Deaf Education

The Lafayette Parish Deaf Education program serves students who are identified as having a hearing loss that is permanent or fluctuating. This loss may cause difficulty in processing linguistic information auditorily, with or without amplification. Lack of access to auditory and language input may affect the student's educational performance in the school setting, therefore, the student will require additional support in the academic setting. The exceptionality of Deaf or Hard of Hearing includes students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing that have a conductive and/or sensorineural hearing loss. This exceptionality is determined by the results of a Bulletin 1508 educational evaluation.

The Deaf Education program consist of not only Lafayette Parish students, but also neighboring parishes through a consortium. The Deaf Education consortium currently consist of five parishes: St. Martin, Vermilion, Evangeline, Acadia, and St. Landry.

Students with the exceptionality of Deaf or Hard of Hearing are served through the Individual Educational Plan (IEP) which addresses the student’s own specific educational strengths and needs. Some students are served in their home zone school and other students are taught within the Lafayette Deaf Education Consortium, which is located at S.J. Montgomery Elementary, Edgar Martin Middle School, and Lafayette High School. These decisions are made on a yearly basis as to what is the most appropriate setting to meet the student’s needs. The Consortium has a special education staff that includes Teachers for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, audiologists, speech and language pathologists, interpreters/transliterators, para-educators, and captionist. Services include special education specialized instruction which addresses the needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, auditory training/monitoring, speech/language therapy, Interpreting/transliterating and/or C-Print captioning.

These services may be addressed in a variety of different settings from the regular classroom to a special education classroom. In addition, complimentary sign language classes are offered up to three times a year in the evening for family and friends of the deaf/hard of hearing students.

Dodie Quibodeaux
Instructional Content Supervisor
Elementary Schools
337-521-7219
dmquibodeaux@lpssonline.com