The children's only family then become those who reside at the institution. Not all are so unfortunate. There are those parents out there who .
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spend a great deal of time with their child doing all they can to help their child learn and get up to a pace so they can be mainstreamed. One particular story I read really moved me. It was that of two deaf children born to hearing parents. The parents were very involved with the children's learning. Each child had in their room a blackboard that was used for learning different words. Each day, the parents would different words from a picture dictionary. When the children were six and seven their parents taught them how to play Scrabble and how to do crossword puzzles. Even their grandmother "talked" to them in writing showing them that they could communicate in this manner. Because of this wonderful parent involvement, these children grew up very confident and proud of their literacy. .
I reiterate, not all children are lucky enough to have the time needed with their parents, so thankfully, there are some schools in the United States that compensate for those children. In the early nineteenth century, American School for the Deaf, also known as ASD .
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"served as a model institution and training ground for numerous schools for the deaf, which opened elsewhere during this period. Instruction was in sign language, with the goals of imparting literacy, training for productive labor, and religious salvation. ASD was a Congregationalist school in it's early years, which was consistent with the civil government of Connecticut at the time the school was established." (ASD.org/hist/histed.htm) "There are many important features that go along with teaching deaf children. One of those are the teachers using manual communication which allows the deaf people to become teachers. There were many alumni from this school that went on to become teachers as well as principals around the United States, which helped spread American Sign Language throughout the country.