HB 548 Language Acquisition for Deaf or Hard of Hearing Children Ages 0-8

The 86th Texas Legislature finds that children who are deaf or hard of hearing are often at risk for language delay or deprivation. The purpose of HB 548 is to generate and monitor data on the language acquisition of children eight years of age or younger who are deaf or hard of hearing. 

The Texas Education Agency (TEA), Health and Human Service Commission (HHSC), and Texas School for the Deaf (TSD) have created a sub-committee of experts in language acquisition and deaf education to determine appropriate language acquisition assessments and/or tools to be used for data collection. 

Using the tools and assessments provided to assess each child’s language acquisition, local education agencies (LEAs) will gather data that will be submitted in the Texas Student Data System (TSDS) via the Special Education Language Acquisition data collection. The types of data to be gathered and reported in TSDS would be as follows: 

• Demographic information (redacted) 
• Instructional arrangements 
• Language acquisition services
  • Time spent obtaining language acquisition services 
• Description of hearing amplification o
  • Type of hearing amplification 
  • Period of time using hearing amplification during language acquisition services 
• Tools and assessments used to assess each child’s language acquisition 
• Preferred mode of communication in the child’s home 

The TSDS training team is in the process of training and certifying the Education Service Center (ESC) and Certified Vendor TSDS Champions on the new data collection for HB 548. Part 1 of this two part training took place on June 2, 2020. Part 2 will take place on August 4 or August 18, 2020 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM. Certified ESC and Vendor Champions will be responsible for training participating LEAs on the new data collection. 

TEA will post a recorded webinar on September 1, 2020 for LEAs that will cover various topics such as: 

• Types of approved assessments and/or tools 
• Professionals who can administer said assessments and/or tools 
• How to score/rate each child’s results 
• Providing scoring information to designated TSDS Data Steward

It will be the responsibility of the LEA TSDS Data Stewards to submit data on language acquisition of children, ages 0-8, who are deaf or hard of hearing annually. The data collection will start on September 14, 2020 and will close on June 24, 2021. Each year, the data collection will close on the fourth Thursday in June. Further technical guidance on the TSDS loading process will be provided in a subsequent TAA letter. 

Annually, the data will be compiled into a report that will be shared on TEA’s, HHSC’s, and TSD’s respective websites. LEAs will also have access to view their own data to monitor language acquisition results yearly. 

Lists of assessments, webinars, training dates, HB 548 and other information about Special Education Language Acquisition data collection in TSDS will be posted on the TEA Sensory Impairment webpage. 

Resources: 

House Bill 548