A national research and training center for the deaf is expected to be in full operation at NIU this fall.

The center is funded by a $3 million, five-year grant from the Department of Education’s National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

The NIU center, along with its six regional affiliates, will focus on the deaf who are variously described as “low achieving,” “multiply disabled,” “disadvantaged,” and “minimally language skilled.” Those who fall under the criteria were either deaf at birth or by age 5, and subsequently had difficulty in acquiring language skills.

Sue Ouelette, NIU professor for communicative disorders and director of the new center, said she is committed to a practical approach and hopes to make available research findings and new information to counselors and trainers who serve the deaf.

Psychologist Greg Long, who will be the director of research for the new NIU center, said current estimates put the number of deaf or mildly to severely hearing-impaired people in the United States at two million.

The NIU center will be treating those who will never be college bound and need multiple services. Long said he estimates that among those who are prelingually deaf (who became deaf before acquiring language skills), 30 to 60 percent would be classified as “under-served” and are likely to have difficulty with vocational and independent living skills.

Though the NIU center won’t be providing direct services to the “under-served” deaf, it will be developing the research and training activities to reach professionals who work with deaf individuals and their family members.

Numerous research and training projects are already in progress. Ouelette said every researcher is charged with coming up with a way of disseminating his project or product. To make available the research findings, the NIU center also will distribute newsletters.

Ouelette is planning a major “state-of-the-art” symposium at NIU in September with about 40 “handpicked experts in the field.”

The NIU center’s regional affiliates include the Lexington Center in Jackson Heights, N.Y., the Georgia Sensory Rehabilitation Center in College Park, Ga., the Southwest Center for the Hearing Impaired, San Antonio, Texas, the Seattle Hearing, Speech, and Deafness Center, Wash., the Community Outreach Program for the Deaf, Tuscon, Ariz., and a center to be named in the Midwest.