Children Are Immersed in Talk at Taft School, Where There Are . . . : Signs of Joy

At first glance, this could have been any group of kindergartners . . . seven of them up on the small “stage” . . . giggling and bumping each other and making faces while they were supposed to be rehearsing for the Christmas program. Even teacher Sue Tellez was caught up in the merriment, but she knew it was time to get down to business: The Christmas program was just six days away.

So Tellez raised her arms, signaling quiet, and began to sing, “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Seven small sets of eyes gleamed; seven small mouths formed the words as best they could, and seven sets of hands went into action, quickly forming the words with fingers and motions.

Yet, Principal Teena Atchley said, smiling as she watched the scene, these youngsters “are not really associating with the music at this point.” That is because all seven have severe or profound hearing impairment; in spite of their giggles and laughs, they could not hear even their own words with any clarity. Still, it would hardly be Christmas for youngsters without Rudolph. And that includes the children at Taft Hearing Impaired School in Santa Ana.

Some of the seven youngsters in Sue Tellez’s kindergarten have been attending Taft since their toddler days.

One of those is petite, bright-eyed Christine Kim, 5, whose parents are Korean. Christine has an older sister, Sung, 8, who also is hearing-impaired and a student at Taft so the parents were quick to pick up on the problem when Christine was born. They knew their daughter would be far ahead if she started school early.

“We prefer to get them at 18 months,” Atchley said. “We think that even 3 years old is late.”

“Even at 18 months, they have missed 18 months of communication,” Tellez added.

“I think a lot of people in the general public don’t realize how early you can test--in infancy--for hearing impairment,” Atchley said. And the child who is diagnosed and put into a special program early is the one with the best chance of developing the language skills needed to succeed in a speaking society, she added.

“Language develops in a hearing child from the time (he or she) is born,” Atchley said. “If the child doesn’t hear, language doesn’t develop unless there is some intervention.”

Each child at Taft is involved in a “total communication” program. “We use sign language, speech and listening and lip-reading,” Atchley said. “And all of our students have hearing aids or amplification systems.”

Taft Hearing Impaired School, which is part of the Santa Ana Unified School District but draws its 85 preschool- and elementary-level students from 12 area districts, keeps its classes small: There are five to nine students for each teacher-aide combination.

The school staff includes both an audiologist and a speech therapist, who work regularly with the children. Additionally, the hearing-impaired students get a chance to interact with hearing youngsters at Taft Elementary School, which is located next-door and shares its playground, library, lunchroom and some class work with the hearing-impaired students. The two Taft schools were built next to each other in the early ‘70s specifically to provide for interaction among the two groups of students, Atchley said.

Sign Language Classes

At the hearing-impaired school, mothers and fathers--even brothers, sisters and friends--are given opportunities to get involved with the educational program. Sign language classes are provided for parents who speak English as well as those who speak Spanish or other foreign languages; special classes are scheduled for siblings. Instruction in sign language is also offered to hearing students at Taft Elementary School so they can communicate better with the hearing-impaired students.

In addition, parents are encouraged to make sure the hearing-impaired children use their communications skills at home as well as at school. “We ask a lot of our parents,” Atchley said.

Not all parents are able to work with their children at home, however.

One of Tellez’s students is Sokphea Som, 6, whose parents emigrated from Cambodia about the time Sokphea was to start school. Her parents do not speak English and have been unable to help their daughter with sign language. Until Sokphea started work at Taft last year, she had no way of communicating either in Cambodian or English, except through informal pointing and acting out, Tellez explained. She still must use those primitive skills at home, Tellez added; but at Taft, Sokphea is learning language, learning words that express ideas, learning to “talk” with teachers and classmates, mostly through sign language but also through her first steps toward speech.

Keeping Up

When Tellez’s class joins a “hearing” kindergarten class at Taft Elementary School each afternoon, Sokphea is there, too. And she is keeping up. She can already print her name, following the same kind of lettering model used by the other youngsters, both hearing and hearing-impaired. She can follow the teacher’s stories and instructions, as interpreted in sign language for Tellez’s class. Sokphea, in spite of her late start, “will grow up and be a responsible, working adult,” Atchley predicted.

Already, it turns out, Sokphea is helping her class make something of a record: It is the first Taft hearing-impaired class ever to successfully “mainstream” as a group with a hearing class, Atchley believes. Sokphea and her classmates spend each afternoon with a kindergarten class at Taft Elementary School.

Mainstreaming, of course, is a goal for every hearing-impaired youngster, she added. While not all are able to manage that at the academic level, Taft Elementary still allows interaction for all students at recess, lunch and library times, Atchley said.

And that is a big asset, she said. For a talking world is the one these youngsters will live in.

Tow-headed Brian Bonner, 5, taking the role of Santa Claus, was at stage right, grinning at tiny Christine Kim. Christine had been chosen to play Rudolph . . . and in her own quiet way she was glorying in the part. Rudolph was the star, and she knew it. Nobody--not another student, not even the teacher--was going to steal her day in the spotlight.

At the end of the song, it was Christine’s role to lead the other youngsters offstage. Then Jorge Perez, 6, and Jeff Albinio, 6, would pull Santa off in his “sleigh”--today that meant a chair; during the real show, it would be a wagon, with preschool children riding inside.

Today each time Jorge and Jeff pulled the chair “offstage,” Brian added a bit of impromptu action, dramatically tumbling to the floor. During the performance, with McFadden Intermediate School’s large theater filled with families and friends of the 85 Taft students, Brian would be more circumspect.

To those who might watch the show or one day come in contact with her students, Atchley said, “you must not feel sorry for these children; what you must do is give them a chance.”