The Deaf Community

Respect for all options and languages

There is no strength in our voice unless we are willing to raise it and demand equality. Every person has the power to create change and together we can be more effective.

So, regardless of your deaf language preference or choice, we as The Deaf Community need to ensure access is provided to everyone and respect parental rights in this community too. It's not about who's right, but about respect for all the deaf communication opportunities.

Most of all, deaf children and their families need full access to equal  and appropriate expertise opportunities for the child to reach their full potential in the chosen communication mode.

We will truly amplify the impact of the ENTIRE deaf community if we work together to support ALL communication opportunities.

Current Legislative Initiatives

Here are current legislative initiatives we are working on, with more states coming soon. We appreciate your support on these issues by contacting your legislator today.

TDC State Chapters

TDC state chapters monitoring langauge equality legislation for the Deaf Community include:

Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Iowa

Kansas

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Nevada

New Hampshire

New York

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island 

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virgia

Washington

West Virgina 

Wisconsin

Members should log into their membership account for updates from their state chapter.

All U.S.

Our TDC state chapters are monitoring language equality and language deprivation initiatives to ensure

all organizations respect parent choice. 

Hearing Care for Child Act

Florida

Ensuring Florida’s children have access to medically necessary hearing aids and related services through their private health insurance.

https://www.facebook.com/hearingcareforchildrenact/

Florida Win!

 Congratulations to the advocates and the TDC team in Florida for your efforts to gain UNANIMOUS support of HB591 which was signed into law by the Governor in 2014.

This is certainly a win for parents of babies who are born with hearing loss so that they receive prompt, unbiased information about intervention options from registered service providers. 

The national office of The Deaf Community sends props to the Florida Chapter of The Deaf Community on all your advocacy work to bring information to families. 

We have an awesome President and he is building a TDC team to model after!



Georgia

Let Georgia Hear!

Let Georgia Hear is a parent-led initiative working towards the goal of securing insurance coverage for children’s hearing aids in Georgia. 

For the latest updates on initiatives, visit:  http://www.letgeorgiahear.org/

Delaware

Congratulations to Choices Delaware and thank you to Representative Valerie Longhurst.  The University of Delaware finally has a graduate program to train future SLP's with hopes of a LSLS program to follow.   All the support in Delaware is appreciated.

For more on Choices Delaware, visit:  http://choices-delaware.org/

North Carolina

!!! Signed !!!

On a side note, some statistics about North Carolina and the shift in communication choices for deaf and hard of hearing children: