It looks like Blue Eye’s first blog left a bitter taste in Paula Rosenthal’s mouth, bitter enough for her to respond in a blog of her own. In his first blog on DeafRead Blue Eyes felt the urge to highlight his purpose of blogging, which was to “stop the deprivation of education and language for deaf children in school.” This statement seemed to rustle Paula’s feathers as she apparently placed Blue Eyes into the group of deaf adults who are “crusading ostensibly for deaf children” to learn American Sign Language as their natural language.
Paula copied her comment to Blue Eye’s blog into her own, explaining how deaf education back then is “vastly different” from now. She wrote about how each parent has the right to make their own choices and if those choices don’t seem to work out, change their approach. She admits that deaf adults “who grew up without any access to any early language of any kind (oral or sign)” has the right to be bitter about their experience. Paula makes a good point about how parents and professionals just didn’t know better at the time and this applies to both sides, oral or sign.
Before now neither the oral or sign camps could stake an outright claim to the title of having the best educational methods, after all the average reading levels of deaf adults still hovered between Third and Fourth grade levels. This low level of literacy motivated Dr. Cornett to develop Cued Speech. People still cite the low level of literacy as being true to this day, but it’s ambiguous at this point due to the advent of cochlear implants and advancements made in the field of deaf education in recent decades. We have oral adults wishing they learned sign language as a child, while on the other hand we have deaf signers who wished they had better speech intelligibility and the ability to hear better. Another issue is how we define success when it comes to deaf adults - literacy, communication, socialization?
Blue Eyes stated that there are “many many sad stories about [what] many deaf went through during school years.” I could say the opposite and say there are many positive stories about what deaf people went during through their school years. Yet, this seems to be the typical story everywhere, no matter what the cause. We have a global warming crisis, while we have a war going on over in Iraq. If one is to examine the media today, one could postulate that more negative stories are reported than positive. Does this mean that the negative stories outnumber the positive stories? Not necessarily.
I see many great benefits that both oral and “visual” education has to offer in terms of language development and literacy. Yet, as Paula stated it’s an issue of what the parents choose to do and their level of involvement in their deaf children’s development. We can’t force the parents to learn sign language or Cued Speech, nor can we force them to follow the oral approach. We just have to inform them and let them make their own decisions, and follow up on those decisions with the best therapy and support we can provide for their children.
Due to the extensive violence and pillaging the Holy Crusades brought about across Europe, resentment against Christianity increased amongst the Muslims, Jews, and other religions. Could the "Signing Crusades" be doing the same for oralists, or is that already taking place?
Is there even really a "signing crusade" to begin with?
Cued Speech on YouTube
Friday, January 11, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
The crusade will never end. I can't even tell you how many times I have deaf people come up to me and tell me about how ASL is the only method to teach the deaf child. I usually roll my eyes and nod my head. It's getting tiring and boring to me. I believe that parents are the only one who should make the decision not the deaf people. The deaf people can advocate for whatever methods they desire to advocate for. Like for me, I advocate for oralism, cued speech, and cochlear implant. The problem that I have with some people that they force their beliefs and opinions upon the parents that are unsure what to do with their children. I believe that those people do more damages instead of goods. That's my two cents.
.... and my two cents are ALL professionals need to be educated so they are prepared to give educated information (not personal opinions) to parents who are in the process of trying to decide what is in the best interest for their child.
Growing up, I remember my parents had their share of frustration because not all my teachers of the deaf and speech therapists knew about Cued Speech. One told my parents she did not support Cued Speech (even though she cued to me) and she felt they were doing wrong by not teaching me sign language.
My mom finally caved in and sent me to an all ASL camp so I could learn ASL and meet other deaf peers. I was gone and out of the camp within 2 days of being there. From that point on, my parents knew what they were to fight for ALONG with offering to take sign language classes.
Before anyone jumps to conclusions, they have NEVER once rejected ASL. They respected any deaf/hoh person who signed. As a matter of fact, I have a deaf friend who I have known since I was 8. She signed. We would teach each other our methodologies which was fun!
Hello,
I have to disagree with your assessment of low literacy rate among the deaf people who use sign language. No offense, but I've met cuers who are poor readers, therefore in my view, I don't think Cued Speech is any better than sign language.
I could argue that the average reading grade for hearing people is at 5th or 6th grade, is that even normal? You've got to be kidding me, right? I'm talking about hearing people who don't have any kind of hearing loss, and yet, the majority of hearing people according to statistics above can't even read a college textbook? How pathetic is that?
Cued Speech or ASL isn't going to improve the literacy rate all by itself. No, it's up to parents getting involved and dedicating their time to ensure their children are able to read well. Look at me, I am a culturally Deaf person who grew up using sign language, and my command of written English is excellent. Why? Because my parents were very involved in making sure I could write and read very well.
So, tell me, how can you argue Cued Speech is one of better ways to help in improving the literacy rate of deaf people? So far, evidence put forth is sketchy and the gap between cuers and signers isn't really very wide.
It all depends on a number of factors, really. We shouldn't ignore these factors.
To tell you the truth,
English language is even worse!
over 30 million hearing people in America cannot read and write!
How many deaf people cannot read and write?
John Egbert
Those deaf people that have 4th grade level reading and writing skills, at least 90% of those deaf people have hearing parents.
Have you figure out the deaf people of deaf parents of their reading and writing skills?
If it's far higher than hearing parent's deaf kids, then you better figure our why.
Deaf adult of hearing parents
Signing Crusade? Wrong.
It was Oralism Crusade -- they started it in 1880. They started a crusade and I think we intend to finish it.
R-
Post a Comment