The province’s Child and Youth Advocate has released “The Sounds of Silence” a report on the educational system’s response to deaf and hard of hearing children and young people.

Last year, Todd and Kim Churchill of Portugal Cove-St. Philips raised questions about why their son, who uses American Sign Language, could not be accommodated in his language at school with a full-time ASL teacher.

Child and Youth Advocate, Jackie Lake Kavanagh launched her review last fall to examine family experiences with deaf and hard of hearing services in the school system.

She heard that most classrooms are not designed or resourced to support optimal learning for deaf and hard of hearing students.

She says in most cases children are expected to adapt to their classroom rather than the other way around. She outlined things like line of sight for lip readers, awareness, background noise and a lack of universal design concepts as barriers to students.

It’s not all bad, Kavanagh says quality deaf education is possible with appropriate supports, resources and motivated leadership. She says a small number of schools have already actively embraced ASL and promote teacher and student learning in the language.

Kavanagh says students have a right to the best possible education and school experience and there are no exceptions to that right.