A Journey into the Deaf-World by Harlan Lane & Robert Hoffmeister & Ben Bahan

Author:Harlan Lane & Robert Hoffmeister & Ben Bahan [Lane, Harlan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: DawnSignPress
Published: 2013-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Language and Literacy

In chapter 8 we discussed the various settings in which the Deaf child may be placed for the purpose of education, ranging from residential schools for the Deaf to full inclusion, sometimes accompanied by an interpreter, in classes with hearing children. Here we will focus on the methods that are commonly used in the instruction of Deaf children and what accounts for the dismal educational results.

As we saw in chapter 3, during the nineteenth century, ASL was the dominant language of instruction in the schools for the Deaf in the U.S. After the Deaf teachers and their language were expelled from the schools late in the century, the national oral language prevailed. That is, classes were taught orally, and in many schools signing was forbidden.

The rationale for this educational approach, called "oralism," was essentially a cliché, one that continues to be heard today: "This is a hearing world, and Deaf people must learn to cope with it." The oralists believed that to cope, Deaf children must speak. The way to ensure that they did so was to make the abilities to speak intelligibly and to understand speech the focus of their education. Besides, if you could speak and lip-read you could understand and communicate with the hearing teacher, as almost all teachers of the Deaf now were, and so you could learn more. Since reliance on ASL would inhibit the achievement of intelligible speech, it was believed, ASL should not be used.1

For nearly a century, then, instruction in the classrooms where the Deaf were educated concentrated on the teaching of "language," which in the U.S. meant the teaching of the oral production of English. For young children, most of the day was spent on this, leaving very little time for the teaching of academic content. That the average Deaf student, upon leaving school, had an academic achievement level equivalent to a hearing student in the third grade was ascribed to his or her failure to learn, not the school's failure to teach. The fact that schools for the Deaf, before signing was banished, had turned out numerous well-educated graduates was suppressed to the point that very few, even in the Deaf community, were aware of it.2

Total Communication and the Development of MCE Systems

In the 1960s and 1970s, numerous studies compared the academic achievement of Deaf children of Deaf parents with that of Deaf children of hearing parents. The results were consistent: Deaf children of Deaf parents do significantly better academically than the Deaf children of hearing parents, including in reading and writing English—an achievement that is all the more remarkable when we reflect that Deaf children of Deaf parents often come from poorer homes (generally a disadvantage in academic achievement), and that the schools they attend do not capitalize on their native language. Research also showed that children arriving at school with a knowledge of ASL are better adjusted, better socialized, and have more positive attitudes than their counterparts.3

It was largely as a result of these studies

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