Sight and Sound: the History of Deaf Education in Western Australia

1 Sight and Sound: The History of Deaf Education in Western Australia Geoffrey M Smith BA (Hons) Murd., GradDipLibStud W.Aust.I.T, GradDipEd Murd., PostGradDipEdStud Melb., MPhil Murd. This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Murdoch University. 2019 2 This thesis is an account of research conducted by myself during my candidature as a research student for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Murdoch University, Western Australia. It consists wholly of my own research, except where other sources are used. These sources are acknowledged by footnotes and referencing. ______________________ Geoffrey M Smith 2019 3 Abstract This thesis looks at Deaf education in Western Australia from the late 19th century. It argues that the impact of various factors such as developments in auditory amplification and assistive technology, changing educational pedagogies and in attitudes among the Deaf community, interacted over the years to significantly influence the manner in which Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) children have been educated in Western Australia. The concept of audism will be discussed which, while evident throughout much of the educational period under consideration, tended to be of a positive nature, with the aim of achieving academic, communicative and social competence to enable successful post-school life in a hearing world by D/HH students. In Western Australia, most D/HH education has revolved around the WA School for Deaf Children. From its beginning, the school embraced the combination method with the aim of developing communicative competence in its students. In 1967, the Telethon Speech and Hearing Centre was established also having a significant place in the history of Deaf education in Western Australia. Although taking a different approach to the educational instruction of D/HH children, TSH demonstrated an equal commitment to high educational outcomes for its students. By the 1980s, accepted pedagogy in terms of the education of the D/HH saw many students mainstreamed, with the resulting downsizing of residential institutions. The process of mainstreaming along with rapidly developing amplification technology and parental expectations required a reappraisal of the manner in which D/HH children were taught. 4 Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………….……P. 7. Chapter 1: The Beginning…….…………………….…………...P. 40. Chapter 2: Education of the Students……….…..…….……P. 58. Chapter 3: The Changing Environment…….……………..P. 84. Chapter 4: The War Years.………………………….…………..P. 107. Chapter 5: Rubella Epidemics………………….…….………..P. 124. Chapter 6: Parental Advocacy and Support in Deaf Education………………….…...…….…..P. 152. Chapter 7: Post WWII Life at the School..……….….…….P. 170. Chapter 8: The Heatly Years.…………………….…….………P. 190. Chapter 9: Into the 1970s……………………….………….……P. 213. Chapter 10: Bilingual / Bicultural Education……..……..P. 242. Chapter 11: The Cochlear Implant and the Return to Oralism……………………………….……….……..P. 267. Conclusion and Discussion………….…………..……………..P. 291. Bibliography……………..……………………….…….……...……P. 301. 5 Acknowledgements I extend my appreciation to the many people who have been involved in the production and publication of this thesis. I would once again like to thank my supervisor, Professor Michael Sturma of Murdoch University, for the support, guidance and enthusiasm that he always extended to me during the period of my PhD candidature. I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful assistance of Kerry Reed, Mavis Fisher, Margaret Warden and John Richards of the Deaf History project located at the WA Foundation for Deaf Children. I am proud to call these people friends and colleagues. Much background material was provided by Douglas Love and John Love, the sons of John Orr Love, the second headmaster of the WA School for Deaf Children. Their support and willingness to assist with stories of their life at the school has been invaluable. My colleague, Cathy Worthington, also a Visiting Teacher of the Deaf, has been an enthusiastic supporter of my research from the start. She has not only helped with some material primarily concerning “our „enry”, as we dubbed Henry Witchell, but also proof-read this thesis at both early and final stages of completion. She offered valuable and sometimes blunt advice on the content which, when acted upon, added to the overall readability of the thesis. 6 I would also like to acknowledge the professional and collegial support given to me by the late Brian Fisher. I first met Brian and Mavis Fisher in 1978, when I visited the State Assessment Centre for the first time when I was doing my Bachelor of Arts degree at Murdoch University. Over the ensuing years, Brian continued to be available with advice and assistance especially when I made the decision to have a cochlear implant in 2003. Support was also extended to me by current and former staff of the WA Institute for Deaf Education (WAIDE) and its successor, the School of Special Educational Needs- Sensory (SSEN-S), the Telethon Speech and Hearing Centre and the WA Foundation for Deaf Children. This support was always valuable and is gratefully acknowledged. Finally and once again, my thanks to Lyn Smith, who also gave me support and encouragement throughout the years spent working on this thesis. This support has never wavered and has always been very much appreciated. This thesis is dedicated to all past, present and future Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing children of Western Australia. This is your story and your history. 7 Introduction Deafness has existed since prehistoric times, but it was only since the advent of speech within society that the limitations of hearing loss became evident. With the importance of speech to the human condition, deafness came to be seen as a medical and human defect. It became something that needed to be rectified and therefore became a challenge within educational circles. As a result, the field of deaf education has a long history world-wide, with controversies and challenges surrounding the methods used to educate the deaf. This situation has been (and continues to be) no different in Western Australia. This thesis will look at the development of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (D/HH) education in Western Australia from its beginnings in the late 1890s until the early 2010s, covering a period of almost 120 years. This time-frame covers technological and pedagogical changes, as well as changes in parental attitudes and social challenges. It covers a time when D/HH education was concentrated in one institution until these changes resulted in the formation of a second, independent school and a drastic reorganisation in existing government educational policies which ultimately led to closure of that first teaching institution. For almost all of this time period, D/HH education was a separate branch of the educational services provided in Western Australia and with a presence centered around the Perth suburb of Cottesloe, where a D/HH school had been located since 1900. This well-defined identity created a collegial environment where teachers and staff had a clear role and a belief in their ability to determine good educational outcomes for their students. This changed in 2011, when governmental D/HH educational services relocated from Cottesloe to Padbury, a northern suburb of Perth. D/HH education became absorbed into the wider School of Special Educational Needs - Sensory. From that point on, D/HH education severed its final 8 links with the Cottesloe location and no longer retained the separate identity that it once held The Manual versus Oral Debate Deaf education has historically centred around teaching methods, particularly in speech and language training. It has also focused on the views of the practitioners and supporters (as well as opponents) of the different approaches and the success or otherwise of these methods. Broadly speaking, the approaches to Deaf education have either involved manual communication or oral (auditory) communication. Historians covering D/HH education see this divide as central to the manner in which educational services have evolved. Because the different approaches have been so controversial, the oral/manual debate as it is known has caused and continues to cause divisions within the field of Deaf Studies and Deaf History. Technological changes such as the development of high-powered hearing aids and the cochlear implant add to the controversy, with neither method gaining a permanent foothold as the “preferred” approach. Deafness as a human condition almost certainly existed in prehistoric times, although the extent to which this affected the deaf individual is a matter of conjecture. Harvey Prindle Peet (1794-1873), an early historian, educator and principal of the New York Institution of the Deaf for 36 years, believed that ancient societies in which the spoken word did not feature strongly would not have seriously disadvantaged those who were deaf. As societies advanced and spoken language developed, the deaf began to be left behind.1 Early approaches to the education of D/HH children focussed on the belief that speech and spoken language were the key to intellectual and spiritual development and hence formed the basis of the education of these children. From the time of the ancient Greeks through to early 1 Harvey P. Peet, “Memoir on the origin and early history of the art of instructing the deaf and dumb”, American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, vol. 3, no. 3, April, 1851, p. 130. 9 programmes in Western Europe, speech (rather than listening) was considered the key to helping the deaf “overcome” their condition. Otherwise, society considered them to be sub- human; socially and culturally impoverished.2 The first manuscript devoted to the art of teaching the deaf, The Reduction of Letters and Art of Teaching the Dumb to Speak, was produced by the Spaniard Juan Pablo Bonet (1579- 1629).3 Peet believed that Bonet‟s manuscript did not really relate directly to the instruction of deaf-mutes.4 Bonet felt that the deaf could learn speech but gave clear and concise instructions in reinforcing the use of the manual alphabet and gestures as instruments of instruction.

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