needs of minority handicapped children have begun to appear frequently in the literature. However, to this day, only a handful of articles exist addressing the needs of minority deaf students.

•Only one federally funded demonstration project, Projecto Oportunidad (Rhode Island School for the Deaf, 1980–83), which developed a program specifically for language minority deaf students, has been funded. This project was funded by the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs. No such project addressing the needs of Black deaf students has been funded.

•Twenty-five years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and years after the Bilingual Education Act, personnel at the Lexington School for the Deaf, where a well-developed program addressing the needs of Hispanic deaf students exists, are finally being asked to do introductory level awareness workshops at schools for the deaf.

•Although the rationale and model now exist to support a bilingual approach to education (Delgado, 1981; Fischgrund, 1982), schools for the deaf continue to resist providing home language instruction, usually on the grounds that the children are deaf, that they have “no language” upon school entry, or that they must learn English. These arguments have no foundation in the literature addressing language or educational needs of minority children. Translation and interpretation services, even when required by regulation, are still hard to obtain for most non-English speaking parents of deaf children.

•Only a handful of programs exist to meet the needs of language minority deaf students. Among these are:

* The Hispanic Resource team at Lexington School for the Deaf, which works with Hispanic students and families.

* Projecto Oportunidad at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, which works with Hispanic and Portuguese students and families.

* Project F.A.C.E.T. (Franco-American Children’s Educational Team) at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf in Maine, which works with French-American students and families.

These programs serve approximately 200 students, yet Delgado’s 1981 survey identified over 7,000 students from non-English speaking homes. In addition, Delgado’s study documented that deaf students from non-English speaking homes are three to four times more likely to be classified as learning disabled, mentally retarded, or emotionally disturbed. This is believed to be a function of the lack of specialized programs, lack of trained native language personnel, lack of cultural understanding, and lowered expectations rather than a characteristic of the children themselves.

School Policy

There are several ways to approach ethnic and cultural awareness in school policy. Three such models, positive hostility, official disinterest, and positive reinforcement, have been utilized in this country over the years. Positive hostility occurred when laws forbade the use of any language except English in the schools, when children were punished for not speaking English, and when minority children’s language and backgrounds were ridiculed (Glazer, 1980). The effects of the positive hostility model are described by Benavides (1980), one of its products, who is a hearing person from a regular school:

I was consistently reminded of my “differences” through the absence of experiences that reflected my language, culture, values, and most important, being accepted in my own right. I believe it was this process, the process of having to abandon “self and change my differences, that caused the low self-esteem, alienation, dissonance, and a most difficult and unpleasant school experience. (pp. 8–9)

While policies of positive hostility are officially outlawed in the United States, such practices undoubtedly survive.

The second model, official disinterest, seems to have a great deal of support. Despite Dewey’s belief in cultural pluralism in public education, which dictates that every pupil should be made aware of the rich breadth of our national makeup, children of various backgrounds have found that schools, for the most part, ignore their backgrounds. The early, immigrant-sponsored, non-English speaking newspapers, schools, churches, and social organizations have been difficult to maintain into their second and third generations. Public schools have taught that people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln were the heroes and fathers of our country; traditionally, there has been no mention of minority heroes. Children are often placed in the dilemma of deciding whether to take their cultural heroes seriously, since these people are apparently barred from the American school curriculum (Longstreet, 1980).

Out of these models of prejudice and indifference has grown an understanding of and a commitment toward cultural pluralism. This new model, called positive reinforcement, currently dominates in the educational setting. To be effective, positive reinforcement cannot be imposed—it must evolve; initially, process is more important than content. The goal of such an endeavor is not to plan and carry out ethnic activities in isolation, but to create a school environment in which ethnicity becomes institutionalized in a positive and vibrant way. This model may be seen as an abandonment of earlier policies promoting the melting pot theory.

In their efforts to teach basic skills to deaf children, educators and parents have tended to overlook cultural and ethnic experiences and values; these experiences often occur incidentally for hearing children, since so much of our culture, arts, and heritage are naturally transmitted through records, movies, plays, television, religious observances, and other institutions that rely primarily on linguistic and auditory competency. Schools for deaf children in the United States, especially those in urban areas, reflect the same cultural and ethnic variations as do schools for hearing children. A major effort should be made to develop appropriate materials to teach deaf children ethnic, cultural, and racial awareness; helping deaf children become more aware of the ethnic and cultural differences between themselves and deaf persons of other ethnic groups, or between themselves and hearing members of their own ethnic group, is an important factor in their education, development, and survival. When an environment is created in which educators promote understandings of ethnic and racial heritage, teachers will become more effective (Cohen & Grant, 1981).

Parent Involvement

Parent involvement in education is more important for a disabled child than for most non-handicapped children. Yet, as a result of language barriers and cultural and socioeconomic differences, ethnic minority parents often experience discomfort, intimidation, and alienation in their relationships with school officials. These feelings become exacerbated in a school for the deaf, where the specialness, and therefore strangeness, of the situation imposes an added barrier. Every effort should be made to minimize the parents’ sense of alienation. Conducting meetings with minority parents in their own language is often a worthwhile initial step toward helping them feel comfortable in taking risks and making further contact with the school.

Board and Staff Representation

Jensema and Corbett (1980) found that approximately 94% of the teachers in their survey reported themselves as members of the “white” ethnic group. From this, the authors concluded that there is a gross imbalance in the racial make-up of the teaching population; this imbalance, likely replicated among trustees of schools for the deaf, may have a great negative impact on school policy. The lack of proportionate representation by minority professionals signals to parents and students that the school’s policies are insensitive to their needs. Disproportionately high numbers of white staff generally result in a more rigid, white, middle-class cultural orientation, thereby excluding minority children from full participation in the process of education.

The Center School

The center school takes on a special importance for many deaf children, and minority students represent a high percentage of the institutional care population. Particularly during adolescence, the center school represents an environment where leadership and socialization skills are fostered; opportunities to engage in athletics, student government, drama, yearbook, and other activities are greatly enhanced in the center school. While these activities are essential to their growth and development, deaf adolescents rarely become active in the social fabric of regular high schools.

Overall, awareness of the importance of curriculum, especially in the area of language, is relatively high at center schools; in these programs, curricula are specifically designed to meet the needs of the children served. Support services, such as staff training in the dynamics of language acquisition of deaf children, are more likely to be available in center schools. In fact, the amount of time devoted to staff training is generally greater at center schools, where the primary focus is the education and development of deaf children; in large urban districts, special education is one of several areas represented, and staff development needs are determined by majority concerns. For example, teachers in the New York City public schools meet for only one hour each month, while teachers at the Lexington School for the Deaf meet for one hour and 45 minutes every week.

In addition to providing quality residential care and treatment for profoundly deaf children, the center school is in a strategic position to meet the particular needs of parents. The trustees of center schools establish policy related to the needs of deaf children; local education authorities are less able to devote time, energy, and resources toward the needs of disabled children, who represent one subset of the larger population. Due process clauses mandated by Public Law 94–142 generally discriminate against minority families, since these families are often unable to assert their rights. The center school, with its focus on the needs of deaf children, is in a position to meet the needs of minority families of deaf children.

In addition to the center schools, professional organizations serving the deaf are in a position to alleviate this situation. Minority concerns sections should be developed to promote awareness of minority issues, personnel recruitment and training, research and development projects, and leadership in areas related to minority deaf children. In New York City, only two established agencies have programs designed for deaf children in residential care—the Lexington School for the Deaf and the New York Foundling Hospital.

Staff Training

Staff training in the modification of intervention strategies is the logical starting point toward addressing the needs of ethnic, multicultural deaf children. Educators must raise expectations for minority youth; “killer” assumptions must be rejected.

School is a transmitter of culture; it makes a significant contribution to the developing personal and occupational identities of students. For Black children, and Black deaf children in particular, exposure to positive role models is limited because educators are either unaware of their existence or do not recognize their significance. Teachers and administrators typically do not receive training in the cultures of the children and families with whom they interact; they may be unaware that cultural knowledge can be utilized to promote learning and effective cross-cultural exchange. Frequently on the institutional level, and more subtly on the interpersonal level, Black children and their parents find that educational environments offer reminders of their culture’s devalued status; for example, lower status employees are typically non-white, while higher status employees are typically white. It was once naively assumed that positive attitudes would develop if people of different races were simply mixed; however, studies of desegregated schools show that the result was often greater intergroup hostility and conflict, since the students quickly learned who was valued and who was not (Davidson, 1976).

Experience has shown that prejudice is extremely difficult to eliminate. The prevailing attitude appears to be an intellectual disavowal of prejudice and racism. This has created a situation whereby many people who do not consider themselves racist justify their racist attitudes and behavior with what they believe to be rational, unbiased explanations; people are less likely to admit prejudice, but there has been no decrease in the tendency to behave in a bigoted manner. Consequently, it is difficult to obtain direct access to prejudiced attitudes for the purpose of altering those attitudes.

In May 1988, under the auspices of the New York State Department of Education, the Lexington School for the Deaf developed a prototype staff training model to build staff awareness and sensitivity to the needs of Black deaf children and their families. The project proceeded on the assumption that a lack of understanding of the values, motives, behavioral codes, and language of Black culture frequently results in low expectations and unwarranted generalizations about these children’s educational potential. The program’s objective is to enable educators to become aware of how racism affects their lives and impacts upon the educational experiences of their disabled students. It is hoped that teachers will change their attitudes and behaviors toward Black children and adults.

Steps in Implementing the Project

Initially, an organizational structure was established, consisting of a project director, a full-time assistant, an advisory board, and a secretary. Next, a needs assessment was conducted; this included a thorough review of the literature, conferences and correspondence with a variety of professionals in fields related to the goals of the project, and meetings with students, parents, supervisors, teaching assistants, and other staff about their perceptions of the needs and experiences of Black deaf students and their families. The results of this needs assessment guided the development of the training model.

In the end, a triphasic, 18-hour program was designed to promote the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitude change in teachers, teaching assistants, administrators, and support staff. Phase I of the training centers on helping participants acquire an understanding of institutional and cultural racism, as well as their impact upon the experiences of Black deaf individuals. Phase II encourages participants to explore the culturally relevant values, beliefs, and behaviors that they bring to interactions with those who are culturally different. Phase III addresses action strategies that help to eliminate or reduce the impact of racism and discrimination in the educational setting. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the significance of deaf culture. For additional information on each phase, see Figure 1 on page 126.

The training program was not built around a series of loosely connected cultural awareness exercises; a well-established group relations paradigm was utilized, and the importance of unconscious beliefs, feelings, and motives as primary determinants of individual and group behavior were recognized. The basic premise was that, in order to function optimally, a group must be relatively clear about its primary task and relatively free of anxiety and counterproductive assumptions and motives. Groups vary in size, composition, and purpose; group exercises foster a progression toward awareness of the significance of individual contributions to group attitudes and behavior, as well as larger systems’ dynamics that promote or impede positive group relations. Emphasis is placed on how issues of difference impact upon the group’s ability to reach its goals and fulfill its tasks. With the help of consultants, participants examine ways of relating to others through observing and attempting to understand individual and group behavior.

There were several assumptions underlying the design of this model: 1) experiential learning leads to greater transfer of knowledge and skills; 2) learning is an active process, and therefore passive acceptance of information is not learning; 3) learning methods should be varied to decrease boredom; 4) the trainer should attempt to make the complex look simple; 5) if experimenting with new skills leads to success, attitude change will occur; 6) frequent opportunity to practice new skills leads to success; 7) the learner should secure satisfaction from learning; 8) standards of performance should be set for the learner; and 9) improved cross-cultural exchange will result from greater understanding, increased respect for cultural diversity, and the sense of empowerment that comes from feeling more competent as an educator. Each training phase had goals for learning, attitude change, and skills acquisition. Because training is more effective if participants are brought to a minimum level of knowledge, some reading is required during the three-day session. To stimulate thinking and encourage participation, a keynote address on the impact of disability and minority group status preceded the pilot training.

This training program should be thought of as a first step in an on-going process. Program participants, therefore, should not consider that they have “graduated from a training program.” It is hoped that participants will develop an appreciation for the structural dynamics of racial discrimination and, consequently, a commitment to working for change at that level.

After training is completed, consultant services should be utilized for periodic follow-up sessions. To promote continuity, members of the school staff should be trained as consultants when feasible. Since consulting requires a relatively sophisticated level of training and clinical sensitivity, proper selection and training of candidates is of paramount importance. The best trainers are well informed about the dynamics of racism, systems, and groups; in addition, they have a well-developed sense of their own relevant attitudes and beliefs. Trainers should be able to make both manifest and unconscious meanings of participant communication available to the group. Further, they should resist the tendency to emphasize similarities in people while dismissing or ignoring important differences. Most importantly, trainers should be sensitive to signs of defensiveness and vulnerability in participants. The consultant should create an atmosphere in which defensiveness can be replaced by curiosity and a desire for self-knowledge.

During the pilot training, pre-project and post-project interviews were held to assess attitudinal and behavioral changes. The end product was a training manual that will soon be distributed by the New York State Department of Education.

Conclusion

The picture for minority children in the United States is bleak, and the situation for minority deaf children is no less so. A deaf minority child’s needs often exceed those of non-minority deaf children for reasons beyond poverty. Minority deaf children live in a multicultural world; they are members of their ethnic minority culture, of deaf culture, and of the predominant Anglo-Saxon culture of the United States. Too much attention may be focused on the needs imposed by deafness, and too little on cultural backgrounds and concomitant forces at play in the home and community.

The picture, however, need not be so bleak. Trustees, teachers, administrators, and government officials must become aware of minority concerns. In addition, curriculum must be assessed, resources made available, minority staff recruitment aggressively pursued, intake and placement procedures reviewed, and parent and home relations analyzed and revamped. In short, a spirit must be developed that focuses on the strengths of minority deaf children and their families.

With few exceptions, neither local educational agencies nor center schools have risen to this challenge, and it appears unlikely that local agencies will in the near future; deafness is a low incidence disability, and with the large number of concerns currently facing education, it is unlikely that these agencies will be willing or able to devote appropriate attention to the needs of multicultural, minority deaf children. As the number of minority deaf children increases, the opportunity exists for center schools to develop programs with goals of excellence and equity. Recently, a feature in Education Week highlighted the meteoric rise in minority children in school throughout the country. The headline read: “Ready or Not, Here They Come.” Let’s be ready.

About the Presenters

Dr. Oscar P. Cohen is the executive director of the Lexington School for the Deaf. He received his Ph.D. in special education administration from Teachers’ College, Columbia University. He serves as chair of the CEASD Committee on Ethnic and Multicultural Concerns.

Dr. Cynthia Grace is the project director of the training program to increase staff sensitivity toward the needs of Black Deaf children and their families at the Lexington School for the Deaf. She is also an assistant professor of psychology at the City College of New York. She earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the City University of New York and an Ed.D. in counseling psychology from Columbia University.

Figure 1.

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