SKI-HI was established in 1972 to provide effective early intervention services to
families who have infants, toddlers and young children who are deaf or hard of
hearing. It was the first program established at the SKI-HI Institute and the
program that gave the Institute its name. There are three programs at SKI-HI
that serve families who have children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
HISTORY
The SKI-HIModel of early intervention was created to bring support and information to
families in their homes by establishing one of the first home-based,
family-centered early intervention programs in the country. Established in
1972, the SKI-HI Model of Early Intervention is a research-based early
intervention program that is evidence-based and has been implemented throughout
the United States. The program has been adopted and adapted to be appropriate
in other countries, such as South Africa and Canada. The feature elements this
program is a comprehensive early intervention curriculum, the SKI-HI Curriculum,
which is a resource that is adaptable for any early intervention program that
serves infants, toddlers and young children who are deaf or hard of hearing and
their families. The other feature of the program is training and technical
support. Our staff provide training and support to any program interested in
implementing the SKI-HI Curriculum as their primary curriculum or as a resource
and will provide technical support as the program begins implementing services.
The SKI-HI Curriculum has been proven to be effective in supporting families in
their journey of raising a child who is deaf or hard of hearing, and results in
deaf children developing communication, language, auditory, early literacy and
cognitive skills and provides information that informs families about the
effective use and care of hearing aids and/or cochlear implants.
The SKI-HI Model of Early Intervention is a routines-based program, so strategies and
skills are shared with families so they can embed new skills into their daily
routines and provide an environment where their child has access to language
and can acquire language naturally, regardless of whether the family uses sign
language or spoken language or a combination of the two. Emphasis is placed on
ensuring the child has full access to language all day throughout the day
because without full access to language, be it through their eyes or through
their ears, children cannot acquire language naturally.
Over the yearsthe SKI-HI Program has added the Snapshots Program (link to SnapshotsProgram) and the Deaf Mentor Program (link to Deaf Mentor Program). Webelieve the combination of these three programs composes a full and
comprehensive early intervention model. The Snapshots Program allows families
to meet deaf or hard of hearing adults who have a variety of backgrounds and
life experiences. Meeting Snapshots Providers allows families to see the
diversity and variety among the Deaf community and it allows parents to see
that there are no limits to what their deaf or hard of hearing children can do
or become.
The DeafMentor Program (link to Deaf Mentor Program) was established in 1991. Atthat time in deaf education the profession was beginning to see the benefits of
using American Sign Language (ASL) along with written English to create a
bilingual experience for deaf or hard of hearing children who were ages
3-8. SKI-HI was focused on how we couldprovide a bilingual and bicultural experience for deaf/hard of hearing children in the first three years of their lives, when language is naturally acquired. Prior to establishing the Deaf Mentor Program, families were able to access support for developing spoken language, but there was little support for them
to learn and use ASL. The Deaf Mentor Program was created to help families
learn ASL in their home from a Deaf adult who is a fluent ASL user. Deaf
Mentors focus on teaching families to use ASL in their daily routines, share
early visual communication techniques with families, and share information
about Deaf culture with the family. They also invite families to local Deaf
community events so the child and family have opportunities to meet deaf and
hard of hearing adults that live in their community.
SKI-HI
What is the SKI-HI Program?
The SKI-HIModel of Early intervention:*Supports early identification of deaf/hard ofhearing services, provides highly trained early intervention providers (Parent Advisors)
*Is family-centered, so visits focus on all family members, providing education and support to parents and care-givers
*Is home-based, providing weekly home visits in the family’s home and/or in community environments where the child and family live and function
*Is routines-based, focused on coaching parents and family members to use new strategies and skills in their everyday routines and activities
*Is invested in supporting deaf and hard of hearing adults in early intervention from the start of early intervention services
*Focuses on the successful partnerships betweenearly intervention teachers, Deaf Mentors and Snapshots providers and all early intervention team members
*Focuses on providing families with education and information that is open, unbiased and provided in a format that best supports a family and their individual values and beliefs
*Maintains a focus on ensuring that every deaf or hard of hearing child has full access to language and information throughout the routines and activities of the day
*Incorporates topics from the SKI-HI Early Intervention Curriculum and materials into the weekly home visits with families
*Incorporates the SKI-HI Deaf Mentor Program (link to click to Deaf Mentor Program) and the SKI-HI Snapshots Program (link to click to Snapshots Program) as a full and comprehensive Early Intervention Program for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families
Training
SKI-HI Training is 6 full days of training that takes place in two separate workshops, each
three days long, that take place 4-6 weeks apart. The training takes early
intervention providers through the SKI-HI Curriculum Manuals (link to materials) and provides them with strategies, ideas and information on how to interact with families and integrate principles of home-based early intervention into weekly home visits.
SKI-HI Training is intended for professionals who have degrees in deaf education or a related field such as speech language pathology, audiology, early childhood special
education or counseling. Anyone without a deaf education degree should have
experience working with infants, toddlers and young children and work or life
experience working with deaf children and adults. For more information regarding SKI-HI Training please or call or text Paula Pittman at 801-668-0948 or email her at paula.pittman@usu.edu.
PROGRAM MATERIALST
he SKI-HI Curriculum and materials used in direct service with families can be purchased from our publisher, HOPE, Inc. Each participant at training will need a set of curriculum manuals and at least one copy of our assessment tool, the Language Development Scale, to go through SKI-HI Training. Links to these two items are found below. HOPE, Publishing produces a variety of materials that may be of benefit to early intervention providers working with deaf or hard of hearing children and their families in addition to these two core program materials. To review these materials go to the HOPE, inc. website at www.hopepubl.com.
DEAF MENTOR
For now go to https://deaf-mentor.skihi.org/
SNAPSHOTS
What is the Snapshots Program?
The Snapshots Program was set up with the purpose of introducing hearing parents to a wide variety of adults who are deaf or hard of hearing. Hearing parents who find out
that their baby is deaf or hard of hearing often have no frame of reference for what it means to have a child who has different hearing abilities or what it means to live as a deaf or hard of hearing person. The Snapshots Program provides families with opportunities to meet deaf or hard of hearing adults who come from all walks of life, have differing hearing levels, educational backgrounds, language use, communication modality use, careers, family life, use of listening devices (hearing aids, cochlear implants, FM systems, etc.), and life experiences.
The program is designed so that families have up to 6 visits from 6 different deaf or hard of hearing adults, and each will discuss one of six topics provided in the
Snapshots Guidebook. These topics give families a “snapshot” of the life of a
person who is deaf or hard of hearing. This program allows parents to explore
with a deaf or hard of hearing adult what life is like for them to live life as
a deaf person and for parents to ask questions that may be worrying them about
raising their own deaf child.
This program is more of a “meet and greet” opportunity for families, a sort of introduction
into the the varied and full lives of deaf and hard of hearing adults. The program has a lot of flexibility so programs can adopt it and use it how it best fits their program, but the primary focus is finding ways for hearing parents to meet a wide range of deaf and hard of hearing adults so they can learn first had that being deaf or hard of hearing is as diverse as beinghearing, with some shared experience a a lot of unique and individual experiences that make us each uniquely ourselves.
Training
Snapshots training can be conducted in person or online. If a program is also hosting a
Deaf Mentor Training Workshop, we can easily add the Snapshots Training
Workshop as a one-day add on. This is how most programs choose to do their
Snapshots Training. However, it is also possible to do the training online. The
online training takes place over two shorter back-to-back days.
Training content includes:
History and Howthe Snapshots Program Works
Role of theSnapshots Provider
Working withthe EI Team
BasicPrinciples of Home-Based Early Intervention
Guidelines forConducting a Snapshots Visit
IdentifyingBias
Sharing YourStory
Mental Health
Role Play andPractice
For more information regarding Snapshots Training Workshops,please contact Paula Pittman via text or call at 801-668-0948, or email her at paula.pittman@usu.edu.
Training
The materials used in the Snapshots Program is a small Snapshots Guidebook that provides guidelines for conducting the 6 Snapshots visits and guiding questions the Snapshots Provider might find helpful when preparing their own stories and when interacting with families in home visits.
The Snapshots Guidebook cannot be purchased, but will be provided as part of the training cost to every participant in the training.
