NAD Establishes ASL & Deaf Studies Committee

Andrew J. Lange, president of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) announced the recent establishment of an ad hoc committee on American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf Studies.  The main purpose of the committee is to update and strengthen the current position statement of the NAD on ASL and Bilingual Education (1993), as well as to review and update other NAD resource materials on this subject.

President Lange appointed Petra Horn as chair of the ASL and Deaf Studies Committee. “Petra is well-qualified to serve as chair and I am confident that with her leadership, the committee will accomplish their goals”, said Lange. “Protection of our cherished language and therefore our culture is at the very core of the existence of the NAD”, he added.

Petra Horn currently serves as a Bilingual Specialist at the Kansas School for the Deaf. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology and a Master’s degree in History from the University of Utah and a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education and History from Gallaudet University. During her graduate studies, she continued to teach American Sign Language (ASL)  at several universities and worked as a language acquisition diagnostician for the Ski*Hi Institute’s Deaf Mentor Project before becoming the Deaf Mentor Program Specialist at Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. Prior to her graduate studies, Horn conducted psycholinguistic research in the Bellugi Lab at the Salk Institute and she taught ASL at Mesa College.

Serving on the committee with Horn are: Byron Bridges, Texas; Lawrence Fleischer, California; Barbara Kannapell, Washington, DC; Eddy Laird, Maryland; Ella Mae Lentz, California; Stephen Nover, New Mexico; and Laurene Simms, Washington, DC.