{"id":11472,"date":"2010-08-23T15:45:08","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T20:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/?p=11472"},"modified":"2010-08-23T21:01:57","modified_gmt":"2010-08-24T02:01:57","slug":"sunshine-cottage-opens-new-building-for-hearing-impaired-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2010\/08\/23\/sunshine-cottage-opens-new-building-for-hearing-impaired-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine Cottage opens new building for hearing-impaired kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunshine Cottage opens new building for hearing-impaired kids<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Jennifer R. Lloyd – Express-News<\/p>\n

The thud of book bags hitting the floor, the rustle of folders and the
\nclatter of classroom toys make up the background noise of a typical first
\nday of school.<\/p>\n

For the students who began their day Thursday at Sunshine Cottage School for
\nDeaf Children, listening for those sounds is part of their learning.<\/p>\n

The school’s goal is not to teach hearing-impaired children to sign or
\nlip-read, but to listen and speak.<\/p>\n

The staff uses early intervention, the latest technology and a team-oriented
\napproach that focuses on parent education. But the key, school officials
\nsay, is beginning when the child is young, preferably in infancy.<\/p>\n

That process may be made easier as Sunshine Cottage transitions into its
\nthird campus since its founding in 1947. The school recently moved into a
\ntechnologically advanced building off Hildebrand Avenue, across from Trinity
\nUniversity.<\/p>\n

Lake|Flato Architects designed and Kopplow Construction built the
\n57,000-square-foot facility. The habitat of the serene 21-acre site is
\nlargely unchanged and home to outdoor classrooms.<\/p>\n

Indoor classrooms are packed with interactive Promethean boards,
\nsound-absorbent panels to cut down on extraneous reverberations and
\nmicrophones and speakers to help children hear teachers. It also has more
\ntherapy rooms and audiological testing rooms \u2014 in total twice the space than
\nthe previous school on Tuleta Drive.<\/p>\n

Jerry Christian, Sunshine Cottage’s CEO and former superintendent of Alamo
\nHeights Independent School District, said the building has been paid for
\nthrough the help of many donors. The total project cost $20.5 million, he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n

The school doubles as a hearing-evaluation center for newborns who show
\nsigns of hearing loss and require diagnostic testing. It also provides a
\nParent-Infant Program for families of newborns to 3-year-olds with hearing
\nloss. The free program, funded by a grant from the Kronkosky Charitable
\nFoundation, helps parents begin to teach their babies to listen and speak.<\/p>\n

The school currently enrolls 135 students, from preschool to fifth grade,
\nand can accommodate an additional 50 in its larger space. It does not turn
\naway hearing-impaired children. Though tuition for a hearing-impaired
\nstudent is $6,100 per year, the total cost, with intensive audiology and
\nspeech-language pathology services, runs about $30,000. The school makes up
\nthe difference through grants, donations and fundraising campaigns, said
\nSara Rosales-Guerra, Sunshine Cottage’s director of public relations.<\/p>\n

About 95 percent of students receive some sort of financial assistance.<\/p>\n

Sunshine Cottage has chosen a different path from some other deaf-education
\ngroups, which believe deaf education should include sign language and spoken
\nlanguage. In the San Antonio area, the Regional Day School Program for the
\nDeaf educates deaf students in sign language and auditory\/oral communication
\ntechniques at six school districts, said John Bond, a coordinator for
\nEducation Service Center, Region 20Two other programs like Sunshine
\nCottage’s exist in Texas \u2014 in Houston and Coppell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t say this is for everyone,\u201d Rosales-Guerra said about the
\nauditory\/oral approach. \u201cLet’s say a family comes in and the child is just
\nnot able to adapt. … If that family would be better served using sign,
\nthen, sure, that’s fine. We’re not going to say it’s one way or no way. We
\nwork with the family to find the best solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some children need a cochlear implant to stimulate the auditory nerve to
\nhear, and one can cost $40,000, including aural rehabilitation after
\nsurgery. Hearing-impaired students who learn to listen and speak reap
\nbenefits using spoken communication rather than sign language, said Lisa
\nLopez, Sunshine Cottage’s director of family services. For instance, once
\nstudents leave Sunshine Cottage they can learn in a regular education
\nclassroom without needing an interpreter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were dependent on sign language as your primary mode of
\ncommunication, then you need someone else who can sign fluently to have a
\nconversation,\u201d Lopez said. \u201c(Spoken language) connects them to a greater
\npool of peers.\u201d<\/p>\n

For some young students playing with puppets or wielding toy hammers on
\ntheir first day at preschool, graduating from Sunshine Cottage sounds like a
\ndistant goal, a murmur of which students are just beginning to hear.<\/p>\n

Source:
\n http:\/\/www.mysanantonio.com\/news\/local_news\/Sunshine_Cottage_opens_new_building_for_hearing-impaired_kids_100598254.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunshine Cottage opens new building for hearing-impaired kids By Jennifer R. Lloyd – Express-News The thud of book bags hitting the floor, the rustle of folders and the clatter of classroom toys make up the background noise of a typical…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[1554,40,6023,6021,22,6022,191,6020,6024,17],"class_list":["post-11472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deaf-news","tag-cochlear-implant","tag-interpreter","tag-kronkosky-charitable-foundation","tag-lisa-lopez","tag-san-antonio","tag-sara-rosales-guerra","tag-sign-language","tag-sunshine-cottage","tag-sunshine-cottage-school-for-deaf-children","tag-texas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p752R-2Z2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17089,"url":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2012\/01\/04\/life-comes-full-circle-for-student-teacher\/","url_meta":{"origin":11472,"position":0},"title":"Life comes full circle for student, teacher","author":"Grant Laird Jr","date":"January 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Life comes full circle for student, teacher Former student now teaching hearing-impaired. By Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje, mstoeltje@express-news.net December 29, 2011 When Cindy Lauer was 2, her parents noticed she would stand inches away from the television screen while watching episodes of \u201cSesame Street.\u201d Diagnosed with severe hearing impairment from a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/category\/deaf-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12131,"url":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2010\/10\/25\/health-science-center-offering-teacher-scholarships-to-deaf-education-program\/","url_meta":{"origin":11472,"position":1},"title":"Health Science Center offering teacher scholarships to deaf education program","author":"Grant Laird Jr","date":"October 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Health Science Center offering teacher scholarships to deaf education program San Antonio Business Journal Date: Friday, October 22, 2010 The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio won an $806,500 grant from the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to fund scholarships for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/category\/deaf-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32055,"url":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2015\/10\/05\/obituary-dela-white\/","url_meta":{"origin":11472,"position":2},"title":"Obituary: Dela White","author":"Grant Laird Jr","date":"October 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Obituary: Dela White Note: She's the founder of\u00a0Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children (Deaf school in San Antonio, Texas) in 1947. 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