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The Development of American

Emily Boognl

Junior Division

Paper

Paper: 2,393 words

Process Paper: 323 words 22222 Process Paper

I chose my topic because in my last year of elementary school one of my teachers had an

American Sign Language dictionary, and some of my friends and I were very interested in it and wanted to learn bits and pieces of ASL. The development of ASL relates to the annual theme of communication because ASL is how people who are deaf communicate with each other along with those that are hearing.

I conducted my research by going to the internet, and I found some helpful evidence to support my side of the story. I also tried to find an argumentative side to my opinion when I did my research. I went to the public library and got a book about ASL that I used to do some of my research. One of my most important resources was Mrs. Karol McGregor, who is apart of the deaf community and deals with deafness everyday. When I created my project I really just did my research and then started to write. For me it is easiest to write down the important facts and then move them around and place them where they needed to be.

My historical argument is that learning sign language and being able to speak sign is very important. Being able to speak sign language is a life skill for not only people who are deaf, but for those that want to be all inclusive to any person whether they are hearing or deaf. My topic is significant in history because people that were deaf were looked upon differently, they were told that they were different and shunned from society, and that they should be ashamed of speaking their cultural language. Even though all of this happened to the deaf community, they never gave up. They continued to fight for their own language and equality in the world today. American

Sign Language is a powerful language that connects many people! 22222 1

“Deaf children are entitled to know that they are heirs to an amazing culture, not a pitiful defect.”-Carla A. Halpern

Imagine wanting to be able to speak with somebody but not being able to understand what they are trying to say. Would you enjoy that? This is a challenge that most people who are part of the deaf community come upon some time in their life. is a phenomenal way to be able to include everyone in all forms of speech.

The Earliest Sign Language

It is unknown when sign language first appeared, but many agree that using hand signals to communicate has been around just as long as spoken language. Many believe that hand signals were first used by hunters in the open plains to communicate with each other from great distances. This was the most obvious way for them to communicate without scaring the animals that they were hunting.

Sign Language Arrives in

In the early 1800’s there were only a few thousand known deaf Americans. Many different variations of sign existed throughout the deaf community but there wasn’t a specific form of sign that was used by all. The history of American Sign Language (ASL) began in 1814 when started in the . The man that is given credit for the start of ASL is Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet from Hartford, Connecticut. Dr. Gallaudet’s neighbor, Mason

Fitch Cogswell, had a deaf daughter, , who was 9 at the time. Dr. Gallaudet 22222 2 realized that Alice was a very smart girl despite the fact that she couldn't talk or hear. He wanted to teach her how to communicate with others. Although he did not have much success teaching Alice reading and spelling, he did not give up his desire in wanting to help her and others learn how to communicate.

The First Big Step

Dr. Gallaudet wanted to learn how to educate the deaf, so by gaining community support and raising money, Gallaudet traveled to Europe. In Europe, there was a history of .

He wanted to learn the best educational methods to teach the deaf. While there, Gallaudet met many teachers that worked in the deaf community including Abbe Sicard, , and

Laurent Clerc. Jean Massieu and were students of Sicard’s and became very accomplished deaf educators. Gallaudet studied under all of these accomplished European deaf educators and even took private lessons with Clerc. When Dr. Gallaudet was getting ready to return to America he asked Clerc to come with him. Clerc said he would be glad to. After several years of preparation, on April 15, 1817 Gallaudet and Clerc opened the first public school for the deaf. They used the Hartfords’s Bennett’s City hotel. Their first class was small with only 9 students including Alice Cogswell, but soon the numbers grew. This was a major milestone in

American .

Status of the First Deaf School

As the school’s popularity grew, young deaf students from across the nation traveled to

Hartford to learn about Dr. Gallaudet and Clerc’s unique methods of sign. The students all 22222 3 brought their own method of sign with them, which also had its own challenges. American Sign

Language is a combination of signs that came from the the students, along with signs from

French Sign Language that Gallaudet learned from Clerc. Eventually their forms of sign developed the American Sign Language used today in the deaf community. Dr. Thomas Hopkins

Gallaudet retired in 1830 after many years of research and teaching in the deaf community. After

Gallaudet retired, Clerc taught at the deaf school until the 1850’s. By the year 1863 there were 22 schools for the deaf that had been established in the U.S alone. Most of the schools had been founded by Gallaudet and Clerc’s old students. At these schools, Clerc’s methods in deaf education continued being taught.

The Legacy Continued

When Dr. Gallaudet died in 1851, his youngest son, , continued on his legacy in deaf education. After teaching at the school that his dad started, Edward

Gallaudet was instrumental in establishing the very first college for the deaf in 1864. The college was named the Columbia Institution for the Deaf in Washington D.C., but was renamed the

Gallaudet College to honor Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet in 1893. In 1960 , a hearing professor and scholar at Gallaudet College published a paper that proved ASL is a genuine language with a unique syntax and grammar that changed the course the history of sign language. In 1986 the school was renamed again from Gallaudet College to .

The University is known today as the first and only deaf university in the world. 22222 4

Not Seen as the Same

Beside the fact that ASL was gaining popularity in America, there were many that didn’t accept the teachings of American Sign Language or see it as a positive development. Like many oralists in Europe, some American leaders and teachers falsely believed that sign was holding back deaf students. They believed that sign only hampered a deaf student’s development and isolated them from the rest of the society that could hear. The oralists believed that the only way to truly teach members of the deaf community was to require them to speak English and abandon sign altogether. By 1867 many major schools in America began using only oral methods of teaching with no thought of using sign. Many misguided advocates like Alexander Graham Bell were convinced that oral education was the only way to teach and have deaf students learn.

Many schools started teaching deaf students orally, trying to find ways to mix oral education along with little bits and pieces of sign, although most methods focused on lip-reading and learning speech.

The Milan Conference

In the year 1880 the ongoing conflict between oral and manual education became the topic of the Milan Conference in Milan, Italy. Deaf educators from 7 countries gathered at this conference to make decisions about the future of deaf education. The majority of people that attended the conference believed that oral methods of education were beyond superior to manual ways of education. Edward Miner Gallaudet was part of the minority that knew, without a doubt, that sign was the most used form of communication for people of the deaf community and should 22222 5 be the main way that they are taught. Sadly the oralists won the vote and the Milan Conference decided that sign language would be banned from all schools.

The Years to Come

The decision that was made at the Milan Conference rocked the world of deaf education.

The next ten years brought a drastic decline in sign language and by 1920 almost 80% of all deaf teaching programs were using oral methods to teach. It was so bad to use sign language, that in some classes students got their hands tied up behind their backs. Perhaps the most horrible thing that came from the decision at the Milan Conference was that the number of deaf instructors in deaf classrooms decreased from 40% to a mere 15%. Despite the ban of sign language, sign still lived on. People in the deaf community started signing outside of school or under the dinner table. Sign continued to grow, develop, and build strong relationships in America.

National Association of the Deaf

The National Association of the Deaf was created on a more official level in reaction to the Milan Conference. The National Association of the Deaf stood as a guardian to American

Sign Language to make sure sign and deaf culture would be protected and preserved for many future generations. The Association relentlessly fought to restore sign language in classrooms, but it was almost a century later before sign made a comeback. 22222 6

Challenges the Deaf Face

Although communicating with sign has come a very long way, it is still not easy for those that use American Sign Language. For example, when it comes to things that have to do with deaf children or deaf employment rates, we see that about 98% of all deaf people don’t get education in sign, and almost 72% of families with deaf children do not do sign with their child.

Also, approximately 70% of deaf people are unemployed or are not working. About 1 out of 4 deaf adults leave their jobs because of discrimination towards them for being deaf. Every 1 out of 4 deaf women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes compared to every 1 out of 10 women that are able to hear. The rates of attempted suicide in deaf schools and colleges during the previous year ranged from 1.7% to 18%, with lifetime rates as high as 30%. It is so sad how people with hearing disabilities or those who are born deaf are treated. In many countries there is still not a very strong support for deaf education or the deaf community, and plenty of people still have not recognized sign as an official language or the most used language by deaf people.

The Other Perspective

Many may say that learning ASL is useless, because nowadays there are surgeries that can be done like the cochlear implant that can help people who are deaf hear again, but like any other surgery these come with risks and benefits. There have been many attempts to try and cure deafness, but there has never been anything fully successful that allows someone who is 100% deaf to be able to become a 100% hearing person again. For people that have a less severe deafness and are not fully deaf, they may have other options like hearing aids. However, as a person who knows many people with hearing aids, hearing aids are not cheap, and they are not 7 22222 always comfortable or helpful in some situations. When talking about aids though, the first known hearing aid company was established around 1800 by Frederick C. Rein in London.

Frederick Rein and his son during the early years of the company manufactured non-electric hearing aids. After years of research the earliest patent used for hearing aids was granted in 1836 in England. The patent that was released was for a curved ear piece placed behind the ear, and in

1865 in the United States, for a medical device called earscoops. Around the 19th century, attitudes toward hearing loss and people with hearing loss was extremely negative, and hearing aids were very noticeable on the person’s body. Although in present day America hearing aids are very small and have become less noticeable. When trying to do research on cochlear implant’s, research began in the 1950s. In 1961 Dr. Williams House performed the first cochlear implant in

America. Today the cochlear implant procedure is very widespread. Cochlear implant's do not restore normal hearing, rather than provide a representation of environmental sounds and may help implanter’s understand speech. Some deaf and hard of hearing people opt to have the cochlear implant surgery. However parents considering cochlear implant's for their children or child should be advised that implants do not eliminate deafness. They are highly encouraged them to do their research, and speak with other people who have had the surgery to hear their opinions on it. Even though the cochlear implant is a great option for those who are under the right criteria for it, the surgery is not for everyone.

Living with Deafness During COVID-19

After talking with Mrs. Karol McGregor from the New Mexico School of the Deaf

Education, she gave me not only some good information about living with deafness but also 22222 8 living with deafness during Covid. I think we can all say that Covid ruined a lot of things but it ruined even more things for her, like her way of speech and communication. In an interview that

I had with her she said,

” I didn't have much of any daily troubles in communicating with hearing people pre-

Covid because I am an “OK” lip reader and can speak for myself. However, because now

everyone wears masks, it has become more difficult for me to understand others. I am

still not in the habit of using various speech-to-text apps yet. Sometimes I forget I have

those apps and sometimes it takes too much time to open it up. Some of those apps

require internet and there are places that have protective firewalls, preventing some of the

apps from working. It used to be easy to lip read ,” Hi how are you?” and I could simply

respond by saying “Hello I'm good, how about you?” Those were simple. With masks, I

cannot tell if they said that or something else. So with masks it is now more of a daily

struggle for me. Other than that, I go on with my life just like everyone else.”

In times like this when people who are even 100% able to hear each other have a hard time hearing each other through the mask, it makes it extremely hard for her especially being deaf to understand someone. This is another reason that being able to speak sign language is important so that we came communicate with those who are affected by deafness on the daily. If it became something standard for people to learn ASL people like Mrs Karol

McGregor wouldn't have to face the troubles that it was to try to understand people, and communicate with them. 22222 9

ASL Today

Sign language is now known as the way of communication and as an educational method for people who are deaf or hearing impaired. Nobody knows exactly how many different forms of sign language there are around the world today, but there are unique signing methods in just about every country in our world. The development of ASL has come a long way, and has been improved by many greats, like Dr. Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. It was not easy for

American Sign Language to get where it is today, but because of the determination of those who saw its importance, there is no doubt that sign is a fully fledged, beautiful and amazing language which connects many who can’t hear and/or speak to our world. Sign impacts their lives in an important way and should not go unnoticed.

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Annotated Bibliography 1

Primary Sources Evans, Jessie F. "Is third Generation in Direct Line Brilliance in Particular Field." Sunday Star, 5 Apr. 1936 [Washington D.C] , chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1936-04-05/ed-1/ seq-44/ #date1=1814&index=13&rows=20&words=Gallaudet+Thomas&searchType=basic&sequence =0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=Thomas+Gallaudet&y=. This article talks about how deaf education was passed on from Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to his son and then onto his son. This article showed how one generation can start some thing that will lead on for the next generations to come.

Mason, Walt. "Dedication December 7." The Evening Star, 21 Nov. 1912 [Washington DC] . Google, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1912-11-21/ed-1/seq-24/ #date1=1814&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Gallaudet+Thomas&searchType=basic&sequ ence=0&index=4&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=Thoma This article talked about how after Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet pasted how they continued on a memorial day for him which was December 7.

McGregor, Karol. Personal interview. 21 Jan. 2021. Mrs Karol (In deaf culture it is important to go by the first name), is a part of the New Mexico school of the deaf and is a deaf person and lives with deafness every day of her life since she was a baby. It was great getting to talk with her and understand what it was like in the daily life with deafness.

Recorder, New York. "Swearing with a Hand Wave." The Daily Ardmoreite, 16 Aug. 1869 [Ardmore Oklahoma] . Google, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042303/1896-08-16/ ed-1/seq-4/ #date1=1814&index=5&rows=20&words=Gallaudet+Thomas&searchType=basic&sequence= 0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=Thomas+Gallaudet&y=0& This newspaper was a piece of physical evidence that I was able to look at through images that talked about Dr. Thomas Gallaudet and what he was doing and when he was traveling around the world at the time.

Secondary Sources Atchison, Lewis F. "College Training for the Deaf." Evening star, 18 May 1947 [Washington,DC] . Google, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1947-05-18/ed-1/ seq-111/ #date1=1814&index=9&rows=20&words=Gallaudet+Thomas&searchType=basic&sequence= 0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=Thomas+Gallaudet&y=. 22222

This newspaper talked about Dr. Thomas Gallaudet son Edward Minor Gallaudet and about how 2 he continued on his father's legacy through his own years.

Audiologists, Sacramento. "COCHLEAR IMPLANT PROS AND CONS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW." COCHLEAR IMPLANT PROS AND CONS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW, The Hearing Solution, 25 Feb. 2019. Google, www.thehearingsolution.com/hearing-blog/cochlear- implant-pros-and-cons-what-you-need-to-know. When trying to find an argumentative site to learning ASL this article was helpful in trying to find and understand the pros and cons of getting a cochlear implant.

Baumgart, Bethany. "Prevention Cochlear implants for hearing loss: Myths vs. reality." Cochlear implants for hearing loss: Myths vs. reality, UT Southwestern Medical Center, 25 Oct. 2019. Google, utswmed.org/medblog/cochlear-implants-hearing-loss-myths-vs-reality/. This article talked about myth versus reality of a cochlear implant, along with what to expect after surgery of the implantation of a cochlear implant. Which was very helpful when trying to know what to expect after surgery.

Jay, Michelle. "History of American Sign Language." History of American Sign Language, startasl , 6 Nov. 2020. Google, www.startasl.com/history-of-american-sign-language/. This article provided me with usable information, along with other information that other students used in their own papers.

Nomeland, Melvia M., and Ronald E. Nomeland. The Deaf Community in America History in the Making. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2012, pp. 5-208. This book discussed ASL moving through America and some of the benefits and challenges that people in the deaf community faced.

Seamons, Sara. "The History of Sign Language." The History of Sign Language, GoReact ASL Blog, 19 Apr. 2017. Google, aslblog.goreact.com/2017/04/19/the-history-of-sign-language/. In this blog I was able to understand how the makers and the creators of ASL traveled around the world trying to understand the language and finding a solution to deaf peoples inability to communicate with others.

Waterfield, Sophia. "ASL Day 2019: Everything You Need To Know About American Sign Language." ASL Day 2019: Everything You Need To Know About American Sign Language, 15 Apr. 2019. Google, www.newsweek.com/asl-day-2019-american-sign-language-1394695. This website gave me information about the current times about rates for people that are ASL in the fact of getting jobs, or as times that they might be told that they were able to do something each day.