HB649:

Children who are deaf or hard of hearing; language development, assessment resources.

Bill Summary:

Language development for children who are deaf or hard of hearing; assessment resources for parents and educators; advisory committee; report. Requires the Department of Education, in coordination with the Department for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing and Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, to (i) select, with input from an advisory committee that the bill establishes, language developmental milestones and include such milestones in a resource for use by parents of a child from birth to age five who is identified as deaf or hard of hearing to monitor and track their child's expressive and receptive language acquisition and developmental stages toward English literacy; (ii) disseminate such resource to such parents; (iii) select existing tools or assessments for educators for use in assessing the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf or hard of hearing; (iv) disseminate such tools or assessments to local educational agencies and provide materials and training on their use; and (v) annually produce a report that compares the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf or hard of hearing with the language and literacy development of their peers who are not deaf or hard of hearing and make such report available to the public on its website. The bill states that the advisory committee function shall terminate effective June 30, 2023. This bill is identical to SB 265.