DEAF EDUCATION

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DEAF EDUCATION

• History

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Education for the Deaf began in the 1400s
1500s

• Members of royalty and the very wealthy hired
  private tutors to teach deaf children to read and
  write. Literacy was required in order to own
  property or to inherit property
• Average citizens had no educational opportunities
  for their deaf children.

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Early efforts focused on lipreading and speaking

• Germany, Spain, France and Great Britain had all
  begun efforts to instruct deaf people by the
  1600s.
• These efforts were focused on teaching a deaf
  person to lipread and speak.

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The Worlds First Free School for the Deaf

• Founded by the Abbe de lEpee in Paris, France.
  The school opened in 1775 and used a manual
  language (FSL).
• The Abbe had met deaf people who communicated
  through manual/gestural methods and he recognized
  this as the way to teach deaf people.

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Two Philosophies Emerge

• Two approaches to the education of the deaf are
  now in use.
• One method focuses on speech and lipreading.
• One method focuses on education through the use
  of sign systems.

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Laurent Clerc

• Laurent Clerc grew up in Paris, France. He was
  born hearing, but became deaf at a very young
  age.
• Clerc was educated at the Paris School for the
  Deaf, which was a boarding school.
• The Paris School used FSL as the language of
  instruction communication.

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Thomas Gallaudet

• Thomas Gallaudet, a young hearing man in
  Hartford, Connecticut becomes interested in
  teaching the deaf due to his 5 year old deaf
  neighbor, Alice Cogswell.
• Alices father is wealthy and sends Gallaudet to
  Europe to learn of methods for teaching deaf
  students.

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Education in Europe

• Gallaudet first travels to London to visit the
  Braidwood School for the deaf.
• Here deaf children are taught to lipread and
  speak.
• The deaf children are instructed in only oral
  methods.
• The Braidwoods will not tell Gallaudet how to
  teach deaf children this way.

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A Public Demonstration in London

• At a public demonstration in the city of London,
  Gallaudet watches as deaf students from the Paris
  School for the Deaf respond to signed questions
  and show their intellectual knowledge. Impressed
  by their skills he travels to Paris and to the
  school for the deaf there.

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The Paris School for the Deaf

• While visiting the Paris School for the Deaf,
  Gallaudet is able to see how a sign language
  system can be used to instruct deaf students.
• Gallaudet meets Laurent Clerc who by this time
  has become a teacher at the school. Clerc is
  fluent in FSL and in the written French language.

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Clerc comes to America

• Laurent Clerc agrees to come to America with
  Gallaudet.
• Together they open the first school for deaf
  students in America in Hartford, Connecticut on
  April 15, 1817.

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The First School for the Deaf in America

• Deaf students from the New England area enroll in
  this school. This is a boarding school.
• Laurent Clerc is the first teacher.
• He teaches there for 40 years using his native
  FSL.

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The Birthplace of ASL

• The American Deaf students come to this school
  with some signs gestures they have used at
  home.
• They learn many new signs from Clerc.
• They use some of FSL signs and create new signs
  at the school.

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ASL becomes the standard language

• Eventually FSL evolves so that a new and separate
  language is used at the school in Hartford. It
  is ASL.
• Deaf students complete their education and help
  to open many more Deaf schools across the U.S.

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MSAD

• The Minnesota Academy for the Deaf is opened in
  1861 in Fairbault.
• These boarding schools for deaf children are
  called institutions or residential schools.

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Across the Nation

• Eventually every state in the nation has at least
  one public residential school for Deaf Students.
• These schools are state supported, and do not
  charge families tuition.

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Times Were Good

• In the early years of Deaf Education in America
  the achievement level was quite similar to the
  achievement of hearing students.
• We were a largely agricultural and then an
  industrial society.

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Economy of the Times

• During these years many US children (deaf or
  hearing) could survive with an 8th grade
  graduation.
• The residential schools prepared Deaf high
  schoolers with job skills, and vocational
  education.

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The Dark Ages

• In 1880 an international convention of Educators
  of the Deaf was held in Milan, Italy. This
  convention was attended by Deaf and Hearing
  educators of Deaf Children.

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Opposition to Signing

• Although many American schools were using ASL,
  there were many people involved in the education
  of the Deaf around the world that opposed sign
  languages

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A Resolution Passed

• A proposal was made and a vote was taken in the
  absence of all deaf delegates that the
  instruction of the deaf should be only through
  oral methods. Signing was to be abolished in
  classrooms for deaf children.

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Oralism Replaced Signing

• Throughout the world and throughout the U.S. most
  schools for the deaf switched to a more oral
  approach. Deaf teachers were replaced with
  hearing teachers.

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Achievement of Deaf Students Declines

• Because young deaf children were now being
  expected to learn to lipread and speak their
  level of academic achievement started to decline.
• Huge amounts of class time was spent on speech
  drills, not academics.

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Deaf Kids Lose Ground

• Deaf students could no longer understand their
  teachers.
• Teachers could not understand the deaf students.
• Deaf kids fail to achieve academically.

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Curriculum is Watered -down

• Because the Deaf students were not making
  academic achievement the curriculum taught was
  altered to a watered-down, overly simplified
  level creating greater gaps between deaf and
  hearing students achievement levels.

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Deaf Schools

• Most of the deaf students in the US do, at this
  time, attend residential schools.
• Local schools are not required to provide any
  special education services for students with
  disabilities.

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Education for All HC Children

• In 1975 US Congress passes a law that states all
  handicapped children are entitled to a free and
  appropriate education in the least restrictive
  environment.
• Local schools must now provide services for all
  students with disabilities.

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Placement Options

• The preferred placement for students with
  disabilities is the regular education classroom
  in the local public school.
• Support services are provided as determined by
  the individual students particular needs.

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Mainstreaming

• Placing students with disabilities into regular
  education classrooms in the local school is
  called mainstreaming or inclusion or integration.