Honoring the past, celebrating the present, and cultivating the future!          

TBD

St. Rita's Classroom 100 Years Ago and Today

$25 provides after school activities for a child
$50 feeds a child a lunch for 20 days
$100 provides one therapy session for a child
$250 provides one on one technology device to a student for a year 
$300 provides 3 therapy sessions a week for a child
$500 provides technology to a classroom for a year
$1,000 provides a child with a week of individualized instruction

St. Rita's Graduating Classes: 1921 and 2024

• Small class sizes for more individualized instruction
• Peers and adults who know sign language for direct communication and interaction
• For those children who are implanted or aided, FM systems are utilized in the classrooms
• A communication team that includes speech & language therapists and an audiologist
• Experienced and licensed Deaf Education and Special Education teachers
• Programs that develop the whole child including after school activities, literacy, learning gardens and work experience
• Classrooms equipped with Smart Boards, IPads, and laptops

St. Rita's first leader, Fr. Waldhaus, and our current leader, Angela Frith

Teaching Life Skills

Approximately 3 in 1,000 babies are born with permanent hearing loss (Ross et al., 2008)

Most children with hearing loss who receive appropriate services from trained staff are able to progress at age-appropriate rates. (Geers et al., 2009)

Left undetected, mild or unilateral hearing loss can result in delayed speech and language acquisition, social-emotional or behavioral problems, and lags in academic achievement. (Yoshinage-Itano et al., 1998; Bess, 1985: Bess et al., 1988)

Children who receive cochlear implants in the second year of life attain better speech perception and language development outcomes than later implantation.  Children implanted between 12-24 months show similar language skills as typical peers on some language measures administered at age 6. (Svirsky et al., 2004)

Fitting of personal amplification in an infant or young child is an on-going process.  Minimally, an audiologist should see the child every three months during the first two years of using amplification and every 4-6 months after that time.  (The Pediatric Working Group, 1996) 

Lunch Time

Lunch time in the 1920s and lunch time in 2024.

ASL (American Sign Language) is a fully functional language that has specific rules, syntax, and grammar.  It directly relates gestures and concepts.

Parents are often the source of a child’s early acquisition of language, but for children who are deaf, additional people may be models for language acquisition. (NID)

There is no research evidence that learning sign interferes with deaf children’s spoken language development.  On the contrary, it may assist children to learn difficult to understand concepts and act as a bridge to learning these words in spoken language.  (DCAL)

Visual communication is important for deaf children regardless of whatever type of communication methods parents decide on.  (Livestrong.com) 

St. Rita Playground

1920s Playground and 2024 Playground.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about St. Rita School for the Deaf and the students we serve!  Please consider making a one time gift to impact our students. Click here to Donate Now!