Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!olivea!oliveb!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack From: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Re: First Language Message-ID: <16194@handicap.news> Date: 18 Jun 91 16:27:10 GMT Sender: wtm@bunker.isc-br.com Reply-To: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org Organization: FidoNet node 1:300/14 - The Emerald Isle, Tucson AZ Lines: 53 Approved: wtm@bunker.hcap.fidonet.org Index Number: 16194 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] Dennis, thank you for your post about languages. the fundamnetal fact is this. i know I have said it over and over, but Deaf people are not hearing. Hearing people can hear English which is a phonetic language. the Deaf can't or hear it only in muffled bits and pieces if they are hard of hearing. Therefore, for the majority of Deaf people, you cannot teach English or force it the way you could with a hearing person. Consequently, with the natural method of acquisition denied, and thefact that many Deaf people enter education without an acquired first language to begin with, trying to teach English to the Deaf in a traditional manner is, in most cases DOOMED TO FAILURE. The existing state of the average deaf high school graduate whether from a mainstreaming or residential school program is PROOF of that. Educators of the Deaf stubbornly refuse or resist changing their methods unless it involves yet another hearizing concept that lets them avoid making ASL the foundation upon which to build an education for the child. They simpy refuse to acknowledge 200 plus years of dismal failure of oralism and MCE in one form or another. Yet inthe same breath they talk aboutthe ned to test ASL first as we don't know this or that about it. They did not test oralism before foisting it on deaf people. They did not test SEE, L.O.V.E., Signed English, or the Rochester Method before foisting it on Deaf people. And they are all primarily utter failures for the simple reason that English is phonetic and you can't take sound and make it visible. Ever try to see a color by tasting it? Ever try to take say Spanish and speak or write it by applying only English rules grammar? Does it make sense to your mouth? Does it make sense to the native Spanish speaking person? I doubt it. yet this is what so-called educators of the Deaf have foisted on us for 200 plus years and the lament how poor our education is. If it wasn't so tragedic it would hilarious. Pardon me for drawing this out like this. However, i just had another talk with an administrator where I work and she insists that her department will require even the "totally deafened" children to take speech and audition training. The kids inquestion have a 110+ dB loss in the best ear. Their speech awareness thresholds are in the 100dB range and spech discrimination is non-existent. I am told that my resistence to this is not reasonable. Such is the state of mind with oralists and this is in a residential school mind you. You would think this kind kin dof things would be the exclusive baby of mnainstreaming programs, not so. This is why we MUST have more Deaf administrators in positions to affect policy in programs. Hearies who don't really understand deafness (but some do perhaps more than many deaf people in soem ways) are simply bent on "HEARIZING" and avoiding ASL as a teaching tool at all costs even at the cost of truly educating these kids. And she insists I am unreasonable! -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org