In some school districts in Utah, says Pollock, interpreters for deaf children have been told to use MCE instead of ASL. Pollock is vice president of a new group called the Henry C. White Educational Council, which wants a say in deaf education in the state. He says that deaf students don't graduate from Utah schools on par with hearing 12th-graders.

In his former job as coordinator of deaf services at the U., he says, he saw transcripts of deaf students who had gotten straight A's in high school but were entering college with junior-high-level English and math skills.

Teachers' low expectations — "coddling" deaf students, Wilding-Diaz calls it — are only part of the problem, say Deaf advocates, who also point to the lack of qualified interpreters for students who need them.

Deaf advocates say the schools can't afford to pay interpreters adequate wages, and that the best-trained interpreters are taking jobs in the private sector. The result, says Mitch Jensen, manager of the Utah Interpreter program, is that students "may be getting only 10 percent of the information. ... It's like your cell phone breaking up."

With or without good interpreters, argues Pollock, some deaf students — particularly those in neighborhood schools in outlying areas where there may be only one or two deaf students — feel isolated and lonely.

"This is also true of relationships with parents, siblings, family," he says. "It is much more common than anyone wants to admit."

And so it's no wonder that people who are deaf have more "mental health needs" than hearing people do, says social worker Stewart. Isolation is a big factor, especially for deaf individuals who grow up in families where there is little communication, she says.

While it's estimated that in the hearing population 1 to 3 percent need some sort of mental health services, in the deaf population it's 15 to 54 percent, yet only 2 percent of those people get help, she says.

The big need is for therapists who sign, including deaf therapists. Even a good interpreter is only a next-best solution in such confidential exchanges, she says. "If a hearing person doesn't want to use an interpreter (in therapy), why would a deaf person?"

Even though there are 10 deaf social workers in the state, "no one is hiring them," and an attempt to get a state mental health coordinator position for the deaf has failed twice, she says.

But in many ways, this is a great time in history to be deaf. Technologies like the videophone are transforming the way deaf people can communicate with each other and with the hearing world.