Elsevier

Current Paediatrics

Volume 15, Issue 3, June 2005, Pages 200-206
Current Paediatrics

Controversies in the education of deaf children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cupe.2005.02.002Get rights and content

Summary

In Britain about one child in 1000 is born with sensorineural deafness. Around half of these children have severe or profound deafness, i.e. hearing losses >70 dbHL. A child with a 70 dbHL or more hearing loss will have no natural auditory access to the conversational spoken language surrounding her and this seriously undermines the process of language acquisition. Intervention is necessary if very deaf children are to acquire language and a means of learning. Controversy surrounds the education of deaf children over the choice of method used to unlock the barrier to language and communication. Currently there are three major protagonists: those who advocate an auditory–oral approach that involves no signing; those who believe in sign-bilingualism, a sign-only approach to first language acquisition; and those who favour total communication, a combination of speech and signs. This article focuses on children with severe and profound hearing losses for whom language and communication are so problematic and examines critically the three major communication options in order to clarify their respective claims.

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 auditoryoral—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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