Official Message from the Director of the State Special Schools and Services Division

Pursuant to Senate Bill (SB) 210 (California Education Code Section 56326.5), all children (birth through age five) who are deaf or hard of hearing must be assessed every six months for language growth, and the results of the assessment are to be reported to the California Department of Education (CDE).

At the recommendation of the SB 210 ad hoc advisory committee in 2017, the CDE adopted the SKI-HI Language Development Scale to be used as the language assessment tool. Based on the feedback from the Early Start teachers, the SB 210 advisory committee agreed to revisit the language assessment tool. In 2023, the Early Start teachers were advised to stop using the SKI-HI Language Development Scale for the time being.

However, Early Start and Early Childhood Education teachers are still required to use the SB 210 language milestones checklist with families as a tool for the Desired Results Developmental Profile language domain for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children. The SB 210 language milestones checklist is available for teachers' assessment use on the CDE Deaf Education web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/ss/dh/sb210langmilestones.asp.

In the meantime, the State Special Schools and Services Division is in collaboration with the NorCal Services of the Deaf, the Desired Results with Children and Families research team, and the core SB 210 committee on the transition to a new language milestones assessment. The development of this new assessment tool began in January 2024, and a pilot language milestones assessment was conducted with Early Start and Early Childhood Education teachers in Deaf education during the spring of 2024. The new assessment tool has been recently revised based on feedback from the teachers involved in the pilot SB 210 assessment project. The purpose of this new tool is to streamline the SB 210 language milestones assessment process for teachers while collecting meaningful data to support each Deaf and Hard of Hearing child’s early language acquisition and development in preparation for kindergarten.

In a few weeks, the Education Programs Consultant, Dr. Julie Rems-Smario, will release another video and letter announcing the launch of the new SB 210 assessment tool, along with information about training opportunities for your teachers to learn how to effectively utilize the language assessment system. Please contact Education Programs Consultant (EPC) Dr. Rems-Smario at jremssmario@cde.ca.gov if you have additional questions.

Thank you for your continued support on the language milestone assessment for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students.