1. Low achieving deaf persons have one or more of the following characteristics which seriously curtail or prevent their participation in ongoing vocational training and other adjustment type rehabilitation programs:

a) Inadequate communication skills, specifically an inability to speak or lipread messages easily, coupled with severe language limitations; b) Underdeveloped employment-related social competencies and attitudes; c) Insufficient work skills, and, d) Physical defects in addition to deafness.

It is especially important to emphasize that deaf persons out of school who have the characteristics outlined above are considered to be members of the low achieving deaf population since the schools can no longer accept nor cope with them and their problems.

2. No reliable figures exist but approximately 100,000 and up.

A. Largest percentage is in late teens and early twenties group, but again, no reliable figures exist. It is estimated that 49,000 in the 6-17 age group are now receiving special educational services as a result of their hearing impairment, and this figure will swell unless appropriate action is taken now to provide rehabilitation services as they are needed when the majority of these children reach working age.

B. No reliable figures.

3. The fact that there is authority under the present Vocational Rehabilitation laws does not necessarily reflect the intent of Congress. The problem here is that unless specifically authorized by Congress, (as would be the case under the original wording of HK 3395), there is no guarantee that the deaf would receive services. Spelling out these services would guarantee that they would be provided, something which has not happened under present Vocational Rehabilitation laws.

4. The Office of Deafness and Communicative Disorders under the Social and Rehabilitation Services of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

5.

Because of the specialized nature of the population being served, such centers should have a specialized combination of services which include the following:

4.

Personal Adjustment Training, General Education, and Work Adjustment
Training.

5. Counseling and Guidance Services

6. Vocational Training

Complete information is contained in the report, Comprehensive Regional
Rehabilitation Centers for Low (Under) Achieving "eaf People," which was

provided the Sub-Committee Chairman on June 6 following our testimony.

6. The late teens and early twenties, although there should be no age limit above 15-16, and some may be accepted below the age of 15, when such will be in the best interests of the client. Inevitably, this group will be made up largely of those individuals who have failed to progress under regular programs, and therefore, need a different kind of treatment and program. Occasionally, a person in his 30's or 40's will be discovered who has no usable language skills, work skills, or whatever who would be able to benefit from special training. The role of the centers would be more therapeutically oriented rather than educationally oriented although the entire process can be looked on as an educational one.

7. Complete information is contained in the report on the hot Springs program program given to the Sub-Committe Chairman on June 6. However, the hot Springs program refuses to become involved with people having behavioral problems and this is one of the key needs of the low achieving deaf group. The program at Delevan is not serving persons beyond school age to any significant degree and as a result, only some of the needs are being met.

8. No, because the population served by these schools do not remotely relate to the population defined as low achieving. Reading levels should not be taken as an indication of a deaf student's educational potential because their reading levels are usually the lowest indices of any achievement test. For example, a student may have a reading level of 8 plus with an IQ of 144 and an average achievement level of 11 plus. Low achievers would probably fall below the 5th grade level on any achievment scores.

9. Very unlikely. These programs are minimally staffed and always will be since they are more or less experiment. They are attempting to see if normal, post-highschool deaf individuals can be trained in staffed and well developed curriculum settings. However, this training may be either terminal or a stage to Gallaudet College and does not train to meet the needs of daily living.

10. No, very little. The funds provided are not sufficient to meet the needs. These funds have limited use since they are intended to serve those under 17 and are also not being used to assist older groups.

11. No, since the programs at these schools benefit those who can progress to regular rehabilitation or educational settings but cannot continue to handle those who fail their progranis. The centers. on the other hand, would take care of those who fail in regular educational settings and as a consequence need specialized service programs.

12. The relationship between Vocational Rehabilitation and the Office of Education should be collaborative. The VR cneters should take referrals from programs that the office of Education cannot handle because Vocational Rehabilitation has terminal responsibility whereas the Office of Education does not.

13. The primary reason for deaf persons being low achieving is the lack of language and communicative skills which are a necessary adjunct for success in any educational, vocational, or employment setting. Secondary to these are emotional and/or behavioral problems which are related to the individual's inability to cope with his environment and which are. in large part, traceable

bad to the individual's lack of language and communicative skills.

14. NO. The idea of integrating deaf or any other handicapped child into regular classes is not new or modern. It has Leen around for a long time and it is known that approximately 90% of deaf children put into a limited situation of integrated classes eventually fail. They should be put into controlled learning situations where the specialized nelp and services they need are provided rather than throwing them into a whirlpool and telling them to "Sink or swim." Their handicap is their "problem" and in this respect, it is a language and communication problem similar to that of Spanish spealing students and blacks. Placing deaf children side by side with normal children does not necessarily mean you are integrating them since the communication barrier is still there, and this communication barrier is also a learning barrier.

While the label "Low Achieving" might not be the most appropriate one, the fact remains that this is what these people are. It is not necessary to identify such cneters as rehabilitation facilities for low achievers. They should. ideally, be known as Comprehensive Rehabilitation Centers for Deaf Youths and Adults.

The effect such programs would have or children and their parents would most assuredly be on the positive side. Since no rermanent facilities exist for low achieving deaf people, many become nurdens on their families and the states, whereas, demonstrations have snow that many of these people can be trained for economic and social inden dence. ine establishment of Federally funded rehabilitation centers for the dead would assure that these people do become self-supporting mewers of suciety rather than its burden.

Senator CRANSTON. Our next witness is Ralf Hotchkiss, director, Center for Concerned Engineering, accompanied by Diane Lattin, researcher.

Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF RALF HOTCHKISS, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR CONCERNED ENGINEERING; ACCOMPANIED BY DIANE LATTIN, RESEARCHER

Mr. HOTCHKISS. I will just read a few parts of this because of the time problem.

The Center for Concerned Engineering is a group of engineers working with Ralph Nader in an effort to redirect the Nation's engi neering priorities to best affect all segments of the population. First, on sheltered workshops, a few comments.

In 1967, Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz, in a report to Con gress, made the following appraisal of the workshop situation:

they

The clients of workshops are limited in their abilities to produce are limited by the frequently obsolete methods of organization and production of the workshop. To measure the "worth" of a handicapped client by this "productivity" while making him work with outmoded equipment, or on jobs long ago automated, or with modern equipment which is not adapted to the individual's needs is to foredoom the great majority of handicapped clients to subminimum wages. The workshop system of remuneration is comparable to that which would exist today if cigar manufacturing workers were obliged to roll cigars by hand but be remunerated on a comparative basis with productivity of the cigar factory worker in a modern plant.

As a result of this kind of pay scale determination, most people in sheltered workshops earn below the minimum wage, many below subsistence level, and below the welfare level; so they must live either on their famiiles and friends or on welfare.

They are not given self-sufficiency because of the work they perform.

Also with regard to certifying the workshops, qualifying them, under the Department of Labor, criteria considered in determining the advisability of issuing special certificates for training or evaluation programs, according to the 1967 Federal regulations, are that there be, (1) competent instruction or supervision; (2) a written curriculum and plan of procedure, design to obtain the objectives of the programs; (3) written records made at periodic intervals of not more than 3 months, showing progress of individual clients; and, (4) in the case of a training program, a progression of wage-rate increases as the trainee advances through steps of the program.

These criteria are from the Code of Federal Regulations which apply to the Department of Labor. Studies done by HEW at workshops which applied for grants were not governed by these regulations, but they cite instances where these criteria were not met.

Even though these workshops were found to be lacking in areas required by labor regulations, they were given grants.

In those cases where a grant was denied, the workshops continued to operate even though they did not meet Department of Labor specifica

tions.

HEW, by the way, did not provide the Department of Labor with e details which led them to reject these sheltered workshops for EW grants.

If rehabilitation agencies are to continue to use sheltered workshops part of the rehabilitation process, it is obvious that existing legísion must be more strictly enforced and that the efforts of the Dertment of Labor and the Department of Health, Education, and elfare must be consolidated. The present methods are inadequate, say the least, and the ones who suffer the consequences are the disled consumers.

The rehabilitation process cannot effectively take place in the shelred workshop because workshops must take in income to support emselves. In order to do this they must keep disabled individuals orking in their shops when their abilities are good enough for them succeed in competitive employment.

They also cannot employ to any large extent severely disabled works because these workers cannot produce enough income for the workop. Sheltered workshops in their present form are imprisoning those ho, with a little more effort from the rehabilitation agency, would e placed in meaningful jobs.

The rehabilitation agencies are dumping many able people in shelred workshops instead of training them adequately for real jobs-or orse yet, the very limited facilities of sheltered workshops are used or terminal training training which can only demonstrate that the dividual is beyond help and thus should be dropped from further ehabilitation services.

We would suggest that this act be amended to require that, rather han utilizing sheltered workshops for evaluation and training, State ehabilitation agencies should be done in accredited public and private ocational training schools which are properly equipped to train people for jobs in the real world.

The funds authorized for the biomedical engineering research program and independent biomedical engineering projects could guarantee the development of many devices which people need to allow chem to live a free and productive life.

In addition, however, a way of making the devices available to the public is needed. Thousands of ingenious devices are now recorded in he Patent Office and technical literature-devices which will effectively negate certain aspects of people's disabilities. But because only a few dozen or hundred people need the devices for the jobs they do, private companies cannot afford to stock and sell these devices.

Funds are needed to subsidize the formation of a public depot which would stock or have made all devices which have been shown to be of significant value but which are unprofitable to private industry. These devices could then be provided at reasonable cost to the individuals who need them.

The availability of these devices would also help tremendously with the development of new devices, as would the establishment of a National Information and Resource Center as specified in the act.

At present there is no way to completely assess the state of the art, so much development work just covers old ground. Most innovations come from the users, and since the manufacturers cannot or will not help, the ideas are now forgotten.

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