Hearing the World Around Them

Being born deaf no longer means what it did just a decade ago. Because of great strides in the quality of inner-ear implants, the number of deaf children who join their hearing peers in regular schools is growing at an unprecedented rate.

That means that most of the 160 hearing-impaired children under the tutelage of teachers at the Clarke School for the Deaf/Center for Oral Education each year are able to go to schools in their own neighborhoods by the time they reach second grade. At the Clarke School, founded in Massachusetts in 1867 but now with students around the world, deafness is not considered a disability, but impaired language development is.

The Clarke School usually starts its relationships with students and their families by collaborating with specialized medical centers that implant devices in the cochleas of infants. Improvements in implant technology have greatly increased the chances for many kids to hear enough to develop spoken language skills. Then, the Clarke School teaches parents to nurture language skills in their hearing-impaired youngsters.

But there’s a lot more to the Clarke School. Students also participate in arts and social events designed to encourage their hearing and speaking abilities. Each year, students, some of whom spend up to 12 years at Clarke, put on a musical play, in which they lip-synch or dance. Dances are held weekly. And many students, like those shown here, are introduced to a wide array of musical instruments during Clarke’s “Music Madness” units.