During the last week of May, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a LEAD-K bill into law. The bill’s official name is “House File 604, an Act relating to language and literacy development for deaf and hard-of-hearing children.”

Iowa is now the 20th state in the U.S. to pass and sign a LEAD-K bill.

The text of the Iowa bill directs the “department of education to work with the Iowa School for the Deaf, area education agencies, school districts, and the early hearing detection and intervention program to coordinate, develop, and disseminate resources… to inform deaf and hard-of-hearing children’s expressive and receptive language acquisition or development.”

The bill also directs a “coordination of the development and collection of language milestones for each age, from birth through age eight, in American Sign Language, English, and other languages as needed…”

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