SB141 Summary

• State Department of Education and Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services must jointly select language developmental milestones from existing standardized norms to create a parent resource for monitoring deaf and hard-of-hearing children's expressive and receptive language acquisition from birth to age five.

• Departments shall select existing tools and assessments for educators to use in tracking language and literacy development of deaf and hard-of-hearing children, applicable to both American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English users.

• Advisory committee shall be established by March 1, 2019, with majority deaf or hard-of-hearing members and representatives from education, research, advocacy, and early intervention fields to provide expert input on language developmental milestones.

• Departments must produce annual reports by July 31 of each year, starting in 2019, comparing language and literacy development outcomes of deaf and hard-of-hearing children to hearing peers, broken down by communication modality (listening/spoken language versus ASL).

• Act applies only to children birth to age five and shall not be construed as preferring any specific language or communication modality or influencing family language choices.