Free register today for the 2011 MDAD Conference at http://mdad2011.wildapricot.org.

I would like to take this opportunity to share about the upcoming MDAD’s 42nd Biennial Conference!

The conference will be held on November 11-12 at Maryland School for the Deaf-Columbia Campus. We have two full days of activities planned, including keynote speakers, workshops, ODHH Town Hall, business meeting and elections, exhibit hall and community floor. Friday evening we will host the biennial Miss Deaf Maryland Ambassador competition. Also, we will get to enjoy the happy hour event on both nights at a different location.

The business meeting and elections, and exhibit hall and community floor are open to the community. However, we encourage you register for our combo package to come to learn from our excellent presenters and enjoy catered luncheon, the President’s reception, and Miss Deaf Maryland’s dessert reception.

Registration is required. Take advantage of the low combo rate and register online before October 27, 2011. Advance registration will expedite your entry into the conference. http://mdad2011.wildapricot.org

I am truly excited and can barely wait to see you at the conference

The purpose of this VLOG is to inform/explain about EHDI and why the deaf community should be involved and how to get involved. The acronym: EHDI stands for Early Hearing Detection and Intervention.

This is a law which was passed and in effect since 1991. This law requires all hospitals to screen all infants to test their hearing. If the infants’ hearing screening results show further testing needed to determine the level of hearing. Their deaf babies will need at least one more hearing screening to determine the need of diagnosis to find the level of hearing. After the diagnosis of the hearing level, the deaf baby and family start receiving early intervention services. In the past before the EHDI law, many deaf children were identified deaf at later age- 3, 4 or 5 yrs of age which caused lag in education and language development. The law has helped many deaf and hard of hearing chilldren to be on the par academically. Now, why should deaf community be involved in the EHDI process for the hearing parents?

How many of you know about EHDI? Not many of you know about this law. Deaf community has been “sleeping”. It is important for you to get involved. About 90- 95% of deaf babies have hearing parents. For those hearing parents,they never met deaf children and their deaf baby is their first time to meet a deaf child. They may think their deaf baby is the one and only deaf baby around not knowing there are many deaf people around. They want to know can the deaf people live independently and have job, how do the deaf people wake up in the morning not being able to hear the alarm clock to go to work, they don’t know about various assistive technology: light signaller, vibrator, TTY, VP… They have no idea what deaf people can do. Research studies have shown the hearing parents get over with their grief quickly after they meet deaf people. It is normal for them to experience grieving process for their deaf babies. They need to meet you as their deaf models to give them hope that their deaf baby will be ok.

If you are interested in getting involved to work with MDAD in the EHDI arena, let us know by email: info@mdad.tv. We can discuss more after we hear from you. Thank you for viewing this clip.