Children missing out on learning

The May 21 Voices article (“Words of hope reach hungry ears”) left us at a loss for words.

Are we to believe that a 5- to 6-year-old can act as a language model to a child with profound hearing loss? Since a profound hearing loss is defined by the inability to hear loud speech and sounds, we can only assume that the deaf or hard of hearing students at HOPE School have no choice but to rely on lip reading for access to communication that occurs in the classroom.

Research has proven that, at best, only 30 percent of English speech is discernable on the lips. Meaning these children are still missing out on a majority of the conversation and education taking place in the classroom. Because of this, it is presumptuous of instructional assistant Jennie Wheaton to predict that her student will “be fine in school from now on.”

The overall message seems to be that if everyone with a disability would emulate nondisabled role models, they could resolve their issues and barriers and be just like so-called normal people.

Eloisa Williams and Betsy Jordan

Spokane Valley