The Honorable(name of legislator or senator)
South Dakota Senate Office
CapitolBuilding
500 East Capitol Avenue
Pierre, South Dakota57501-5070
Dear Senator or Legislator (name)
This letter is in regards to the House Bill 1115, specifically the attempt of the South Dakota Department of Human Services to adopt administrative rules related to the Cochlear Implant Program.As a member of the South Dakota Association of the Deaf (SDAD), I amopposed to this effort.
Supporting SDAD, the organization is an education and advocacy organization committed to promotion, protection, and preservation of the rights and quality of life of all deaf and hard of hearing citizens in the state of South Dakota. The targeted audience for this letter includes parents of deaf children, deaf and hard of hearing individuals, medical professionals, and the media.
The SDAD serves all deaf and hard of hearing South Dakotans regardless of race, religion, and ethnic background, socioeconomic status, cultural orientation, mode of communication, preferred language use, hearing status, educational background, and use of technologies. The SDAD also collaborates with the state’s deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing family members, educators, and other professionals well-versed in the area of deafness and hearing loss.
I do recognizeand applaudtechnological advancements with potential to enhance the quality of life of the entire population of the deaf and hard of hearing individuals in South Dakota. An example in point was the establishment of the Telecommunication Relay Services (TRS) Fund in 1985 forall persons in South Dakota with hearing loss and speech disabilities.
The original and exclusive intent of the fund was to purchase telecommunication devices for an equipment distribution program so as to make telecommunication services as accessible to every deaf and hard of hearing individual as it is to the normal hearing people.
The role of the cochlear implant in this regard is evolving and may benefitsome whose choice is a cochlear implant surgery. As of today, there is no unbiased research on cochlear implant as a benefit for every hearing impaired person and its highly selective success stories are not be over-generalized to every individual.It is an individual, not general, choice. Utilizing the TRS Fund to fund a small number of eligible recipients of cochlear implants, the legislators are depriving the overall the deaf and hard of hearing population of their telecommunication access. Once again, funding cochlear implants is definitely is not a telecommunication service andshould notreceive funds from the TRS Fund.
The TRS Fund should be targeted towards telecommunication service that deaf and hard of hearing South Dakotans needs in this state, such as video remote interpreting in public locations, and public access videophones in our rest areas, hospitals, airports, and our tourist attractions. Within the next two months, the CapTel services in the state of South Dakota will begin and will be utilizing the TRS Fund to distribute equipment to numerous deaf, hard of hearing and late-deafened residents of South Dakota. This effort, SDAD is greatly in favor of, because this serves the widely overall population in this state.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
(your name)
(your address)
(your city, state, zip)
(your phone number or email, if you want)