Deaf History Conference of Milan

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Deaf HistoryConference of Milan 

• TutorialSocial Aspects of Deaf CultureSign
  Language Interpreter Training ProgramKirkwood
  Community College 

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• Objectives
• Identify important events and people and
  ideologies in the development of Oral education
  for the deaf given information contained in the
  tutorial.
• Identify important events and people and
  ideologies in the development of manual education
  for the Deaf given information contained in the
  tutorial.

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• Vocabulary
• Manualism - education of the deaf using sign
  language, and the manual alphabet
• 2. Oralism - education of the deaf using speech
  and lip-reading

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• Deaf - a cultural and linguistic identity
  acquired by many deaf person which is viewed as a
  desirable and valued state-of-being.
• 4. deaf a term used to describe the inability
  to hear normal speech patterns and general sounds
  within the environment.

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5. Residential Institution - state school for
the deaf, state funded schools serving a regional
or statewide population of Deaf and
hard-of-hearing children. 6. Language - a
systematic form of communication which enables
its users to talk about anything, anywhere,
according to a system of grammatical rules which
are learned and internalized.  
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• American Sign Language - a natural,
  visual-gestural language  which is indigenous to
  North America with specific grammatical and
  linguistic properties.
• Congenital Deafness - deafness which is present
  at birth.

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• Deaf Community a community made up of Deaf and
  non-deaf people who share the goal of furthering
  the goals and interests of Deaf people and work
  collaboratively to that end.
• Hearing a term used within the Deaf Community
  to refer to non-deaf people who are basically
  misinformed or uninformed about the Deaf
  experience.

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• Pre-lingual deafness - the significant loss of
  hearing which occurs after birth, but prior to
  the time an infant acquires oral/aural language
  competence.  This is usually considered to be
  before the age of three.
• Post-lingual deafness -  the significant loss of
  hearing which occurs during adolescence, after
  oral/aural language competence has been acquired.
  

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Milan Conference of 1880
All text is taken from the Encyclopedia of
Deafness, Gallaudet Press
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The situation in France was changing. In 1878,
the first International Congress for the
Improvement of Deaf-mutes met. The delegates
were all French except for one Italian. All
the delegates favored Oralism. The next
conference was to be held in Milan, Italy in
1880. This time more countries were represented,
including the Untied States. However, the makeup
of the delegations were carefully chosen 87
Italians, 56 French out of 165 delegates. The
Americans represented about 8, including E.M.
Gallaudet. The results were devastating for
manual education. Sign language was banned from
all programs for the deaf, in favor of a strictly
oral based instruction.
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All the American delegates were outvoted. This
decision for deaf education lasted 100 years.
The major philosophical base for this decision
was Social Darwinism. Deaf teachers lost their
jobs and deaf education became the monopoly of
hearing people, for they alone could teach
speech. It is still considered a dark day for
the Deaf. In the meantime, Bell was lobbying for
some kind of restriction of deaf people who wish
to marry other deaf. He saw that deaf marrying
deaf would pass on the undesirable trait. He
tried to get Congress to pass a law forbidding
deaf to marry deaf.
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However, Bell rejected the idea later as he
thought it would foster immorality. He was also
against Deaf clubs as it encouraged
intermingling. As a preventative, however, Bell
advocated against segregation of deaf children in
deaf schools and no sign language. The deaf
rightly saw these ideas as an attempt to
legislate them out of existence. Bell did not
understand that Deaf people do not see deafness
as an affliction. Deaf having deaf children was
a happy occasion. That never occurred to Bell.
He felt that Oralism, next to hearing, was the
best solution. Act like you are a normal
person and integrate into the dominant society.
Hide the handicap. Bell believed that Oralism
(the fittest) would survive. This was fueled by
the Milan Conference.
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• Questions
• Were there any early indications that the 1880
  conference would turn out the way it did?
• According to the information you have, could
  anything have possibly influenced that outcome
  previous, or during the 1880 conference?

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Answers
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• From philosophers, law givers, and physicians.
• Prevalent thoughts about deafness were that it
  was a disability.
• That deafness meant lack of a soul or a severe
  defect in the soul.
• Disability.
• Not much, however, they had located the center of
  speech in the brain, not the soul.
• As a sever disability, seemingly worse than
  blindness.
• Postmortem examinations helped mans knowledge of
  human anatomy which could anatomically trace
  speech and hearing to the brain.

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• Physicians.
• From the St. Benedictine monks and their
  adaptation of signs to communicate due to a vow
  of silence.
• To preserve their vast fortune. They were not
  allowed to inherit if they could not read and
  write.
• It was used to teach reading and writing as well
  as crude manual communication.  De l'Epee used it
  to teach Parisian deaf children.
• Combination - manual signs were used to augment
  oral speech education, reading and writing.

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• Using signs that he had made up and the manual
  alphabet from Bonet's book.
• To save their souls.
• One on one instruction and total memorization of
  the spoken language.
• Money
• Abbe Sicard, Clerc and Massieu were giving a
  public demonstration in London at the same time
  Gallaudet was there to consult with the Braidwood
  School.
• Two success stories Clerc and Massieu.

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• We will discuss this in class.
• We will discuss this in class.
• Deafness is a disability and deaf people need to
  blend into the hearing world as much as possible.
• Manual communication is visual and suited for the
  deaf.  They are well able to obtain an excellent
  education by using signs.
• Social Darwinism taught that certain races were
  inferior physically and intellectually.  By
  controlling immigration, the flow of inferiors
  would be controlled.
• Bell was a very concerned human being who wished
  to eradicate suffering from mankind.  To be
  involved in bettering her life, Bell was willing
  to try and reach through Helen's dark world.

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• The first conference was only attended by a few
  and only Oralists.
• If the first conference had been more balanced,
  deaf and hearing, oral and manual, the outcome
  may have been different.