PAUL AND SALLY TAYLOR BACKGROUND SHEET     
PREPARED 10/07 BY KIM READMOND

Paul Taylor and Sally Hewlett, fellow 1952 CID alumni, attended CID when cochlear implants and infant early identification technologies did not exist for deaf children. Paul began in 1943 at age 3 in the CID residential program, and his parents later moved from Alabama to St. Louis so he could attend. In total, he spent nine years learning to talk at CID before moving to Texas with his mother. In 1944, Sally was 5 years old and her family moved from Kentucky to St. Louis so she could live at home during what would become eight years learning to talk at CID.

           Today, due to successful state early identification laws, childhood hearing impairment can be identified in the hospital at birth in many cases. The diagnosis is typically confirmed within a few months of the screening, according to CID’s coordinator of pediatric audiology, Lisa Davidson, Ph.D. This identification enables much earlier intervention, and the combined use of digital hearing aids, cochlear implants (now in children as young as year old and sometimes younger) and targeted auditory-oral education services are enabling teachers to make use of critical early language learning years to teach deaf children to talk and prepare them for the mainstream much faster than in the Taylors’ school days. Taken together, these factors have resulted in a dramatic reduction in average length of stay at CID, from 11 years in 1993 to five or six years today. This year, 85 percent of CID students are younger than age 6.

Although before the era of early intervention and cochlear implants a CID education typically took longer, it has always produced impressive results. Sally and Paul graduated from CID when they were 13 and 12, respectively, prepared with the speech, language, academic and social skills they needed to successfully attend public high school and college. Sally attended Southwest High School in St. Louis and, in 1960, earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics at Blue Mountain College in Mississippi. (Later, in 1997, she received her master’s degree from

State University of New York in Brockport.) Paul earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in 1962 and then returned to St. Louis to earn a master’s degree in operational research at Washington University. During his postgraduate studies, Paul worked as a houseparent in the CID dorm and Sally worked at CID as a teacher of physical education, religion and home economics. The two were reacquainted, fell in love and married in 1963.

The Taylors’ rich history in St. Louis includes Paul’s work for 12 years in various engineering capacities with McDonnell Douglas and Monsanto Corp. In addition, as a volunteer in the late 1960s, he combined Western Union teletype machines with modems invented by a deaf scientist in California to create the first telecommunications devices for the deaf, known as TDDs or TTYs (teletype machines). By then distributing these early, nonportable devices to the homes of deaf St. Louisans and enlisting the cooperation of a local telephone wake-up service, he created the nation’s first local telephone relay system for the deaf in the early 1970s.  

The Taylors moved to New York in 1975 so Paul could chair the Engineering Support Team at National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at Rochester Institute of Technology, from which he retired 30 years later as a professor of computer technology. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he worked in New York to create one of the country’s first statewide relay services funded by long distance telephone companies. Later, he helped write Federal Communications Commission regulations implementing statewide telephone relay systems required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.  

After being a full-time homemaker and mother for 12 years, Sally re-entered the working world in 1977, working in various positions at NTID and retiring in 1999 as a teacher in general education after 22 years.

Editor’s Notes:

The FDA first approved cochlear implants for trials in children in 1989.

Missouri’s hospital early identification of hearing loss law went into effect in January 2002.

When Paul Taylor was growing up, he and his family lived on West Papin Street (which is no longer there),  across the street from CID (then located at 818 South Euclid Avenue in St. Louis). Paul’s mother went through the teacher training program at CID (now the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine), and eventually became director of Houston School for Deaf Children until her retirement.

The Hewlett family resided in the southwest part of St. Louis on Bradley Avenue. Sally’s father was pastor of Southwest Baptist Church, where he served for 35 years until his retirement.

To arrange an interview or for more information, contact Kim Readmond, CID communications coordinator, 314/977-0243 kreadmond@cid.edu or go to http://cid.edu. TV reporters, please contact Michelle Mason at Millennium Communications, 314/569-7100, mmason@millenniumcom.com