At age 16, when attending a Boy Scout camp, Scouten befriended and helped two deaf scouts, which started a lifelong interest in deaf education. He started teaching deaf students at San Francisco State Teachers College and the California School for the Deaf at Berkeley, then earned a master’s degree at Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. in 1941.
During World War II, he helped set up the first Army Aural Rehabilitation Center, which assisted servicemen deafened during combat. After the war, he taught for 25 years at Gallaudet and other schools for the deaf, and was the author of Turning Points in the Education of Deaf People *, a classic text in the field. He died April 25 in Adamstown, Md. He was 89.