"Listening and speaking are sensory partners of reading and writing," said Judith S. Sexton, director of the school, which also has a Philadelphia campus.
Researchers are still examining how well that theory holds up in the long term, as the first generation of children with cochlear implants enters adulthood. Some do well with the devices, which require surgery and extensive follow-up therapy, while others struggle to adapt.
What's clear is that the implants, two decades after they were first approved for children, have had a big effect on educating the deaf. The devices do not provide normal hearing, but they deliver electrical signals directly to the auditory nerve, enabling the deaf to perceive sound.
With the advent of newborn screening for hearing loss, deaf children are getting the surgery earlier than ever - in some cases even before the federally approved benchmark of 12 months - and evidence suggests they learn to speak better as a result. Meanwhile, with more deaf children in regular public schools, enrollments have declined at traditional schools for the deaf. That has raised concerns for some in the deaf community, a proud group that boasts a rich culture and does not necessarily see hearing loss as a disability needing to be fixed.
There are approaches between the extremes. At the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Germantown, 30 of the 220 students have implants, and all are taught bilingually, with some classes in English and some in American Sign Language. New Jersey's Katzenbach School for the Deaf in Ewing uses a technique called "total communication," involving the simultaneous use of speech and signs.
