Presenters: Dr. Petra Horn-Marsh and Dr. Paula Pittman
Deaf Professionals in the Home – Deaf Mentoring: the Missing Link
The session will briefly describe the history of the SKI-HI Institute in the area of providing early intervention services and support to families with deaf and hard-of-hearing children. The benefits of the early intervention services and support are augmented when a missing puzzle piece of early intervention programming, Deaf adults as Deaf Mentors, is included. Typically available to families with deaf and hard-of-hearing infants and toddlers, the SKI-HI Institute goes one step further by making the services available from birth to age 6. The Deaf Mentor Curriculum, which was created for the Deaf Mentor Program, is presented to families in collaboration with early intervention and early childhood education professionals. The Deaf Mentor Program is a working model incorporating bilingual language acquisition (American Sign Language and English), approaches to providing support and encouragement to families, ways to promote positive communication with families, and the creation of a bicultural community where deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people learn, play and work together cohesively. Bilingualism in ASL and English, and biculturalism in home and school life promote healthy language development and communication, and create positive self-esteem among deaf/hard of hearing children of diverse color and creed.
Learners Objectives:
Participants will:
- Develop an understanding of the value of having Deaf professionals in the early intervention system.
- Define Deaf mentoring and the roles of Deaf professionals as Deaf Mentors within the SKI-HI Model.
- Describe what the SKI-HI Deaf Mentor model looks like within the early intervention system and deaf education system.
- Illustrate how Deaf Mentors can serve as one of the links in school and home partnership.
- Identify ways to start a Deaf Mentor Program in their states.
Petra M. Horn-Marsh, PhD graduated from Gallaudet University with a BA in Secondary Education and History, a MA in History from Utah State University, a PhD in Sociology from Utah State University, and completed a Deaf Education certification program at the University of Kansas. While studying at Utah State University, Petra did language assessments with D/HH children ages 0-6 throughout the state as part of the Deaf Mentor Project with the Ski*Hi Institute. When the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind adopted the Deaf Mentor Program, she worked as the Deaf Mentor Program Specialist for nearly 4 years. Petra is now an Elementary/Early Childhood Principal at the Kansas State School for the Deaf in Olathe, Kansas. She is also an AEBPD bilingual mentor in her ninth year at KSD and an adjunct professor with the Deaf Education department at Gallaudet University in her third year. She is Deaf with two Deaf children and 3 hearing children, one of them in Kenya at the deaf school now as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Petra co-wrote an article, “Bilingual Students Publish Works in ASL and English”, with Kester Horn-Marsh in the spring 2009 issue of the Odyssey magazine.
Dr. Paula Pittman is the director of SKI-HI and Deaf Mentor Outreach at the SKI-HI Institute at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. She has been involved in early intervention with families and children in direct services throughout her career and has worked in the area of curriculum and the development of educational materials for families who have infants and young children ages birth to three who are deaf or hard of hearing, including the SKI-HI Curriculum and the Deaf Mentor Curriculum. She has been a National Trainer for the SKI-HI Institute for 24 years and has worked directly with infants who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families providing home-based early intervention services for 30 years.
