Linda.Iverson@f10.n130.z1.fidonet.org (Linda Iverson) (02/28/91)
Index Number: 13727
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Hi, James!
Hope you don't mind my two cents here--probably worth only a penny
these days (Smile)! As you know, I'm blind, so what I say comes from
that perspective. However, I do believe some of the issues--public
school, residential, etc., are familiar to me because they're also
tossed around in the blindness community. From what I've seen the
real competency of a person with a sensory deprivztion comes from his
family, teachers, and as Annie-Which said, from being with others and
being allowed to participate in their world and treated as one of them.
You know Helen Keller was known as an author and lecturer. She lost
her sight and hearing at 19 months old. I have read several of her
books and find her writing somewhat stilted, but that might have been
her stule and deafness would have nothing to do with it. Remember,
she was the first deaf-blind person taught to speak in this country.
From what I've read more time was spent on her overall education than
speech. I have heard recordings of her and though I could understand
her found her speech not nearly as good as that of other deaf people
I've met. I realize there's a difference in a recording than a live
person. But still if she could accomplish so much with limited training,
think what others can do who have more. Again, though she was encouraged
and it was assumed she had potential. I think people have a desire
to communicate and will do so simply to survive. I believe as disabled
adults we need to get out there and tell these parents and teachers
to look toward the future of the kids. Some day they'll be on their
own and they need to be as competent as possible. When you've talked
about some of the mainstream students you've gotten who didn't know
things, I think it's because they were not given responsibility and
choices that most parents start out giving their toddlers. Ask the
child if he/she wants milk or juice, for example; then let the child
know his choice will stick. One of the children in my son's school
is deaf. At the beginning of the school year we had a breakfast for
all the parents and students. I was standing in line behind this girl.
When the mother asked her what she wanted of the available choices
she told her. Her mother was off somewhere else. How could this child
have been able to go through the line as easily--she could have pointed
at her choice or written it, but it seems to me it wouldn't have been
as fast. I believe the skills we acquire because of our
ASL--coping in general, make us more competent, but the world is geared
for the able-bodied and I believe we need to learn to fit in. Like
Ann, I think of myself as a person who happens to be blind. Yes, it
determines how I do some things, but I have more important things to
do than dwell on my blindness.
Anyway, I think Helen Keller did a lot for all of us. Just think what
she could have done with a computer!!
Take care,
Linda
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Internet: Linda.Iverson@f10.n130.z1.fidonet.orgJames.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (03/01/91)
Index Number: 13734
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Linda, there is no doubt deaf people must learn to fit in the "world
of the ablebodied." The question how should it be done. Quite frankly,
if the English crammed down your throat is the way to do it, why has
it failed after over 200 years? In one form or another: Speech training,
sound amplification for even those profoundly and severely deaf. Signed
English, SEE and all that stuff has not produced improvment in the
average educational level of deaf students graduating from school.
The bottom line is that hearies who run the educational programs simply
refuse to accept the fact that a deaf child is deaf and English is
a phonetic language geared abledbodied ears. Such ears that are not
possessed by deaf people. Consequently, this phonetic model should
be replaced with a language geared to the visual organ. It must not
be a pseudo language, but a real one. Written and signed English do
not qualify. They don't because English is phonetic and written and
signed manifestations of English cannot convey the innumerable phonetic
properities of English. They can in a pseudo sense once one has mastered
the language via its natural acquisition process.
Research is showing more and more that visual methods of teaching English,
actually hinder language learning and acquisition among deaf children.
This happens mainly because of the way the mind acquires (as opposed
to learns) language. There seems to be some properity of this process
that the artificial methods seek to bypass and consequently the mind
reaches an impasse. After about age 5 or 6, the innate ability of the
mind to "absorb" language gradually slips away. By failing to allow
children to "acquire" the only language that can be naturally acquired
(in America at least)-namely ASL, we rob them of their minds' ultimate
potential. But if we did allow every deaf child acquire ASL, teacvhing
English as a second language wouldbe more achievable. Why? They would
have a referrence language to associate English concepts with. They
would have had a language that allowed them to bring knowledge of
environmental terms, language experiences, innate rule structures etc
to school so they could have some base from which to start. But no,
"experts' have tried to use a phonetic language in artificial manners
and despite repeated proof it was not working. They still refuse to
to back away from their holy cause to hearize deaf people.
To illustrate the folly of this approach and philosophy, try this.
If you know Spanish or any other language than English, Write a sentence
using the past tense of future tense following the rules of English.
No matter if that language has the same suffixes or prefixes or whatever
or not , use the English rules. As you figure , you get gibberish.
That's what deaf kids leave school with-gibberish.
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