Deaf education leader Edward Scouten dead at 89

From: Newsday, NY - Apr 27, 2004

FREDERICK, Md. -- Edward L. Scouten, a teacher, author and innovator in the education of deaf people, died Sunday of heart failure at a nursing home near Frederick. He was 89.

Scouten, born in Omaha, Neb., taught for nearly 20 years at Gallaudet University in Washington, where he specialized in English and headed a department that prepared new students for the school's curriculum, according to his wife, Eleanor.

During World War II, while on military leave from Gallaudet, Scouten helped organize an Army rehabilitation center for servicemen deafened during combat.

After leaving Gallaudet in 1962, Scouten became principal at the Louisiana and Florida schools for the deaf, where he established programs for teaching English literacy to deaf children.

Scouten later taught English at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester. While in Rochester, he wrote "Turning Points in the Education of Deaf People," a college textbook published in 1984.

Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press