HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.C.R. NO.	106
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2007		H.D. 1
STATE OF HAWAII

HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO DEVELOP AN ACTION PLAN TO DISSEMINATE INFORMATION TO PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES ON ACCESS TO COMPREHENSIVE VISION AND HEARING EXAMINATIONS.

     WHEREAS, many visual skills are necessary for successful learning in the modern classroom and skill deficiencies in this area may contribute to poor academic performance; and

     WHEREAS, the relationship between poorly developed visual skills and poor academic performance is not widely understood among students, parents, teachers, administrators, and public health officials; and

     WHEREAS, typical vision evaluations and screenings only test for a few of the necessary learning-related visual skills such as distance acuity (i.e., 20/20 eyesight, stereo vision, and muscle balance), which leaves most visual skill deficiencies undiagnosed; and

     WHEREAS, children with mild hearing impairment to profound hearing loss, as well as young students with central auditory processing deficiencies, often experience extreme learning difficulty in their educational environment; and

     WHEREAS, early identification of hearing impairment or hearing loss has been shown to increase access to the spoken language and has allowed more children to enter the mainstream of education; and

     WHEREAS, forty per cent of children with hearing loss have additional disorders such as impaired cognition, learning disabilities, and sensory integration dysfunction -- behaviors that are frequently overlooked by parents, educators, physicians, and speech-language pathologists; and

     WHEREAS, the Department of Education does not require vision or hearing examinations for students entering the public school system; and

     WHEREAS, with the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act, a heavy burden is placed on teachers and administrators to effectively educate students with undiagnosed vision and hearing deficits; and

WHEREAS, section 321-101, Hawaii Revised Statutes, establishes a systematic hearing and vision program conducted by the Department of Health to detect and identify hearing and vision deficiencies in school children; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Health and the Department of Education are authorized, as part of the systematic hearing and vision program, to conduct information campaigns on vision conservation and the prevention of hearing loss and blindness; and

WHEREAS, because funding has not been made available to the program, the Legislature is interested in the short- and long-term costs of not conducting the systematic hearing and vision program; now, therefore,

     BE IT RESOLVED that the Department of Health and the Department of Education are requested to develop an action plan to disseminate information to public school students and their families on access to comprehensive vision and hearing examinations; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, the Director of Health, the Chairperson of the Board of Education, and the Superintendent of Education.

Report Title: 

DOH; DOE; Vision and Hearing Examinations