Defunded: A Research Lifeline for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

At the end of May, our research team received a blunt notice: our $3.4 million federal grant to prevent language learning delays for deaf and hard of hearing children had been terminated. The project was a collaborative project with the University of Rochester, NorCal Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and Sacramento State.

There was no accusation of misconduct. No issue with feasibility or research design. On the contrary, our proposal had been reviewed and praised by a panel of highly respected language scientists, and was scored better than 83% of submissions in that cycle. And yet, the project was terminated—explicitly because it was deemed to promote “amorphous equity objectives.”

That claim is both inaccurate and deeply troubling.

The Goal: Addressing a Preventable Public Health Crisis

This project was foundational public health research aimed at addressing one of the most urgent and overlooked risks facing deaf and hard of hearing children today: language deprivation.

The majority of deaf and hard of hearing children in the U.S. are at risk of a secondary condition called language deprivation. Language deprivation occurs when children are cut off from language during early childhood. It is entirely preventable, but without timely diagnosis and support, it can cause lifelong consequences for cognitive development, academic success, brain growth, and mental health. Almost all deaf and hard of hearing children are at risk, and early data suggest that the majority may suffer from it. Despite its severity, we still lack the basic tools and data to address it. There are no gold-standard assessments to diagnose language deprivation, no estimates of how often it occurs, and limited research on what kinds of supports work best to prevent it.

Our study was designed to change that. We aimed to validate a clinical tool to identify language deprivation in early childhood—something that doesn’t currently exist. We also set out to provide the first-ever estimates of how widespread language deprivation is among deaf and hard of hearing children. We began building the infrastructure needed to track children’s developmental outcomes over time, so we can understand what leads to long-term success. The goal was simple and vital: to give families access to evidence, not guesswork, when making high-stakes decisions about how to support their children’s development.

Preventing language deprivation isn’t just the right thing to do for deaf children—it’s a smart investment in our shared future. When children have full access to language from the start, they are better prepared to succeed in school, and fully participate in the workforce. The return on early investment is well-documented: it increases lifelong educational and economic opportunities. Giving children the tools to thrive benefits families, communities, and the country.

One of Many Cuts Dismantling Support for Deaf Children

The termination of this project is especially devastating because it is one of several recent cancellations pulling the few existing supports for deaf children out from under them. These include funding to train teachers of the deaf, four grants building a pipeline to train deaf scientists, and the entire branch of the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program that helps states ensure deaf and hard of hearing babies get timely support. These cuts are dismantling the only infrastructure these children and their families have.