In 1988, when I was a high school senior, I did an internship at the Perkins School for the Blind near Boston. Then, after graduation, I worked there for a few weeks during their summer program.

Yes, Perkins DOES have some deaf students. Specifically, they have a program targeted at deaf students with additional disabilities. No, you don’t even necessarily have to be blind to get into their program (though the program does, of course, include many deaf-blind students and deaf students with low vision). About half their deaf students are in classes for deaf students with mental retardation, often with some further additional disabilities. The other half of their deaf students were for kids without mental retardation but with some other disability including those who were deaf-blind. For many deaf children with additional disabilities, Perkins is the only local program that will meet their needs. I worked as an aide in a class of deaf children with mental retardation, with a mix of other additional disabilities.

I should emphasize that my experiences happened 18 years ago. I have no clue whether or not things might have changed there over time. (Any one here have more recent experience with Perkins?)

The two teachers I worked with were fluent in sign language and were perfectly comfortable signing in front of me. But the other teachers in the other classes were not quite as fluent. There was NO other deaf staff for them to practice with other than me (and me for just a few months). Most of the children had limited vocabulary skills–mostly because of their mental retardation, but I’m sure that the lack of strong linguistic models didn’t help. Most of the teachers never signed unless it was to say something directly to one of the students. If it was just me, then most of the other staff didn’t sign, except for the two who I worked with the most closely. But those two teachers were not there during the summer program.

One time, during the summer program, we all took the kids out to a cabin for a sleep over. After we had put the kids to sleep (in tents or in the cabin), the grownups had their own special events with games and chats for the adults. I say “their” because I wasn’t really included. I was there in the room, but as soon as all the kids had been put to bed, they simply stopped signing. I asked them to please sign for me, but they explained that tonight was a time to relax and they didn’t want to have to sign.