dmimi@uncecs.edu (Mimi Clifford) (03/16/90)
Index Number: 7170 The point is NOT that ASL, SEE or whatever is inferior (or superior, for that matter) to English. The point IS that IT IS NOT English. Whether for good or bad the world, in the US and to some extent elsewhere, functions in English. It does not function, especially, in ASL. That matters very little, if at all, as long as the use of language as an immediate communication tool between people for social-personal goals is at issue. It definitely DOES matter, is access to the written world and educational world is at issue--and that has to be at issue in today's world. One has to be able to cope with written standard language--in the US with English. Think of all the losses without it--not only losses in technical areas, but losses of poetry, literature, perhaps even art and music. Research has definitely shown that deaf people are less able than hearing people to use language--read, spoken, written or whatever. This finding is true regardless of intelligence--the deaf population is not less intelligent than the hearing, given appropriate measurement. But their ability to uderstand and use standard language is decidely inferior, by any measurement you might want to use. This is very handicapping--professional occupations are less available and much more difficult to succeed with, for example. I wouldn't mind a deaf doctor or lawyer, but he damn well better be able to cope with the language of medicine or law, or he/she won't be able to do an adequate job. So my argument for Cued Speech or at least SEE, is that the deaf, as all of us, must have full access to the full resources of standard language for their intellectual, cognitive well-being, even though they can get along perfectly well with other people with ASL.