House Education Moves HB 4223 to Finance

House Education Committee met at 2 p.m. today to move H.B. 4223.

House Bill 4223, sponsored by Delegate Ruth Rowan, R-Hampshire, would develop a resource for use by parents to monitor and track deaf and hard-of-hearing children’s early language acquisition and expression, and developmental stages toward English literacy. The bill would require the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources through its agencies that serve children ages birth to three jointly select language developmental milestones from existing standardized norms.

Through this bill originally, DHHR would establish an advisory committee to advise the department about content, instruments and develop functions of the resources for appropriate use. The committee would be comprised of:

• One parent of a child who is hard-of-hearing who uses the dual languages of American Sign Language and English
• One parent of a child who is deaf or hard-of-hearing who uses assistive technology to communicate with spoken English
• Two credentialed providers, early interventionists, speech pathologists, educators, or other service providers of deaf or hard-of-hearing children who are knowledgeable in the use of the dual languages of English and American Sign Languages
• Two credentialed providers, early interventionists, speech pathologists, educators, or other service provider of deaf or hard-of-hearing children who are knowledgeable in the use of assistive technology to communicate with spoken English
• One expert who researches or is knowledgeable in the research regarding language outcomes for deaf and hard-of-hearing children using American Sign Language or English
• One expert who researches or is knowledgeable in the research regarding language outcomes for deaf and hard-of-hearing children using assistive technology to communicate with spoken English.

Delegate Michael Folk, R-Berkeley, offerred an amendment that would add a seventh requirement, at least one member must be a deaf adult. Folk expressed his concern of the importance of including a member of the deaf community to be a part of the advisory committee. He said that no one can understand the world in the way a deaf person can unless they are deaf, so there must be a representative on the committee. The amendment was adopted and the bill will now move to the Finance Committee for consideration.