Controversies in the education of deaf children
Introduction
A diagnosis of severe or profound bilateral deafness, whether at 3 weeks, 3 months, 9 months or later, is a shock to parents and generates questions that reflect feelings of anxiety and uncertainty about their child's future. Will she talk? How will we talk with her? Must we learn sign, etc.? Unfortunately there are no easy answers to these questions. Speech and language, the fundamental tools for human communication and learning, are so easily acquired by a child with normal hearing such that the typical 5-year-old has at her command a vocabulary of 2000 words or so and, remarkably, full knowledge of the grammar of her mother tongue. A child with mild or moderate hearing losses will be able to cope with speech acquisition with only modest help. But a child with severely defective hearing has limited or no access to the spoken language surrounding her. Intervention is necessary if a child with minimal audition is to acquire language and a means of learning. It is the type of intervention, the choice of method for developing communication, which is the source of so much controversy in the education of deaf children.
Parents have to make difficult but potentially fateful decisions on behalf of their deaf child and will need to make serious enquiries about communication and education options. They will almost inevitably ask questions of the professionals whom they meet. In the early post-diagnosis stages those professionals will include doctors, nurses, audiologists and health visitors. It is highly desirable that professionals who are not primarily educators are aware of the issues and controversies so that they do not fall into the trap of offering glib advice or superficial reassurances to the families of deaf children.
The three major communication options—total communication (TC), sign-bilingualism and auditory–oral—will, in turn, be examined in order to reveal the arguments used to support each particular method and to examine its practical implications together with the most recently available educational outcome evidence.
Section snippets
‘Failure’ of oralism and the trend towards total communication
The advocacy of TC was a response to the seeming failure of oralism to deliver its goals. The oral approach is based on the idea that in order for deaf children to take their place in a hearing–speaking society, they should be taught to speak and they should be educated through the medium of speech. Aspirations for the prospects for deaf children rose in the post-Second World War period with the development of audiometric techniques for measuring hearing and the availability under the NHS of
The true language of deaf people
Sign-bilingualism found favour in some quarters in the USA and UK and became particularly popular in Scandinavia during the 1980s and 1990s. The sign language used in a sign-bilingual approach is the sign language developed within the minority group of deaf people who form what is often termed the ‘Deaf Community’. Some, but by no means all, deaf people join signing deaf clubs for companionship and mutual support. A minority within this group who like to be known as the ‘Deaf Community’ have
The case for an auditory–oral approach
The ideological position behind the present-day auditory–oral approach is, as it has been with any oral approach at any time, that verbal communication, particularly spoken communication, is the predominant medium of social exchange. Present-day oralists argue that it is not only desirable but now possible to enable even severely and profoundly deaf children to talk and to acquire verbal language. As a result of new knowledge and ever-advancing technologies, deaf children can be enabled to use
How to choose?
Parents have the responsibility for choosing a communication approach for their deaf child and they cannot choose all three options since the different approaches are so incompatible. The most important factor, perhaps, is which of the alternative options available to the young child will be least constraining, which will leave most options open to the deaf child on becoming an adult. It is this consideration that should be uppermost in the minds of those making the choice on behalf of the deaf
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