Vineyard 2nd Generation’s American Sign Language (ASL) Immersion Academy provides an environment for equitable language acquisition for Deaf and hard of hearing (D/hh) children, their siblings and families. We also provide a dual language immersion experience for hearing children as this helps reduce the isolation Deaf/hh children feel without communication partners when they enter school. My name is Stacy Tornell and I am one of the co-founders of this new local non-profit and I’d like to invite you to be a part of a very special event.
90-95% of deaf/hard of hearing babies are born to hearing families and due to the critical lack of resources and awareness to help them succeed, 75% of parents never learn to sign conversationally with their children. This means that during the first few years of life, this once in a lifetime, time- sensitive, language acquisition window is being deprived to deaf/hard of hearing children. This equates to deaf children who do not have access to language in their home and are not able to acquire additional information through language modeling outside the classroom when they get to school age. This also causes a large deficit in the amount of incidental learning they can obtain that hearing children naturally have the ability to acquire on a daily basis.
Naturally acquiring language from birth is a basic human right that deaf children are being deprived of. Language deprivation has permanent consequences for long-term neurological development and puts deaf children at risk for a spectrum of neurological, educational, and developmental consequences across the lifespan.
At Vineyard 2nd Generation, our mission is to "provide a linguistically enriched American Sign Language environment starting from birth for Deaf and hard of hearing individuals while empowering them to become lifelong, self-directed individuals. Connecting families and communities through mentoring, resources, and forming collaborative networks that value each individual’s language and culture.”
Our Vision is: “to set the standard for equitable resources for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children and adults provided through a cultural lens and mutual respect allowing for inclusion of the broader community to effectively bridge two worlds.”
I want to invite you to come alongside and support our mission. We are only impacting the surface of this problem but providing programs locally in the Fargo-Moorhead area. With your funding support you will not only have the chance to impact children and families locally but nationally and globally as well. We are working to make the world better for our deaf/hard of hearing community and enrich the lives of all children through the joy of learning language!
Sincerely,
Stacy Tornell
Vineyard 2nd Generation
American Sign Language Immersion Academy
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