Brayde Ridenhour, MA, MS

Fulbright Scholar

Deaf education in America: Then and now

    Deaf education in the United States has its roots in the deaf education system in France. Hearing American Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Deaf Frenchman Laurent Clerc founded the first school for the deaf in America in the early 1800s. Many teachers were deaf themselves, and several students went on to become teachers of the deaf. The language of instruction was sign language until the Milan Conference of 1880, which determined that deaf education around the world would revolve around oral language instruction. This changed the face of deaf education for nearly a century, spelling the end of many deaf teachers’ careers and redirecting the focus of deaf education onto spoken language training.

    Beginning in the 1960s with William Stokoe’s groundbreaking research finding that American Sign Language (ASL) is a complete language, deaf education has evolved from that oralist tradition to a bilingual approach, in which ASL is valued and used as the main language of instruction, including for teaching English. This methodology has been further supported by substantial research indicating that acquiring a signed language, which is a naturally accessible language for deaf individuals, as a mother tongue actually facilitates learning a spoken/written second language better than having no foundation in a first language. This will be explained in more detail shortly.

    In the United States, deaf education is typically a separate discipline from special education, though sometimes special education teachers do assume the role of deaf education teachers and it is protected under special education laws. Nevertheless, there is a distinct difference. Special education teachers focus on adapting and developing curricula to meet the individual needs of students with disabilities; they are masters of modifying the general education curriculum. Deaf education teachers, on the other hand, focus on teaching the general education curriculum in a way that makes visual sense, being sensitive to the bilingual needs of deaf students. Deafness, in this sense, is not a disability to impede the learning of any subject.

    Nearly every state has at least one residential school for the Deaf. A growing trend in American deaf education, however, is to exercise alternative options that do not require sending children to live far from home. Therefore, magnet school programs are cropping up in school districts across the states, which are specialized deaf education programs housed in general education schools. Deaf students are bused in daily from neighboring districts to have the benefit of deaf peers, deaf education specialists, and a more local school. Similarly, residential schools for the deaf also have several non-residential students who go home at the end of the day. Additionally, far more students are being mainstreamed than in the past. This is due to advances in assistive listening device technology, improved educational interpreter training and regulation, and changing family trends, in terms of parents shying away from sending their children to live far from home.

    Another important characteristic of Deaf Education in America is the returned popularity of Deaf teachers of the deaf. Teacher education programs like that at Gallaudet University, the world’s first and only liberal arts university for deaf and hard of hearing students, encourage Deaf teachers of every discipline. Many future Deaf teachers of the deaf are studying to be science, math, and English teachers at the middle and high school levels, early intervention specialists and experts in multiple disabilities.

Deaf Education: the Bilingual Model

    The primary goal of deaf education at the preschool and elementary level is establishing fluency in a language. When this happens, students are prepared to enter into an age-appropriate curriculum (i.e., matching their hearing peers), thus there is no need for a special deaf education curriculum that is a simplified version of the general education curriculum. When educators, parents, and students all share high expectations for academic success, students are set up to reach their maximum potential in cognitive development. Deaf students have the same potential for learning as their hearing peers.

   For this reason, bilingual education is increasingly prevalent in American deaf education. Bilingual education means that ASL is the primary language of instruction and communication, while English is equally valued for literacy purposes. ASL is the primary language because it is fully accessible to deaf and hard of hearing students, given its visual modality. This means it can provide the linguistic foundation for learning literacy and additional languages, such as English. Some researchers believe that normal language acquisition precedes cognitive development while others posit that the two occur simultaneously, but regardless of this academic debate, advances in one translates to improvement in the other. People naturally think using language, so it allows for development of critical thinking skills and general cognitive abilities, which leads to a stronger grasp of more finite facets of language.

    A person with a complete linguistic repertoire has fluency in language production, reception, reading, and writing. Because ASL has no written component—like a significant number of the world’s languages—emerging literacy is actually a form of emerging bilingualism, in that another language, namely English, is required for reading and writing. ASL is a complete visual language without a written system, fully utilizing three-dimensional space for face-to-face interaction; English is a complete written and auditory language, which is linear and cannot be fully, comprehensibly expressed on the hands. Therefore, a Deaf truly bilingual person exhibits sign fluency and complete literacy. In other words, he or she is fluent in ASL for discourse and English for reading and writing.

   As mentioned earlier, acquiring a signed language first supports the deaf child to learn other languages. This guiding principle in early deaf education is known as additive bilingualism: primary and secondary languages assist and build upon each other; one does not usurp the other in importance. Being fluent in a mother tongue allows one to develop metalinguistic skills (i.e., unconscious knowledge of language properties and fundamental rules) that can be transferred onto subsequent languages. This allows a deaf child who acquires ASL fully to develop literacy, regardless of what language the written form is in. Without a first language, however, literacy in the second language will not develop, nor can children be taught a first language through reading and writing. There is a definite sequence, and signed/spoken language must precede text. Additionally, acquiring a signed language first is useful in building speech and listening skills later: ASL fluency improves—it does not inhibit—the ability to learn these skills because it provides a complete linguistic foundation, which enables later competency in English. A student needs to have a strong understanding of English before he or she can learn to speechread effectively, if that is a goal for the student.

    One serious issue all deaf education programs face is the lack of a strong language model at home for deaf and hard of hearing students. The vast majority of deaf and hard of hearing individuals are born to families that have no other family members with hearing loss, meaning they are most likely born into non-signing environments. It is the school’s responsibility, then, to provide those language models as early as possible. The United States has a law called Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). It mandates that schools must set up an Individualized Family Service Plan for every child identified with a hearing loss, from birth to age 3. This plan leads to early intervention for language building, among other services. When the child becomes preschool age and older, the Individualized Family Service Plan transitions into the Individualized Education Plan and the school’s role and responsibility in providing full language models continues, which is why deaf education teachers must be proficient signers and skilled users of English.

    One approach to building literacy as well as speech and listening skills while utilizing ASL is team teaching. This is especially popular in magnet school programs and mainstreaming. Team teaching occurs when one teacher provides a complete ASL model (i.e., no simultaneous oral support while signing) and another teacher provides the spoken English model. Both teachers use written English.

Administering Deaf Education in America

    Special education, which also covers deaf education in the legal sense, is strongly protected by laws such as IDEA, mentioned above. One of school and program administrators’ major concerns is complying with these laws. In forming the Individualized Family Service Plan and Individualized Education Plan, professionals for every aspect of the child’s life are pulled together to plan the best path for his or her education. The multidisciplinary team is a common approach for this. The premise of this approach is for professionals to specialize in their given departments, for example Deaf education teachers, audiologists, and speech pathologists. These experts then come together to provide advice for the best educational opportunities and experiences for the students they serve.

    Another key component of the team that builds the deaf or hard of hearing student’s education is his or her family; American society encourages a family-centered education. IDEA mandates that the parents’ wishes and concerns guide the development of the Individualized Family Services Plan and the Individualized Education Plan. The parents and team work together to decide the student’s educational setting placement and annual goals, all of which must be approved by the parents. At any point, if the parents disagree with actions taken by the school and the two parties cannot come to agreement, the parents may file for due process. At that time, courts will step in to decide what is in the best interest of the child and how the law applies.

    Ultimately, what is in the best interest of the students is everyone’s highest priority. For that reason, savvy administrators work to build strong community relations. The goal of developing partnerships between the school and home is to provide consistent access to education, meaning assuring that everyone is aware of and understands what is being taught and expected of the child. This also means providing competent language models for both the students and their parents. As mentioned above, most deaf students are born to non-signing families, so providing signed language training to the whole family is extremely beneficial to deaf students in building that pivotal language foundation. Additionally, schools can assist in emerging literacy by encouraging and training parents in shared reading, which involves translating English books into ASL with the help of native signers. Also, because deaf education curriculum mirrors that of general education, other subjects can be supported by activities like Math night, Reading Night, and history field trips, all of which partner teachers, parents, and students outside of the classroom. Parent-teacher or parents-teacher-student conferences and dialogue journals between parents and students or teachers and parents open the lines of communication and ensure that everyone is synergized concerning the students’ education.

Conclusion

    Deaf education in America in the past had a poor record of graduating students with inferior knowledge levels and skills to their hearing peers. Now, however, there are Deaf doctors, lawyers, teachers, actors, and other professionals. Deaf and hard of hearing students are going on to colleges and universities as capable as their hearing peers. Research into deaf education is building a strong knowledge base for best practices, especially in bilingual education. Collaboration between hearing and deaf professionals in the field only stands to continue its improvement. Collaboration on an international scale, such as that between America and China, is even better.