Home Welcome to Signs Of Silence, recognized as one of the top non profit agencies in the world in 2002 for the deaf and hard of hearing. We have only one Mission, to bring Opportunities and the Deaf community together and we’ve done that ! Our Mission is simple and our Success is clear. As you browse our website today and discover more of who we are and what we do I’m sure you will see why so many have chosen SOS as their resource for deaf services. Our purpose will never change because we are not Program driven, we are People driven. Thank you for stopping by and visiting us today, we appreciate your interest. OUR BEGINNING Every agency has a story and a beginning. Ours began on Valentines Day in 1991 when Debbie Thurman(deaf) collapsed at home from a ruptured aneurysm soon after her husband Jon (deaf) left for work. When Jon came back home he found his wife on the floor passed out and tried calling 911 for help. 911 did not have a TDD nor Relay Services to respond to emergencies from the deaf community. Because of the delay in responding Debbie died at age 30 leaving behind her husband and 2 small hearing children under the age of 5. As a result of this tragedy we began to research our deaf community in SD from 1992-1996. We found that over 90% of hearing parents of a deaf child do not learn sign to communicate with their children, over 90% of deaf children in the CPS system are unable to be placed in loving homes because of the communication barrier, our highest social population in prisons across the US are deaf and hh people, a deaf child under the age of 18 is sexually abused 5 times more than a hearing child, on average a deaf young person graduating HS will graduate at a 3rd grade level because effective communication is not achieved in the mainstream system and less than 5% of businesses in our community comply with the ADA to provide reasonable accommodation to our deaf friends. With close to 450,000 people in SD County who are deaf or hh (including late deafened people) and after 4 years of research Signs Of Silence began. Services for our deaf community have always been available, the problem is they’ve never been accessible. SOS has bridged that gap because the deaf have responded. Thank you for stopping by and visiting with us today. YOU make the difference !!!
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