I
70-19,358
SCHOWE, Jr., Ben Marshall, 1920- EDUCATION OF THE DEAF IN THE SIXTIES: A DESCRIPTION AND CRITIQUE.
The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1970 Education, special
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED EDUCATION OF THE DEAF IN THE SIXTIES
A DESCRIPTION AND CRITIQUE
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Ben Marshall Schowe, Jr., B.A., M.A.
*******
The Ohio State University 1970
Approved by
n Adviser College of Education ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In various ways many people have contributed to the com pletion of this dissertation. Some of them will know that I appreciate their help because they may have read parts of the dissertation or discussed it with me. Others may be surprised that I credit them with encouragement or help worthy of mention because their help has been of a less direct nature.
Professr :3 Alfred C. Clarke and Paul Klohr have served as members of my graduate committee. They have been critical ob servers of my work and the development of this dissertation.
Professor Edgar Dale, my adviser, has lived through my efforts to sum up nearly fifty years of experience with deaf people. How trying this may have been to him and the extent to which I wish to express my appreciation might be summed up in
Dr. Dale's own words, "Ben, when you finish this we shall dance in the streets!"
Not the least to have reason to "dance in the streets" is
Laura, my wife, to whom I owe considerable for assuming more than her share of household cares during periods of intensive graduate study. Furthermore, her editing and typing of this manuscript has been invaluable.
ii VITA
August 6, 1920 . . Born - Akron, 0hJo
1942 ...... B. A., Gallauc College, Washington, D. C.
1943 ...... Teacher-Librarian, Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind, Staunton, Virginia
1944 ...... Teacher, Primary and Intermediate Grades, Ohio School for the Deaf, Columbus, Ohio
1955 ...... M. A., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
1958 ...... Research Consultant, R. F. Project 664 #AF 19(604)1577 Hand Signals for Communication in High-level Noise. Research Foundation, Ohio State University
1959 ...... Teacher-Librarian, Ohio School for the Deaf, Columbus, Ohio
1960-1969...... Consultant, Media Services and Captioned Films, U. S. Office of Education
1964-1966...... Resource Director for summer Workshops for Im proving Instruction for the Deaf, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana
1964-1966...... Advisory Committee on Study of Library Services in Schools for the Deaf, American Instructors of the Deaf
1967 ...... Consultant, Lecturer, Evaluator of Summer Work shops and Institutes, Media Services and Captioned Films, U. S. Office of Education
1968 ...... Coordinator, Curriculum Workshop, Ohio School for the Deaf, Summer
1967-196 9 ...... Resource Committee, Project LIFE, National Educa tion Association
1968-196 9 ...... Lecturer and Consultant, University of Tennessee, University of Massachusetts, and Illinois School for the Deaf on subject of Media Services
iii PUBLICATIONS
"The Art of Living With a Hearing Aid,” Volta Review, December, 1950.
"Captioned Films for the Deaf," Teaching Aids News, November, 1965.
"Deaf Children and A-V Aids: Some General Criteria," Film News, December, 1968.
Hand Signals: Fingerspelling. Henry W. Moser and others, Ohio State University Research Foundation, 1958.
"Projecting Books as an Aid to Teaching Reading to Deaf Children," Volta Review, September, 1962.
"Resource Center at the Ohio School for the Deaf," Audiovisual Instruction, November, 1966.
"The Role of Media Specialists and Librarians: Towards Tomorrow's Learning Centers." Report of the Proceedings of the 44th Meet ing of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1969.
"A Small School Instructional Media Center: Its Diffusion of Inno vations for Learning," American Annals of the Deaf, November, 1967.
"Some Observations on Sign Language," Educational Research Bulletin, Ohio State University, May, 1958.
iv PUBLICATIONS (Continued)
"Suggestions and Media in Teaching Composition to Deaf Students," Report of the Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the Conven tion of American Instructors of the Deaf. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1966.
Survey of Flight-line Hand Signals. Henry W. Moser and others, Ohio State University Research Foundation, 1958.
"Two Ears Hear Better Than One," Volta Review, July, 1950.
"Visual Teaching Aids and Library Notes," The Ohio Chronicle (Ohio School for the Deaf, Columbus) (A weekly series of articles from December 23, 1961, through April 28, 1962.)
"We Made Our Library a Teaching Aid Center," Audiovisual Instruction, October, 1962.
"Who Needs Media Workshops?" Missouri Record (Missouri School for the Deaf, Fulton), March, 1968.
v FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Education
Communications: Professors Edgar Dale, I. Keith Tyler, and Norman Woelfel
Sociology: Professor Alfred C. Clarke
Curriculum: Professor Alexander Frazier
Elementary Education: Professors Laura Zirbes and Leland B. Jacobs
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... ii
VITA ...... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS...... x
GLOSSARY ...... xii
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION 1
Rationale . . . 1 Outline . . . 4 Theoretical Framework . . . 5 A Survey . . . 12 Communication of Deaf Children . . . 12 Learning Theory and Programs . . . 29 Diffusion and Implementation of Programs . . . 37 Schools for the Deaf as a System . . . 37 Parents of Deaf Children - Status and Role . . . 39 Resources for the Educational Failure . . . 53 Summary . . . 56
II. DEAF CHILDREN’S COMMUNICATION RELATED TO SCHOOLS. . 59
Threat of Handicap . . . 59 Limitations of Chapter . . . 61 School Practice . . . 64 Helmer Myklebust . . . 66 Lee Meyerson . . . 77 Hallowell Davis and S. Richard Silverman . . . 79
vii Chapter Page
II. (Continued)
D.M.C.Dale . . . 83 Great Britain Study . . . 87 Richard Brill . . . 90 Hans Furth . . . 91 Harley Z. Wooden . . . 95 Jack W. Birch and E. Ross Stuckless . . . 97 Louis DiCarlo . . . 100 Behavioral Factors Design . . . 103 Contrasting Desctiptions of the Deaf . . . 108 Levels of Communication Attainment . . . 117 Communication Contact . . . 120 Thomas E. Jordan . . . 127 Cyril Fry . . . 128 Contributions of Anthropologists . . . 133 Summary . . . 142
III. LEARNING THEORY AND PROGRAMS FOR DEAF CHILDREN. . . 144
Learning Theory . . . 144 Biological View . . . 158 Programs and Special Materials - Evaluation . . 168 What Should Be Taught - Some Criteria . . . 175 "Mechanical Problems" . . . 185 Special Materials . . . 191 Summary . . . 211
IV. DIFFUSION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF LEARNING PROGRAMS FOR DEAF CHILDREN ...... 212
The Role of Media Services and Captioned Films. 212 Criteria for Assessing Summer Institutes. . . 215 A Design for Planning and Evaluating an Instruc tional Materials Center . . . 223 Summary . . . 240
V. SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF - AS A SYSTEM ...... 241
Rationale - A Communication System . . . 241 Curriculum Planning . . . 249
viii Chapter
V. (Continued)
Media Specialists and Librarians . . . 255 Houseparents . . . 258 Professional Organizations . . . 260 Publications . . . 265 Communication Model . . . 286 Summary . . .292
VI. PARENTS OF DEAF CHILDREN - STATUS AND ROLE ....
Review . . . 293 The Problems of Decision . . . 294 Experiment in Teaching . . . 296 Santa Ana's "Total Approach" . . . 302 Austin Preschool . . . 304 Parent Organizations and Publications . . . 306 Preschool Programs . . . 313 Parents' Responsibility for Communication . . . 319 Summary . . . 323
VII. RESOURCES FOR EDUCATIONAL FAILURES ......
Introduction . . . 324 Technological Juggernaut . . . 325 Deaf Youth Who Do Not Communicate - A Biograph ical Sketch . . . 327 Role of Organizations of and for the Deaf . . . 331 Adult Education and Deaf Teachers . . . 337 "Drop-outs" . . . 338 Evaluation and Training for Drop-outs . . . 339 Publications . . . 341 Assessment of a Workshop . . . 345 Strategies and Techniques Design (Guba) . . . 351 Universe of Concerns Design . . . 356 Summary . . . 368
VIII. IMPLICATIONS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure Page
1 Oral Gesture Sequence ...... 14
2 Manual Gesture Sequence ...... 14
3 Oral Gesture Sequence ...... 14
4 Fingerspelling Sequence ...... 14
5 Manual Gesture - Early. Version I ...... 26
6 Manual Gesture - Early, Version II...... 26
7 Manual Gesture - Early, Version I I I ...... 26
8 Manual Gesture -Dress ...... 26
9 Manual Gesture -Bathe ...... 26
10 Factors That Affect Behaviors ...... 105
11 Communication Level Design...... 117
12 Evaluation Report F o r m ...... 171
13 Observation Check F o r m ...... 172
14 Experience Story Chart ...... 189
15 Opaque Projector ...... 189
16 Photo-copied Reader ...... 189
17 Overhead Projector Transparency ...... 189
18 Mediated Interaction Visual Response System ...... 190
19 Programmed Instruction (Project LIFE) ...... 195
x Figure Page
20 Filmstrip Frames from "Tim's Pet" ...... 196
21 Picture Dictionary (Project LIFE) ...... 197
22 Rhythm Filmstrip ...... 200
23 American History Workbooks ...... 202
24 English W o r k b o o k s ...... 203
25 Kinds of Shirts (Transparency Original) ...... 205
26 Language Lesson (Transparency Original) ...... 205
27 Story Backdrop (Transparency Original) ...... 205
28 Stick Puppets (Transparency Original) ...... 205
29 Frame from Noun Vocabulary Films ...... 207
30 Idiom S l i d e ...... 207
31 Frame from Captioned Film ...... 207
32 Sights and Sounds "Workbook" ...... 208
33 Design for Planning and Evaluating an Instructional Materials Center ...... 231
34 Media Services and Captioned Films ...... 246
35 A Captioned Film Teaching Guide ...... 248
36 Curriculum Unit from "Ball State Guides" ...... 251
37 Cued S p e e c h ...... 298
38 John Tracy Clinic Home Study Course ...... 316
39 John Tracy Clinic Home Study Course ...... 317
40 Strategies and Techniques (Guba) ...... 351
41 Universe of Concerns Design ...... 356
42 Universe of Concerns Design ...... 358
xi GLOSSARY
For ready reference, we present this list of terms with brief explanations. The terms are sometimes confusing to those reading about the deaf for the first time. Page notations refer to more extensive discussions of the terms. adventitiously deafened People who lose their hearing after birth.
These people are usually thought of as
having good language patterns, learned in
a normal way before loss of hearing, congenitally deafened Those who lose their hearing at birth.
These people are usually thought of as
having poor language patterns as a result
of early deafness. deaf In this dissertation, people who have had
special education due to the severity of
hearing loss and usually prefer to social
ize with other deaf persons, fingerspelling The production of letters of the alphabet
through different configurations of the
fingers. Generally, this is distinct from
manual gestures or "sign language" of the
deaf which are gross movements of parts of
the body, often depicting some outstanding
feature of an object or the action indicated.
xi 1 hard of hearing People who have a mild loss of hearing,
require minimal special training, and do
not generally find communication through
speech and hearing difficult.
lipreading In this dissertation, refers to the recep
tion of unheard speech by observing move
ments of the mouth and face as communica
tive sounds are made. (p. 14) manual gestures Gestures made by any part of the body to
communicate some message. The gestures
are often ideographic— adopting some out
standing feature of the object or action
as a part of the gesture. Some writers
refer to this as "sign language." (pp. 14, 21) oral gestures In this dissertation, refers to movements
made in the production of speech. Synony
mous with speech except that the auditory
sounds may be unheard or not "voiced," or,
in other words, it is "silent speech" either
in expression or reception, (p. 14, 15) postlingually deafened Same as adventitiously deafened. prelingually deafened Functionally, the same as congenitally
deafened.
xiii profoundly deaf Usually the same as prelingually deafened
and congenitally deafened, but also often
suggesting a lack of oral skills as well
as language ability. speechreading In this dissertation, the same as lipread
ing. (p. 14)
xiv CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Rationale
Methods for education of the deaf have changed little in the
United States over the past 150 years— the beginning measured from
the establishment of the first public school for deaf children in
Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817. A committee of citizens recently
appointed by the Federal Government said:
The American people have no reason to be satisfied with their limited success in educating deaf children. . . . Less than half of the deaf needing specialized pre-school instruc tion are receiving it. The average graduate of a public residential school for the deaf - the closest we have to gen erally available high schools for the deaf - has an eighth grade education.
This unsatisfactory state of education of the deaf can not be attributed to any lack of dedication of those who teach and work with the deaf. The basic explanation lies in our failure to launch an aggressive assault on some of the basic problems of language learning . . . and in our failure to develop more systematic and adequate programs for educat ing the deaf at all levels.
There is much evidence today that an "aggressive assault" has been launched on "some of the basic problems of language learning"
U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Educa tion of the Deaf, A Report to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, The Advisory Committee on Education of the Deaf, February 11, 1965, p. xv. 1 2
and on "more systematic and adequate programs for educating the deaf at all levels." For example, there is a proliferation of Federal- funded projects and there is a relatively sharp increase in the number of professional people of academic lustre rather uncommon to the field in the past. Indeed, the average teacher of the deaf and school administrator has difficulty in keeping up with all the activity and identification of new specialists.
This dissertation will explore some of the possible reasons O why education of the deaf has been relatively unsuccessful for a century and a half. It will analyze and evaluate some of the major educational efforts being made today, hypothesize upon the extent to which they may be successful, and suggest ways for planning and eval uating future efforts.
We will first sketch a rough map of education of the deaf, showing where areas are unusually devoid of trails and need further exploration. We will also note other areas where paths are relatively clear and sf \d probably be followed more diligently than they are.
This mapping should help us see more clearly what the field appears to be. It will show distinct differences of view which need to be resolved through investigation. It should help to reduce
O We are primarily concerned with deaf children denied the op portunity of learning patterns of language in a normal way through hearing because of the very early onset of loss and the severity of disability. Various terms are used to indicate such individuals: prelingually deafened, profoundly deaf, born deaf, and congenitally deafened. 3
objections to exploring particularly threatening areas— areas which may reveal that drastic changes must be undertaken if century-old
barriers are to be overcome. 4
Outline
As benchmarks for our mapping, we have chosen the following 3 areas which we present here as an outline for this dissertation.
Introduction
-o-
The Special Nature of Deaf Children's Communication
and Some Phenomena of Special Schools
for Them
-o-
Learning Theory Most Applicable to Deaf Children
and
Special Learning Programs for Them
-o-
Diffusion and Implementation of Learning
Programs for Deaf Children
-o-
Schools for the Deaf As a. Unique System
-o-
The Status and Role of Parents of Deaf Children
-o-
Special Services for School Failures
-o-
Implications
^Similar to Chapter headings. 5
Theoretical Framework
This study— description, analysis, synthesis, and assessment— will relate sociological, psychological, and educational aspects of dearness in each chapter.
Sociological aspects will include the role of individual deaf persons as members of a minority group, and deaf individuals responsi ble for successful personal and group interaction with individuals in the hearing world.
The possibilities of assimilation of the deaf into the hearing world will be considered from the psychological standpoint of how deaf individuals might acquire identity and how they compensate for or cope with deafness. The roles stigma and prejudice play in the sociological, as well as the educational and psychological, dynamics of the individ ual and group are not directly discussed. They are important consid erations but are relatively unexplored phenomena as they relate to the deaf.
My position on stigma and prejudice is such that a discussion of them might take us far afield. For instance, proof of prejudice requires proof of intentional, knowledgeable, and inexcusable misbe havior toward a deaf person. Because deafness is a difficult-to-under- stand phenomenon, most people are so naive regarding the deaf that their misbehavior can often be excused on the grounds that it is the result of ignorance. 6
The educational aspects related to deafness will include a review of learning theories, curriculum planning, strategies and techniques of diffusion of innovations in learning, and modes of ob taining feedback to allow adjustments for improving the quality of learning. The writer will emphasize the need for realistic ap praisal of educational practices which relate to difficulties deaf children experience in understanding their place among other people
(identity). The responsibilities of education will also be stressed in relation to problems adult deaf face in winning social acceptance by hearing associates in ways the deaf choose— assimilation without hindrance from hearing disability or, in contrast, various degrees of interaction which require certain accommodations on the part of hearing people.
Educational programs especially planned and visually tail ored for the deaf will be described, assessed, and related to the total picture of learning. Some of the programs will be as general as model curricula for schools'for the deaf, and some will be as specific as a series of eight millimeter loop films to teach vocab ulary and lipreading.
Progress reports of continuing projects and projects not yet completed will give some idea of what is still in the making. Some reports will be of projects as continuing and extensive as Project
LIFE (Language Improvement to Facilitate Education of Hearing Im paired Children) under the National Education Association, while some 7
will be as near completion as a project to produce a series of trans parencies to help present concepts which will aid deaf youth to adjust to the world of work.
Throughout this dissertation, we will be talking about com munication. We will maintain two views of communication. The first one is that deafness is a disability which handicaps people by in terfering with their ability to communicate freely with other people.
Deafness not only interferes with the physical act of communication, it also interferes with clear communication of thought.
To free the deaf from this outstanding handicap of deafness has never been proven generally possible. Deafness is not reversible.
Unless some means can be found to provide the deaf with communication experience which is equivalent to the early processes of language acquisition in the hearing child prior to the age of five years, there is little hope that the prelingually deafened child can ever satisfactorily communicate thoughts that fully reflect his dynamic and creative individuality. The magnitude of this problem, with support for long-suggested but yet untried remedies, is one of the main warp-threads running through the educational tapestry we shall weave.
The second view of communication is that we believe the only way that improved learning for deaf children may be achieved is for geographically separated schools and classes for deaf children to share their knowledge about common problems and co-operate more 8
effectively in efforts to solve them. According to Edgar Dale's favorite definition of communication, "to share in common, to par- 4 ticipate in," what we are talking about for the schools is more communication.
Happily, it appears that communication is increasing sharply.
The increasing number of scholars who are concerning themselves with problems of the deaf is encouraging. They have published books in forming us of their observations and research, adding exciting dimensions to ideas about the deaf and reinforcing old ones. Mono graphs, research reports, and articles in professional journals and lay magazines have all increased during the Sixties.
Interpersonal communication has never been greater than it is today as planning and conducting takes place to arrange work shops, symposiums, institutes, forums, and meetings of consultants.
These activities have occurred not only on national and international levels but on local levels, also. Federal funds have provided for varied types of inservice training projects and program development with teachers, parents, and community leaders participating.
New organizations, both professional and lay, have increased the amount of communication about problems of the deaf. They enable more people "to participate in" activities concerning their own
Ssdgar Dale, Can You Give the Public What it Wants? (New York: Cowles Education Corporation, 1967), p. 40. 9 welfare and "to share in common" a multitude of experiences. Some of the new organizations fill a need for communication in areas not previously considered.
The increase of educational programs and welfare services at all levels is a means for exchanging ideas and promoting the partici pation of deaf people in the more important roles of daily life. For example, the least able communicators in a community, people without jobs and skills to maintain employment, become commuters and communi cators when they learn skills and go to work each day, supporting themselves, thus economically winning a status that gives them the freedom to mingle with other people.
Not to be overlooked as an important channel of communication are the school papers and magazines popularly known as "The Little
Paper Family." All of the residential schools for the deaf have pub lished papers or magazines for a great many years. They are perhaps the least expensive and most durable means of providing schools across the country with information which makes their varied experiences common to one another. They enable each school to participate in others' activities in the sense that when one school learns about some new practice in another and decides to try it, then both are par ticipating in a similar activity. The more successful and appealing experiences may become common to all of them.
Herein lies the obvious power of The Little Paper Family. Ad vances in printing technology have made many of the magazines and 10
newspapers more attractive. More important, the awakening of other kinds of communication in education of the deaf is providing The
Little Paper Family with more worthwhile events and ideas to report.
We will present detailed examples of the variety of useful informa
tion which can be gleaned from members of The Little Paper Family.
This dissertation will be offered as the observations, criti
cal analyses, and considered syntheses of the writer who has had
twenty-six years' experience as a teacher, ten years as an educa
tional consultant, and forty-nine years of association with the deaf.
It purports to be an explanation of education of the deaf, as scien
tifically acceptable as the writer can make it. It offers criteria
for evaluating this special education.
It should be understood that the writer's objective is not what Abraham Kaplan calls a "logic of proof" which relates to
"reasons for accepting a hypothesis" but more the attainment of a
"logic of discovery" which deals with "reasons for entertaining a hypothesis."^ This seems to be quite appropriate for this place in
time, for never in the writer's lifetime has education of the deaf been more sensitive to the possibility of exploring better ways of
educating deaf children. With the present sudden focus on special
education, we have never before had such resources to enable us to
entertain and to explore new hypotheses, and never have we had so
^Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1964), p. 18. 11
much incentive from the minds of many men to "aggressively assault" the problems which have been especially complex.
Even if the writer were so bold as to claim that his ex planations of education of the deaf can be proven and that his hy potheses should be accepted, not just entertained, there exists some defense. Kaplan says:
The history of science is a history of the successive replacement of one explanation by another. It is possi ble, I suppose, to say that the earlier account was not really an explanation, but was only thought to be one. But in that case it would ill become us ever to claim that we can explain anything, for surely we must expect that our theories will be in turn replaced by others. What is required of an explanation is that the propositions ad duced be well attested, that they rest on considerable evidence. Such propositions may eventually be shown to be false, but this event in the future does not rob them of scientific use now.6
The writer is aware of pitfalls in choosing a problem which involves the critical analysis and synthesis of a broad and develop ing field such as that of the education of the deaf. It might have been better to take one small aspect of the field and mine it deeply. Yet there still remains the nagging problem of mapping the field, however hazardous this may be from a scholarly point of view.
The mariner without a map is not likely to reach his destination.
Perhaps Daniel Webster’s advice is good at this point:
"When the mariner has been sailing in thick weather he avails himself of the first opportunity to take his latitude. Let us imitate this prudence."
6lbid.. p. 354. 12
A Survey
In the following pages the writer presents a broad view of education of the deaf and identifies some of the outstanding prob lems facing educators.
Communication of Deaf Children
The important things in life, like development of a sense of being someone (identity, self-concept, ego), being loved, belonging to some group, and having a general sense of well-being derived from successful living, all depend heavily upon being able to communicate with other people. But the deaf children and adults we are mainly concerned with in this review were born with so little hearing or lost it so early that they never learned to hear or to talk in in fancy as do children with normal hearing.
This early loss of hearing is significant because normal chil dren learn language from repeated association of sounds they hear with things they see and activities they observe going on around them.
Imperfect hearing and infrequent opportunity to mimic what is heard reduce the likelihood of good speech production. Even more important, it reduces the opportunity of frequently relating the sounds we hear to things and actions that relate to the sounds.
Educators have developed numerous systems for teaching chil dren to see the sounds that people make when they speak by distin guishing various movements of the lips, tongue, and parts of the face. 13
This is commonly called lipreading or speechreading. We will employ the term oral gestures (see Fig. 1) in referring to communication in speaking to a deaf person who only sees but does not hear movements of speech. The act of associating these "oral" movements (oral ges tures) to meaning could appropriately be called "silent oral recep tion." The term manual gestures^ (see Fig. 2) will refer primarily to movements of other parts of the body to signal a message. Un fortunately, as helpful as the observation of the face and all its movements can be in communication, there are many shortcomings in this mode of communication, as we will discuss later.
Inherent weaknesses of silent oral gestures, in contrast to audible speech, are: they will not "carry" around corners, through walls, or over a long distance, nor can they be seen in poor light.
Obviously, the frequency of opportunity to relate communication to things or actions is much lower than with audible speech. With audible speech, one can listen with the ears while watching some
thing happen with the eyes. Even under ideal conditions when the
lips are easy to see and the action is clear, it is difficult to see all the action and associate it with all the oral gestures simultan
eously being made to identify and explain the process or reason for
the action
^Manual gestures should not be confused with fingerspelling (Fig. 3), although fingerspelling is often combined with manual ges tures in the lack of a gesture for some word. Fig. 1 Oral Centura Saquanca (cov).
Fig. 2 Manual Gaatura Saquanca: Two VaraIons (cov).
(Bonb) Fig* 3 Oral Gaatura Saquancaa.
C O W Fig. ♦ Flngarapalling Saquanca 15
As a substitute for hearing, oral gestures are said to be limited to conveying only about one-third of the audible speech O sounds. Note the similarity of oral gestures for "mom" and "bomb," for example, in Fig. 3. In spite of this, there are a remarkable number of people who find this amount of oral cuing sufficient to receive many spoken messages, although they cannot hear them.
There are a number of instances and conditions when oral ges tures are reinforced as a channel of communication and are sometimes reinforcers. People who may have slight residual hearing sometimes find that it reinforces the oral gestures or perhaps oral gestures reinforce the hearing. Oral gestures are also easier to utilize in communication if the person has a thorough knowledge of the topic under discussion. If one knows what the subject is, one can guess much of what one cannot hear or see.
Some people seem to have unusual visual perception which in creases the degree of cuing that oral gestures provide. We also know, from experience, that there are occasional deaf people whose unusual faculties have enabled them to acquire almost normal patterns of language, a knowledge of which enables them to utilize oral gestures to a much greater degree than the average deaf person who does not have good language patterns.
So, however useful oral gestures can be in signaling
g Miriam D. Pauls, "Speechreading," Hearing and Deafness, ed. Hallowell Davis and S. Richard Silverman (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1960), p. 355. 16
approximately one-third of audible sound, the degree of utilization
depends much upon unusual faculties and the skills a deaf person might have or might have acquired. Obviously, as an aid to deaf
children when communicating, oral gesture is extremely limited until
they develop language patterns and learn something about the subject matter under discussion, as well as develop skills which might aid
in reading the lips of other people.
So far, we have been speaking mainly of reception for com munication and not expression. Also, we have not limited ourselves
to just deaf school children. Oral gestures can be utilized to a
far greater extent in reception than they can in expression. The
scope of their utilization is more fully illustrated when speaking
of adult usage. Furthermore, we have not said anything about how
these skills are learned, nor have we distinguished communication
between a hearing person and a deaf person from communication between
two deaf persons.
Assuming that these oral skills are learned through practice
in communication, what opportunities are there for practicing recep
tive skills between a deaf child and a hearing person? It seems
logical to assume that this is an individual matter depending upon
the amount of contact there is between these individuals, the patience
of the communicators, and the clarity of the oral gestures. Between
deaf persons, receptive communication is not likely to be so easy
because neither party, when they must express something, would be as 17
orally intelligible as.if they were hearing persons.
When one encounters an article or hears a'talk about chil
dren's acquisition of expressive communication, the message is in variably about the need for teachers and parents to monitor children's
speech. Nothing is said about peer association contributing to the
acquisition of expressive communication. As Avery says, "During the
school years a deaf child's teachers and parents act as his speech 9 monitoring system."
It is not surprising that peer associations are not considered
helpful in developing expressive communication. Very often young
hearing children do not have the ability to correct a deaf sibling's
speech. Indeed, it would not be surprsing if their own speech was
not easily understood by their parents, let alone that of a deaf
brother or sister. Dorothea McCarthy lends insight into what probably
occurs between siblings, as well as insight into the task parents and
teachers face in helping a deaf child develop his expressive communi
cation skills. She says:
It should be remembered that during the acquisition of language the normal child uses gestures to facilitate his limited verbal expression, that he speaks in many incom plete sentences, and that he is understood and gets what he wants in spite of imperfect articulation. The chief difference is that the normal child's errors usually drop out through hearing the correct form. The deaf child's practice is not thus self-corrective. The task of the teacher is to try to stimulate and encourage his spontaneity
Q Charlotte B. Avery, "The Education of Children with Impaired Hearing," Education of Exceptional Children and Youth, ed. William M. Cruickshank (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1967) p. 379. 18
and freedom of expression while artificially eliminating these errors which are not self-corrective.
Authorities acknowledge that even deaf adults seldom display speech intelligible enough to be useful outside of their own family and circle of close friends. Long and close association with the deaf enables their relatives, friends, and teachers to understand the "foreign sound" of their simple expression.
How deaf children acquire an identity when communication is delayed and faulty is a matter worthy of investigation. Self-concept or identity has not been the subject of much discussion in literature about the deaf. Still, communication seems essential. Peter Berger says, "Identities are socially bestowed. They must also be socially sustained, and fairly steadily so. One cannot be human all by oneself and, apparently, one cannot hold on to any particular identity all by oneself."^
Dr. Berger's statement may explain why it is usual to discover that gestures made with the arms, the body, and the face, aside from formal oral gestures, serve deaf children as a medium of communica tion among themselves and, to some degree, with hearing peers. Most
^Dorothea McCarthy, Language Learning in Normal and in Deaf Children (A monograph, source and date not given, published while McCarthy was associated with Fordham University), p. 10.
■^Peter Berger, Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspec tive (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Co., 1963), p. 100. 19
will acknowledge that groups of deaf children establish an esoteric manual gesture "language."
Manual gestures, an alternative mode of communication to oral gestures, involve the use of hands, arms, facial expressions, varying degrees of precision in oral gestures, and other parts of the body. However, this mode of communication has never been accepted formally and used in the process of teaching, except at Gallaudet Col lege, the only college for the deaf in the world. More precisely, communication at Gallaudet College employs a mixture of manual ges tures (Fig. 2) and fingerspelling (Fig. 4) with oral gestures
(Figs. 1 and 3) and audible speech in what is called the simultan eous mode.
The simultaneous mode offers a choice of communication channels, which seems particularly appropriate in the college class room situation where larger groups of students may be seated farther away from the professor than in grade and secondary schools. Under these circumstances, lighting becomes a critical factor. This mode also seems appropriate when one considers that students' skills in using various communication modes vary. Perhaps more important, varying degrees of precision are needed by different students at different points of an academic presentation. Let us explore this idea a bit further.
Regardless of the size of classes and the distance a student must sit from the professor and fellow students, the students will be 20
watching the professor's face— particularly his oral gestures. If the professor is familiar with manual gestures, students will be ob serving the manual gestures with their peripheral vision. The focus of the student's attention may shift from the speaker's face to the speaker's fingerspelling hand, or to a gesture of his hand and arm.
If an oral gesture is not clear, the student may shift his attention to either the accompanying manual gesture or the fingerspelling hand. Some students might be able to utilize hearing aids. Con sidering all these choices of avenues of communication, in a given situation with certain individuals, any one mode or a combination of modes might be found superior to the other.
While manual gestures are not formally accepted in schools as a means of communication, there are schools which do not accept the theory that oral gestures and speech ought to be the sole means of communication. Schools which do insist upon oral gestures and speech to the exclusion of manual gestures or fingerspelling, any where or at any time, are called oral schools. The reason for this practice is clearly expressed:
The fundamental assumption of the oralists (advocates of oral instruction for the deaf), on the other hand, is that training in speech and in speechreading gives an easier adjustment to a world in which speech is the chief medium of communication. It does not confine the deaf man or woman to association with those who know the manual alphabet or to those who are willing to resort to pad and pencil. An employer is more inclined to favor a deaf man to whom he can give oral instruction over a man of equal ability with whom he must communicate by gestures or in writing. It is not always possible, especially in smaller 21
communities, for the deaf to find employment or social companionship among other deaf people. Oralists feel that, in the main, orally trained children have done well and are likely to do better as more teachers are adequately trained in the methods of oral instruction.-^
At odds with this belief are the schools which advocate what is commonly called the combined system, a theory which may be ex pressed,
Those who advocate some manualism generally contend that too often the results of exclusively oral teaching are unsatisfactory and that the deaf child cannot make himself understood to an untrained listener. Further more, it is argued, many children do not have the apti tude to benefit from oral instruction and the time spent in this type of instruction could more profitably be used in concentrating on the child's "mental" develop ment rather than on his means of communication. Also, some advocates of manualism feel that the deaf prefer to associate with other deaf and therefore have little or no need for oral communication.13
Since residential schools usually advocate the combined method, the following description helps to enlarge the preceding view:
A benefit of the residential school to the large majority of its pupils is the fact that it provides a situation where there is the ease of communication between one child and another and between children and adult staff. Many of the constant frustrations resulting from deaf children living continually with hearing people are eliminated, and in consequence
S. R. Silverman, H. S. Lane, D. C. Doehring, "Deaf Children," Hearing and Deafness, ed. Hallowell Davis and S. Richard Silverman (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1960), p. 420.
13Ibid. 22
better mental health and thus better climate for learning is frequently the result.
The modern residential school takes seriously the responsibility of developing its students in many areas in addition to the strictly academic and the strictly communication field. Responsibility, self-respect, respect for others, honesty, initiative, and many other traits are best developed through par ticipation in many so-called extracurricular activi ties. These include such things as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, dramatic clubs, science clubs, as well as planning for parties, dances and participation in both intramural and interscholastic sports.
It is the rare deaf child who makes a bona fide place for himself in these activities that are organ ized by and for hearing boys and girls with their ease of communication. In the residential school, each child has the opportunity to develop his individual talents in one or many fields because he is competing against someone else with the same handicap that he has, and because he is able to communicate with the others on an understanding basis. All of this is to prepare the deaf child to take his place in our cur rent society where he will be earning his living among hearing people.
Many individuals speak of "the deaf world" and "the hearing world" as though the individual deaf person must make a choice as to whether he is going to live in one of these worlds or in the other of these worlds. In actual practice, each deaf person lives in both "the deaf world" and "the hearing world" and the degree to which he enters each is dependent upon himself and also dependent upon the individual situation. Nearly all deaf people are employed with hearing people. They have hearing neighbors, the large majority have hearing children, the large majority have hearing parents and hearing relatives, and they shop in stores operated and patronized by hearing people.^
^Richard G. Brill, "The Residential School for the Deaf in the United States," Special Education Programs Within the United States, ed. Morris Val Jones (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1968), pp. 186-7. 23
Most of the combined system schools do not interfere with the use of gestures outside of the classroom. In fact, many of them promote all sorts of activities— from clubs to formal assemblies and dramatics, which are conducted using a combination of modes. Since manual gestures lend themselves to esoteric communication, spon taneous talk that develops without apparent outside influence, they play a large role in such activities, as they do in other communica tion between peers.
Also, whether it is condoned by the administrators of the combined method school or not, so-called non-oral classes (manual), for children who make poor progress in oral classes, use gestures as a mode of communication instead of relying exclusively upon finger spelling, as administrative dictates propose. The permissiveness of some teachers in using manual gestures is defended upon the grounds that it is the easiest way to establish rapport with the children and, once having done so, they can use the gestures as a means of developing the increased use of fingerspelling. Fingerspelling is more acceptable than gestures because it is more similar to reading and writing modes than untaught manual gestures.
In the oral schools, however strict the school may be in discouraging the use of manual gestures or fingerspelling, some chil dren use them secretly. They may be children whose parents are deaf and who use gestures at home. Others may have deaf friends who use them and from whom they have learned the gestures. At the same time, 24
many children in the oral schools have learned to consider gestures as offensive and will not use them.
Some reader might charge that the claim that manual gestures are not formally taught in schools for the deaf is false. In some schools, classes are held to acquaint houseparents, psychologists, and other staff members with manual gestures so they can more easily converse with the children. However, children do not have such training; and the houseparents often complain that their children do not use the same gestures that the houseparents have been taught.
This is not surprising, because the gestures taught in the short courses for the staff are more often relatively formal and standard gestures. It is interesting to note that the "standardization" of gestures may be becoming more and more of a reality. Five new manuals of gestures were produced in the Sixties, and two more manuals are to be published soon. The establishment of a Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, and the Manual Communication Program under the auspices of the National Association of the Deaf may help standardize gestures.
It is surprising that manual gestures are as uniform as they are when they are not formally taught in schools— they are more tolerated than taught. Uniformity is even more remarkable when one considers, as the writer observed in his theses reporting beginning communication of first-year deaf children in a state residential 25 school for the deaf, that children learn gestures from older children who are still learning new ones from yet older children.^
Gestures used by children may be imperfect imitations of the more standard versions, may be abbreviated from formal gestures, or may be made up by the children themselves for the lack of something better. Even among adults, gestures are subject to deviations similar to those of the spoken language— colloquialisms, slang, accents, and "ghetto."
Gestures may vary from one part of the country to another.
Deaf persons from one area of the country, in inventing a gesture
(giving some gesture a particular meaning among themselves) may, for instance, associate "early" with the hour hand of a clock and make the gesture as seen in Fig. 5. This seems to be the most common ges ture for "early." However, many deaf people associate early with the rooster's crow at sun-up and make the gesture as seen in Fig. 6, a gesture also meaning "rooster." Children in the Ohio School for the
Deaf frequently use the gesture seen in Fig. 7. This is perhaps the most arbitrary gesture of the three. The idea seems to be that you can rest (this is a common gesture for "rest") if you do something ahead of time (do it early).
Many humorous incidents occur when communication runs afoul of
^Ben M. Schowe, Jr., "Sign Language Development" (Unpublished Master's dissertation, College of Education, Ohio State University, 1955), p. 74. 26
Fig. 5
Fig. 7 P ¥ ^ 3 I
Fig. 8 27
differences in gestures. My favorite story concerns the occasion when a group of deaf Boy Scouts stopped overnight at another school
on their way to a Scout Jamboree several states away. During an
evening reception and party for us, one of the girls from the host
school commented that she ______(see Fig. 8) on Fridays. Al
though our Scout, to whom she was talking, was puzzled at the turn
of the conversation, he replied that he ______(see Fig. 9) at
different times, but usually on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. In
commenting upon this later, the boy stated that he thought there was
something funny about the girl's talking about taking a bath every
Friday and her getting so excited about his taking one several times
a week. It turned out that the girl was telling the boy that she went home for the weekends, leaving on Friday. The gesture for
taking a bath is self-explanatory, but the one for going home on weekends derives, most probably, from the small child's act of getting
dressed in her "Sunday best" on Friday, if she is to go home. The
gesture is normally used for "clothes" or for "getting dressed."
Although most schools have their own "provincial gestures"
or colloquialisms, one finds the most bizarre ones in schools where
gestures are forbidden to children at all times. In the instance
just related, in saying, "I go home on Fridays," the boy most prob
ably would have given the gestures for "I," "go," "home," and "Fri
day." One might theorize that the boy's freedom to express himself
in gestures resulted in a fairly grammatical sequence of gestures- 28
for-words, while the girl, whose school was relatively strict against the use of gestures, especially in the lower grades, had learned to use surreptitiously one brief gesture in place of what would nor mally be a relatively grammatical "gesture phrase."
An important fact to note is that while manual gestures do not have the status of official sanction in any classroom or out of the classroom in many schools, it is the mode of communication used by most deaf people in adult life, whether they are professionals or unskilled laborers. However, just as is true with the spoken lan guage of hearing people, the gesture language will often reflect the speaker's level of education. The more education, the more likely a deaf person's gestures will be in correct grammatical sequence, with an increase in the use of fingerspelled words for which there are no gestures.
Whatever the "spoken" means of communication used to teach deaf children, reading and writing are also introduced as early as possible. However, unlike hearing children who usually learn to read and write after language patterns are well established, deaf children have no such mastery of listening and speaking before being intro duced to reading and writing. Consequently, they lack a vocabulary foundation and patterns of words which they can associate with events that occur around them. Even vocabulary and phrases with which to communicate the elementary functions of daily living, such as washing their faces or eating their dinners, are absent. It is not surprising 29 that reading and writing also suffer from the effects of early deaf ness.
Learning Theory and Programs
However difficult it may be for deaf children to learn to read and write, normal children also have difficulties transferring from spoken language to written words. In asking questions about how children learn to read and write, we are actually asking how children think. The reason we get so many different theories about this is probably because people do not think alike. Studies of people in different cultures suggest that the ways in which people learn to think vary according to their cultural values and environ ment.
Among many interesting examples is the Aitutski, a South Sea
Island people, whose simple culture emphasizes the rote-learning of
traditional rules rather than principles of reasoning and logical 16 structure. Another example is that of primitive people who have no use for blue-prints because their dwellings are round grass huts
constructed by lashing materials together. Drawings showing three- dimensional "carpentered" construction are meaningless to them.
With these cultures in mind, we must ask if the practices in
^Ernest Beaglehole, Social Change in the South Pacific (Great Britain: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1957), p. 221. 30
schools for deaf children are going to produce deaf children whose ways of thinking are even more "foreign" than they might already be because of hearing disability. Would the discipline demanded of very young deaf children in learning to speak and read the lips
through mimic and rote have adverse effects? Would it make it dif
ficult for them later to pursue independent search and discovery methods in a relatively unstructured learning situation?
What effect does the delay of early communication have upon
their ability to reason and think logically? What effect could the
early use of manual gestures have upon thinking?
One might ask how never having heard, or having heard only
distorted sounds, affects the deaf child's conceptualization of life.
One insight into this phenomenon grows out of one child's question
upon watching an orchestra. He asked the writer, "Why do hearing
people blow (horn) and saw (violin)— what is it for?" The nearest
analogy the writer could think of was body rhythm. We explained,
"Well, do you like to dance? Music is a little bit like dancing
except that you feel music in your ears instead of in your arms,
legs, and body."
A deaf child's early cultural environment, even more than
for hearing children, is the family. Parents are the means through
which the special nurture of communication for deaf children is de
veloped.
Parents affect the thinking of their children through the 31 amount of communication they have with them and educational decisions they make for them. Learning is also affected in the way children respond to parents or how they feel about them as a result of their treatment.
Early communication of parents with children, whether they are deaf or hearing children, is mostly through the spoken word.
Since the spoken word is the medium first used extensively in com municating with children, it is obvious that vocabulary and language patterns affect children's thinking. Dorothea McCarthy, in a review of reports of language development in children, says, "... a basic mastery of spoken language is normally acquired very rapidly during the preschool years usually between the ages of 1 and 5 years, and the child whose language development is seriously delayed for any reason labors under an almost insurmountable handicap in his social and academic relationships."
The writer's observation of the phenomenon of learning of deaf children indicates that deaf children of deaf parents reach four or five years of age with a large manual communication vocabulary and a mastery for patterning communication elements into meaningful mes sages. It might be possible that the spontaneous communication of these deaf children is as extensive as that of hearing children of the same age.
•^Dorothea McCarthy, "Language Development in Children," Manual of Child Psychology, ed. Leonard Carmichael (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1954), p. 494. 32
However, the mode of their communication is almost entirely manual gestures. Unfortunately, this is suspect among most educa
tors and parents because gestures are not the language of the
reference culture of hearing people and do not have the phonic
similarity to written language that speech has. Nevertheless, the meaningful use of manual gestures indicates the functioning of
thought in deaf children.
Such strong evidence of thought is usually lacking in deaf
children of hearing parents because hearing parents do not usually know how to communicate with their deaf children except through a
few natural gestures or "home signs." The children are unable to
communicate extensively with anyone before attendance at school.
There are exceptions where parents have learned something about the
use of oral gestures for communication and children have had exten
sive preschool training in the hands of specialists.
Regardless of how commendable and perhaps fortunate it is when parents learn how to communicate orally with their deaf child,
it must be realized that achieving real utility with oral gestures
is the product of many years of training and practice. Manual ges
tures, however, offer utility from the very beginning. Elizabeth
Hurlock summarizes several factors that explain the relatively de
layed and difficult development of speech in normal children.
At birth, both the speech mechanisms and the brain are so immature that neither is ready for the development of 33
speech. Speech is produced by the coordinated activity of the lip, tongue, and throat muscles as well as by the larynx and tongue. It takes time for these to mature, and it takes time and practice to perfect the coordinated actions of these organs.18
Yet, these difficulties must be considered of little conse
quence in contrast to the arduous development of oral gestures (with
or without accompanying sounds) in deaf children. Dr. Hurlock also
refers to several authorities who explain the phenomenon of gestures
and crying as the first means of communication for infants.
The possible ease in using manual gestures for expressive as well as receptive communication by deaf children may be realized
further when one is reminded that gestures are mostly relatively visible and are gross motor movements, in contrast with the largely
impossible-to-see and fine, difficult-to-make movements of the lips, mouth, and face.
Reference to McCarthy's statement (see p. 17) is appropriate
here for its description of the role gestures play in early communi
cation— that of taking the place of speech which the very young
normal hearing child has not yet acquired. It is also appropriate for
its mention of the value of being able to correct one's own speech
mistakes by monitoring and comparing speech with that of adults.
McCarthy points out that many speech errors which deaf children make
are not self-correcting; that is, unlike the hearing child, the deaf
^Elizabeth Bergner Hurlock, Child Development (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 218. 34 child cannot hear the correct form, recognize errors, and change his speech himself. It seems logical to assume that if manual gestures were taught to teachers, parents, and children, the deaf child would be able to correct himself upon observing correct gestures in proper syntax by teachers, parents, and older siblings or peers.
Myklebust reports that "findings by Brannon are revealing and indicate the extreme difficulty the deaf child has in monitoring his speech utterances by other than auditory means. In comparison with the hearing, the tongue motions of the deaf were slower and more labored. Moreover, they made unnecessary glossal movements; as the length of the utterances increased, the number of excess motions became greater."^
From this, one may theorize that the chief difference be tween the deaf child and the hearing child could be that the deaf child (particularly the deaf child of deaf parents) continues using gestures, developing an advanced means of gesture communication as he grows older, while the hearing child abandons gestures to rely more and more on auditory signals. If all children are capable of gestures and if speech is slow to develop, then we theorize that deaf children would benefit from continued use of gestures. If gestures are developed into a refined and socially acceptable mode of communi cation for deaf children, their intellectual development would be
l^Helmer R. Myklebust, The Psychology of Deafness (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1964), p. 262. 35
years ahead of what it might be if their mode of communication was
restricted to oral means.
Observation indicates that deaf children are naturally de
pendent upon gestures for developing a means of communication. When
gestures are not evident in their communication, we may suspect that
the children are not really prelingually deaf or, with few excep
tions, that their intellectual and social growth are being deprived 20 of necessary nourishment. Post-lingually deafened children have
intelligible speech and good language syntax. This makes it less necessary for them to rely on gestures for communication. Few pre
lingually deafened children develop speech and lipreading skills
early enough to make much use of them in real communication of inner
cognitive or affective experience.
The writer believes there are ample reasons for the pro
fession to entertain certain hypotheses favoring the investigation
of manual gestures as a communication channel and learning tool for
the profoundly deaf child. But there are other important hypotheses
favoring the further investigation of oral channels of communication,
too. Most hypotheses related to oral communication are more popularly
entertained and considerable research has been done. Lee Meyerson
points out that "Hearing cannot be dichotomized into discrete
Post-lingually deaf is a term commonly used to designate persons who lost their hearing late— after language patterns could be learned normally through hearing. 36
categories of functional and non-functional. Rather, it shades gradually along a continuous distribution. It is unlikely that hearing ever becomes non-functional . . . total loss of hearing is extremely rare . . . relatively small amounts of residual hearing may serve useful functions even in children who appear to be 'deaf' from birth.
Reference to research relating to oral communication is not extensive in this dissertation because the subject is covered by writers whose works we will review.
A need for special programs for deaf children arises, gen erally, out of the special nature of their language retardation. In reading, one of the most distinguishable features of this retardation is a meager understanding of idiomatic expression. This is in addition to problems met in retarded readers with normal hearing through the use of low-level, high-interest printed matter. Recep tion of communication through oral and manual gestures requires special programs, also. Very little has been produced relating to manual gestures.
Programs to teach speech, writing, and the proper use of manual gestures— the expressive modes of communication— also require tailoring to the special needs of the deaf. The nature and media of many programs are affected by the fact that many deaf children have
01 Lee Meyerson, "A Psychology of Impaired Hearing," Psychology of Exceptional Children and Youth, ed. William M. Cruickshank (Engle wood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963), p. 123. 37
only one channel for the reception of messages— their eyes. Simul
taneous communication is possible only to the extent that their hearing is functional or their eyes are capable of direct vision and
peripheral vision.
Diffusion and Implementation of Learning Programs
The diffusion and utilization of special materials and inno vations in learning for deaf children is an important function of a
learning system. Some efforts for special training in the use of materials and systematic storage and retrieval in a residential
school are needed.
Schools for the Deaf as a System
What is perhaps unique in education of the deaf is the iso
lation of schools, due to geographic distance, which has existed over
the past century and a half. Among our fifty states, there are 64
public residential schools for the deaf. Some states have none, some
have more than one. (Most of these schools adhere to the combined method.) The City of Columbus has 175 schools in its system! Con
trast these 175 schools concentrated in one city with public resi
dential schools scattered over the United States. Think of the
reservoir of professionally trained people in Columbus, within minutes
of each other, who can be brought together to pool their knowledge and
thought in working out educational problems. 38
Thinking of the size of school populations in terms of parents available to lend their support to new educational programs, the 64 public residential schools for the deaf have an average population of only 274 students, while few city schools have a population of less than 500 students.
City school systems may support departments of specialists and personnel who provide special services to the schools in the sys tem. The residential schools for the deaf are a system unto them selves. Specialists and services, if they can afford them, are seldom more than single persons without access to other colleagues who jointly share specific problems or are available to compare notes.
The nearest person with whom a school for the deaf administrator might discuss problems particular to such a school could be over
500 miles away.
The situation is even worse in some respects for schools which advocate oral methods. There are 10 private residential schools,
20 public day schools, 15 private day schools, 566 public day classes, 22 and 28 private day classes. The public day schools are members of a larger school system and probably benefit from some of the services of the system. The public day classes present a varied picture— at its best, several teachers of deaf children may have their classes in the same building, sharing it with classes of hearing children.
^"Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States," American Annals of the Deaf, 114 (May, 1969), 622-623. 39
At its worst, there may be but one class of deaf children in a school for children of normal hearing. Other classes for deaf children in the system may be located in other schools in other parts of the city. The opportunity for these teachers, scattered through out a city, to communicate daily problems and exchange insights to their solutions may be very few— each teacher becoming almost a
"system" unto herself, linked with her colleagues by only a super visor who provides a thin lifeline between the "systems."
Bridging the geographical gap between schools for the deaf has been the concern of professional organizations of teachers of the deaf and administrators. Organizations have been aided by professional journals, newsletters, and school papers. More about schools for the deaf as a system appears in Chapter V.
Parents of Deaf Children - Status and Role
Parents are a strong sociological force influencing education.
Parents and other relatives who are closely associated with and con cerned about their children's schools make up the bulk of our popu lation. However, the phenomenon of minority groups within our popu lation indicates that unless the minority groups have their own school systems, their children will be educated for membership in a different social group than that of their parents— parents have little influence.
Basically, this once was the position of the Negro and other minority groups. Today, however, the Negro is no longer a minority in 40
urban schools. The number of Negroes in mid-city schools has become
proportionately larger as white, middle- and upper-class citizens
have moved to suburban areas. Also, many Negroes from rural areas
in the south have moved into the industrial north, increasing their
numbers in the city. The birth-rate of Negroes is higher than that
of* whites. 23
The Negroes, in competition for employment requiring higher
skills, are fighting for more control in the schools. They also seek
educational "extras" which will rapidly provide more members of their
long-denied minority group with "quality" education, thus putting
them on a more competitive basis for better jobs.
When we use the term "extras" for "long-denied minority
group," we are referring to the demands of some Negroes that "repara
tions" be paid for the years during which education of the Negro was
sub-standard and other evils of low "caste" contributed to the gen
erally lower abilities of the Negro today. Such claims are not
necessarily more legitimate than it would be for all deprived people
to make the same claims. Society did not give them the attention it
could have. In the past, society could have applied the know-how
which did exist to help the deprived improve their skills so they could
^Birth per 1000 females aged 15 to 44 in 1967 was 83.1 for whites and 127.3 for Negroes. Source: U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstracts of the United States, 1968 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1968), p. 23. 41 gain a greater measure of upward social and economic mobility. Even many institutionalized persons could have enjoyed a normal life within the community if they had had proper training. Inequality of opportunity and social neglect have a long history. The blind and the deaf could also make claims such as the Negroes have.
At this point, we are distinguishing parents of the deaf from parents in other minority groups. We will briefly discuss the rela tively small number of parents of deaf children, their great geo graphical separation, the traumatic experience of having a deaf child, difficulties in understanding the problems of deafness, inability to communicate with their children, and lack of knowledge about all possible avenues to better schooling. These problems are in addition to those which parents in most minority groups must overcome.
A Minority Group
Parents of deaf children are a minority in any group of parents and are perhaps the smallest minority of any parents of exceptional children. In local school systems, they must make themselves heard through larger parent-teacher organizations which may be not particu larly interested in the problems of parents of a small group of chil dren in a particular school.
Parents of children in residential schools for the deaf must deal with state legislators, state boards of education, and state de partments of education, after dealing with the school's own 42
superintendent, principal, and teachers and convincing them that some changes are needed. The political and economic distance between parents and people who are paid to meet the needs of the school is much greater than it is in local schools. Legislators are obviously not elected by parents of deaf children acting as a group. State funds used to pay teachers and otherwise operate the school are con trolled by elected "representatives" of people who are often geo graphically, as well as empathetically, distant from state residential schools. It is therefore not surprising that parents of deaf chil dren have been slow to organize when faced with such obstacles.
Another obstacle to the effective endeavor of parents in a residential school for the deaf is the geographical distance between the parents, who are scattered throughout the state. Meetings can be held only at certain times of the year— when parents may be bring ing their children to school from as far as 200 miles or so. There is as yet no accurate tabulation of the number of parent organizations in schools for the deaf. Two national organizations have recently been formed.
Deaf adult groups which, somewhat like college alumni associ ations and somewhat like social welfare organizations devoted to im proving the lives of certain handicapped people, also engage in activities that affect schools for the deaf. 43
Traumatic Experience
Parents are naturally dismayed when they discover that their child has a hearing disability. Any help to aid in reversing this disability is sought. Sometimes parents will try to conceal or deny their child's disability. Many parents feel that having a deaf child is a reflection upon themselves— a physical disability in themselves which caused a hearing-defective child. The more superstitious may even consider the stigma of having a deaf child a punishment for some
"sin" they may have committed.
The psychological effect of physical disability is thoroughly covered in a book by Beatrice Wright in which she says,
Parents must be helped to realize that handicaps in children are part of the general problem of human imper fections which all must face in themselves and in all other human beings. The problem of parents of exceptional chil dren is therefore not unique but applies to all parents. . . . for all parents must learn to accept the limitations of their children. ^
It is only when parents accept these limitations of their deaf chil dren that coping with problems can realistically and effectively begin.
Understanding the Problems of Deafness
Unfortunately, understanding the limitations of a deaf child is almost as difficult as accepting the fact that one's child is
^Beatrice Wright, Physical Disability - A Psychological Ap proach (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), p. 296. 44
deaf. Parents who think that all deaf people are alike may make the mistake of expecting their deaf child to achieve the communication
level of some deaf adult they may have met who can talk. They may
not realize that the model they have chosen for their child possibly
is an adventitiously deafened person (one who lost his hearing after
language patterns have been established). Some educators have been known not only to fail to enlighten the parents, but have gone so far as to imply that in teaching deaf children to speak and master the skill of lipreading, their child will eventually be able to talk with
them as if he had no hearing disability.
Unfortunately, many parents fail to acknowledge the disability
early enough in the child's life to begin a program which might really
lessen its threat of handicap. In contrast to parents who refuse to
allow their child to be fitted with a hearing aid on the chance that
it might be of benefit, there are parents who have allowed their chil- 25 dren to be fitted with an aid as young as 30 days. Children with
at least moderate hearing losses in early life might be helped by a hearing aid to the extent that their language development so approaches normal that they will not require the special education which pre-
lingually deafened children need.
Although this paper is concerned with children whose language
development is unquestionably inhibited by hearing disability, we cannot
^Ciwa Griffiths, Conquering Childhood Deafness (New York: Ex position Press, 1967), p. 42. 45 afford to overlook the fact that deafness alone may not be the reason for the handicap. The "treatment of deafness," as just Indicated, may be so extensive as to enable an almost normal development of language; but, without the "treatment" the same child could be irreversibly and severely handicapped.
We must also realize that innate abilities differ to the ex tent that certain children may show less handicap from deafness because they may, for example, have photographic memories, or such rare skills that might include perception which enables them to read lips beyond expectations common for most people.
Parental Decisions
Some of the factors which may have tremendous value in reduc ing the nature of handicap due to deafness are due to decisions parents make. Three of them are: (1) Parents1 learning to communi cate early with their deaf child; (2) their appropriately managing family matters which touch upon the life of the deaf child; and
(3) their providing nursery school training or tutoring.
Unfortunately, many parents, even after learning about the many phases of hearing loss and the hazards of learning by deaf chil dren, may still believe that their child is different. They may expect the schools to help their child achieve the capabilities that a few outstanding deaf children have achieved through various combinations of fortunate personal conditions and exceptionally favorable 46
environmental circumstances. The demands of parents have been largely
responsible for the almost exclusive use of oral modes of communica
tion in primary grades in all schools for all children. Some means
should be devised whereby parents can learn more about the educational
programs available for their children, as well as the problems which
confront the children. In this way, their educational decisions for
their deaf children will be based on comprehensive understanding.
Educational Programs
Generally speaking, as a rule day schools, classes, and pri vately operated residential schools have been strictly oral, with ges
tures and fingerspelling banned on the campuses. State residential
schools have permitted gestures and fingerspelling to varying degrees
outside of the classroom and fingerspelling is allowed in a few
classrooms. Manual gestures are not sanctioned within the classrooms
anywhere, although gestures are surreptitiously used in many classes when fingerspelling is sanctioned. Fingerspelling is sanctioned with
classes of children who have shown poor academic progress when limited
to oral modes of communication.
The classes using exclusively oral modes of communication are
labeled acoustic or auditory and oral. The auditory classes are com
posed of children who have residual hearing, so group hearing aids
and individual aids are provided. The oral classes are composed of
children who are taught in the same manner as the first group but without hearing aids because the children are "totally" deafs 47
As a rule, the manual classes, where fingerspelling is per mitted, are composed of children who by test and behavior show less academic potential or who cannot seem to adapt themselves to the close attention and discipline needed for oral modes of communication.
Brighter children are not usually found in manual classes. When they do appear, they often stand alone, with little competitive motivation
from their classmates. Relatively few of those from manual classes graduate from high school with a standard certificate.
Children of deaf parents are proportionately few in manual classes because, no matter how little hearing they have, they enter school with a sizable gesture vocabulary and the ability to express themselves in full "gesture sentences." These children, even in contrast to those who have had two or three years of nursery school training, are able to communicate their needs, thoughts, and wishes far beyond others in the classroom upon school entrance.
Although children may be able to express themselves very well in manual gestures, in the classroom all children are put on par with each other by allowing only oral modes of communication. The deaf child of deaf parents, with some four or five years of communication development during the early years which are believed critical for
language development, is not even helped to "convert" his manual ges ture skills into an oral mode!
So far as the writer has been able to discover, children of deaf parents have never been placed in a separate class where they 48
could fully capitalize on the obviously advanced communication skills which they usually exhibit upon entering school.
Casual observation of deaf children of deaf parents suggests that they often maintain a lead in competition with even the brightest of their classmates. Still, without competition they are not par ticularly enthusiastic students. In addition to "coasting" through school, many of them are regarded as troublemakers. This suggests that they may be the "thinking students," the rebels. The reader should be cautioned that this general observation is made of chil dren in state residential schools, where children are seldom ad mitted if they have less than 70 decibels (ISO) loss in their better ear. These children have not acquired language patterns early through normal channels of hearing. In short, these children are those whose onset of loss was early and severe.
There is another reason, other than proper school placement for their deaf child, for parents to learn all they can about edu cation of the deaf. Parents must be informed, if they are to assume any responsibilities for helping the schools they choose for their children to continue improving their programs. There are a number of factors affecting the degree of excellence of schools. Some are:
1. In some parts of the country, there are not enough
deaf children to warrant two separate schools— one
for exclusively oral communication and one for com
bined communication. Some decision must be made as 49
to which school’s philosophy is to predominate in
the area.
2. In many parts of the country, either the oral, the
combined, or both schools suffer weak programs be
cause neither has enough pupils. Two examples are:
a) Elementary programs (oral) which have perhaps
only five or six classes scattered throughout
a city. Sometimes there are two grade levels
in one room with one teacher. Teachers are
relatively isolated from each other and lack
help from one another in solving their par
ticular problems with deaf children.
b) High school programs (combined) with few stu
dents can support only a small faculty and con
sequently offer a limited selection of courses.
3. Observation indicates that deaf children who are less
acclimated to school for any of a variety of reasons
will do better in a combined method school. The nat
ural trend, therefore, is to place such students in
combined system programs. In effect, larger numbers
of slower students are likely to be present in the
combined system schools— a condition which destroys
the schools' ability to provide a strong program for
whatever good students they may have. 50
4. Oral program schools have not yet found an effective
way to discourage manual gestures in their schools.
Theoretically, oral communication cannot attain per
fection if it is not exclusively used by children.
5. Animosity between educators of the deaf interferes
with desired co-operation in solving common problems
and working together for the mutual benefit of
"deaf education." This animosity sometimes even
overshadows the respect which educators with "rival
methodologies" may have for each other's professional
knowledge.
All of this adds up to a bitter rivalry and heated arguments between advocates of the two "ideologies" in an effort to maintain and improve the programs each believes in. The hazardous professional life of an educator who would acknowledge the usefulness of manual gestures for some children is contained in this statement by William
J. McClure, president of the Florida State School for the Deaf and
Blind, and a second generation educator of the deaf:
There have been times when to advocate other than pure speech, lipreading, acoustic approach amounted to almost professional suicide for the educator of the deaf - so strong was the publicity, and the public and parental de sire to make all deaf children "oral." Few were courageous enough to speak their convictions.
William J. McClure, Current Problems and Trends in Education of the Deaf (Columbus, Ohio: Alumni Association of the Ohio School for the Deaf, 1965), p. 9. 51
There are many statements which suggest that his observation is correct. For example, Charlotte Avery says, "During the school years a deaf child's teachers and parents act as his speech monitor ing system. . . . At least during his speech acquisition years, a deaf child's environment must be entirely oral; no compromise can be 27 accepted." [Emphasis added.]
On the one hand, the strength of the feeling of some people against the use of manual gestures by anyone anywhere is reflected in a statement made by George Fellendorf, executive secretary of the Alex ander Graham Bell Association of the Deaf (Volta Bureau) who, in com menting on the International Congress on Education of the Deaf, said:
The need for manual gesture translators to enable some of the deaf delegates, who were unable to lipread, to understand the oral presentation, left some of the foreign visitors with the impression that signing manual gestures and fingerspelling represent the modern educational method ology in the United States. . . . It is hoped that at future congresses the impact of more and more orally trained deaf adults will be evident. . .28
On the other hand, the strength of feeling against oral ges tures may be illustrated in the statement of Frederick Schreiber, executive secretary of the National Association of the Deaf, who is purported to have said, "It's pie in the sky. Most of us can't read
OQ lips worth two cents."
27 Avery, loc. cit.
^George W. Fellendorf, Editorial, Volta Review, 65 (Sep tember, 1963), p. 358.
^James Ridgeway, "Dumb Children," The New Republic. 161 (August 2, 1969), p. 21. 52
Preschools
Whatever decisions parents make regarding the education of their deaf child, the decisions should be made early so that preschool help is not denied the child. Assuming that the growth of preschools for deaf children reflects the recognition of the need of deaf chil dren for early communication experience, one is encouraged that the
Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States^ offers its first count of such preschools and classes in its 1969 edition. Unfor tunately, the data are not equally encouraging. Of the 8,220 children in preschool programs, nearly 2,000 are over 6 years of age. In the public residential schools where the more severely deafened are usually found, only 15 of the 64 schools admit children as young as 3 years old.
Considering the difficulties faced in trying to arrange for a very small child and his parents to undergo together a training program which encompasses the learning of difficult modes of communication, it is perhaps not surprising that there are not many of these programs.
The common modes of communication which must be painstakingly fostered by parents of very small children with the help of specialists are speech, hearing, and lipreading. Relatively much has been done in fostering these modes in the early communication of deaf children, while almost nothing has been done to discover the effectr— good or bad— which manual gestures might have upon the later achievement of deaf children.
on "Directory of Services for the Deaf in the U. S. ," American Annals of the Deaf, 114 (May, 1969) pp. 526-624. 53
Parents of deaf children will undoubtedly find their role in
influencing good education extremely difficult. Some reasons for
this are: 1) They are few in numbers; 2) they are perhaps widely scattered over a state; 3) they may suffer trauma which may postpone needed early training; 4) they experience difficulty in realizing the deeper problems of learning which children disabled by hearing loss will have; 5) they are often unable to communicate fluently with their deaf child; 6) they are neither members of the social group their children may be compelled to join to compensate for their disability, nor are they cognizant of such a group; and 7) they
experience difficulties in obtaining information about the variety
of educational programs, facilities, and in understanding their
implications.
Resources for the Educational Failure
Discovering what becomes of deaf children after they leave
school and are faced with a desire or need to support themselves should be an important activity of schools and research agencies. Without knowledge of after-school experience of former pupils, schools cannot judge whether their programs are worth continuing or where changes are needed. Unlike public schools which are very close to families and responsive to community reaction to their programs, schools for the
deaf are more often geographically remote from parents and parents are
remote from each other. 54
There is relatively much less "feedback" from lay people who
observe the behavior of deaf children both as children and later as
adults. Perhaps this is because they blame deafness itself for
shortcomings, rather than the schools. Their view might be expressed,
"Well, what more can you expect of deaf people?" Accordingly,
schools may receive few voluntary "complaints."
Children whose physical or mental capabilities are not in
accord with the practices of the school become victims of programs which may suit the school, may suit the parents, but may not suit
them. Some may become drop-outs. Some may be dismissed from school
because they interfere too greatly with daily school routine as
disciplinary problems or as multiply-handicapped children, such as
mentally retarded or cerebral palsied. Other children, not able to
keep up with the class, may simply be "sidelined" and moved through
school until they are old enough to leave.
School drop-outs with normal hearing are usually able at least
to communicate verbally with people around them and often obtain self-
supporting jobs. Their health and safety are not usually in jeopardy.
They are considered able to shift for themselves.
For the hard-to-discipline child, the mentally retarded, and
the cerebral palsied child, who cannot remain in regular public schools,
there are special programs elsewhere. However, there are few programs
for such children who are also deaf.
Deaf school drop-outs can be sorry specimens, indeed, when 55
their ability to communicate with others, including deaf people, is faulty. They may be insecure and very dependent upon their im mediate family for constant support and reassurance. Sometimes they are deliberately sheltered by their family and are not quite strong enough to make a break and go their own way. Their inhibitions due to lack of communication ability probably keep many of them at home and out of trouble; still, there is little doubt that poor communi cation ability and lack of self-esteem contribute to unhappy rela tions among all members of the family which harbors them. Some of them, rejected by their family, appear in state "schools" for the mentally retarded, and sometimes in the state hospitals for the mentally ill. Some of them get married and have children, adding to welfare roles.
Fortunately, a larger number of school drop-outs have more understanding parents and, with the vocational training they have received in residential schools for the deaf, they are able to make their own way. There are still others with personality problems who can benefit from a minimal amount of help from counselors in adjust ing to the discipline of a working day, in need of help in managing their finances, and in learning how to get along with other people at work and after work. 56
SUMMARY
The purpose of this dissertation is to survey education of the deaf, identifying its scope or holistic nature and then exploring some areas of it more closely. An assessment of changes in the field over the past ten years is proposed as a logically useful endeavor because many rapid changes are taking place. Most of the changes are due to the influx of federal funds, which may be one of the main reasons that more scholars have taken an interest in education of the deaf.
The survey includes description, analysis, synthesis, and assessment. These relate to sociological, psychological, and educa tional aspects of deafness throughout the dissertation. The special problems of deaf children in discovering an identity, problems re sulting from defective communication with others, are related to education and socialization of the deaf. Later problems of adult
interaction of the deaf with hearing people are also considered.
Problems of geographical distance between schools and philoso phical differences between educators are related to problems schools
for the deaf have in communicating with one another. Channels of communication recently have been greatly improved and person-to- person dialogue is strengthening education of the deaf as a system
for higher goal attainment for all deaf children.
The dissertation purports to be the exploration of "reasons
for entertaining a hypothesis," not "reasons for accepting a hypothesis." 57
The development of communication in deaf children is dis cussed, including definitions of speechreading and a pictorial illustration of oral gestures, manual gestures, and fingerspelling.
Some of the weaknesses and strengths of various modes of communica tion and misconceptions about their being taught and used are de scribed. The sharp split among educators of the deaf over whether a deaf child should be taught using strictly oral methods of communi cation or whether he should be allowed to use additional non-oral channels is explained.
The relation of development of reading and writing to other modes of communication is hypothesized. A hypothesis about learning, adopting L. S. Vygotsky's theories, is presented and related to
language and communication development in deaf children. The in fluence of parents in this development is woven into the picture.
Communication problems are associated with the need for special
learning materials, their diffusion, and utilization.
The schools as a system are briefly reviewed. The role of parents of deaf children is compared to the role of parents of chil
dren in other minority groups. Problems which parents of deaf chil
dren have are described. These include overcoming the traumatic
experience of having a deaf child and understanding the problems that
deaf children have in learning.
Also included is a discussion of the need for parents to under
stand the reason for the disagreement among professionals as to how 58
deaf children should be taught so that parents can make informed decisions as to proper school placement for their child.
Finally, educational failures closely linked with poor com munication are discussed as the responsibility of society, the schools, and parents. CHAPTER II
DEAF CHILDREN'S COMMUNICATION
RELATED TO SCHOOLS
The Threat of Handicap
Educators agree that when the disability of deafness occurs early in a child's life and is severe, the disability usually handi caps the child by making it very difficult for him to communicate with people around him. As an infant, the disability interferes with his ability to relate spoken words to things and events around him.
It interferes with his learning the patterns that words of his lan guage take in expressing ideas or making words meaningful.
In childhood, the disability severely limits the deaf child's reception of thoughts and feelings of other people. This makes it difficult for him to learn how to behave or react to other people.
Deafness severely frustrates the deaf child's desire to express his thoughts and feelings so that other people will value him.
The disability of deafness continues to threaten successful accomplishment of the deaf youth as he progresses through school to prepare himself for the responsibilities of independent and productive
59 60
adulthood. For example, the normal child learns to understand the democratic principles of majority rule and the rights of individuals in proportion to the experiences he has as a member of a club in his school or church. To the degree to which he participates and understands the participation of his peers in performing duties of office and functions as committee members, he learns to assume re sponsibilities of membership in a group. He learns the roles of leadership, supportive membership, and responsible citizenship through practice and discussion in the classroom and after school.
Unless the deaf child has similar activities, he may not acquire these concepts and realize these responsibilities.
Educators of the deaf agree that special programs are needed to help deaf children escape the threat of handicap which deafness poses. However, they disagree on a few fundamental ways in which this might be done. Statements quoted from Silverman and Brill in the pre ceding chapter (pp. 21-22) illustrate some of the differences.
Most advocates of pure oral communication favor deaf children's attending special classes in their home communities since constant contact with hearing children, they theorize, will produce better speech and improve lipreading skills. Advocates of mixed means of communication (combined system) usually favor residential schools for deaf children. They theorize that more is to be gained from partici pating in daily living on equal footing with one's peers than from trying to learn in a normal school situation which is actually normal only for the child who can hear. 61
Limitations of Chapter
A close scrutiny of communication for deaf people is an ex tensive undertaking. Communication problems of the deaf do not seem to be adequately covered in the universe of published material. This is not to say that there are not many views. There are many views, but in the complexity of the subject, writers seem to become lost.
The wilderness one writer describes cannot be imagined by another writer who describes a different wilderness; yet both believe they are describing the same phenomenon.
Because the subject is large and complex, and because pre vious descriptions have been so diverse, I am proposing to limit this chapter to naming most of the writers who have published material in book form, briefly describing their positions, and dis cussing aspects of their writing that suggest oversights or misin terpretations. To put it candidly, I shall point out some of the aspects of my wilderness which are different from the other writers' wildernesses and which lead each of us to think he is describing the same wilderness.
This should be a fruitful undertaking because (1) it will alert the reader to some very useful resources beyond an annotated bibliography; (2) it will offer specific contrasts of views; and
(3) it will make suggestions for recording these various views and categorizing them in a position where they can be examined and con trasted to other views to come from future observers. 62
The phrase, "An Epistemology of Deafness," seems to express the idea to which my tentative suggestions, some presented as de signs, may be related. Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary defines epistemology as: study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge esp. with reference to its limits and validity. By
"epistemology" we refer to a set of agreements that educators may entertain about the nature of deafness and the capability of educa tional treatment to reduce its threat to human enjoyment of life.
Not only will it be a set of agreements, it will contain features whereby scholars can determine the range within which disagreements may fit and whereby the validity of various agreements may be in dicated. in short, an epistemology contains some rules for making scientific explanations and some criteria for validating the ex planations. As Kaplan said in the quote on page 11, "The history of science is a history of the successive replacement of one ex planation by another."
From reading in the field of education of the deaf, it seems evident that we do not have enough agreement on ways in which phenom ena of deafness can be described. Therefore, an epistemology of deafness is needed. Our suggestions for beginning an epistemology are not made at this point because we have a fourth purpose in treat ing the writings of authors in the review fashion which follows. Ideas for an epistemology do not spring from the meager thoughts of one person in isolation, but from the thoughts of at least one man 63
interacting with those of another. To react to writings reviewed here and introduce designs and suggestions related to an epistemology as they occur chronologically is part of the research undertaking herein described. It is a concrete example of the phenomenon of growth of ideas in a student through communication with a series of writers on a given topic— in this instance, writers on the subject of education of the deaf. It also serves to emphasize that educa tion of the deaf can reach for new heights of excellence when com munication is enhanced through the writings of more scholars from more fields who will actively concern themselves with problems of the deaf.
As far as humanly possible, I am trying to present a compre hensive picture of education of the deaf. However, as an adven titiously deafened person} the onset of my gradual loss of hearing occurring about the age of seven, I am not qualified to discuss the 2 mechanics of teaching oral communication to profoundly deaf chil dren. For this reason, a few books which are almost exclusively concerned with developing oral communication in deaf children, such O as Grace Harris', are not reviewed.
■^Sarne as post-lingually deafened person; one who loses hearing after language patterns have been established.
2One whose hearing loss occurred before language patterns were established and who suffers so severe a loss that he is generally considered a poor lipreader and has virtually no speech.
^Grace M. Harris, Language for the Preschool Deaf Child (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1963). 64
While I regret my shortcomings in the area of mechanics of teaching oral communication, I do not consider this a disqualifica tion in presenting a holistic view of education of the deaf. As a hearing-disabled person, I may be able to speak from an experiential position which cannot be obtained by a hearing person. My position is this: let us speak and seek the truth as well as we can jointly determine it.
The development of communication skills raises questions about general school practices which we described in the previous chapter as we believe them to b e . Most writers whose works we will review have differing ideas of what represents general school prac tice. One of the differences relates to the extent to which manual gestures are officially incorporated into the daily lessons and thus are formally subject to instruction controls. Writers do not agree that manual gestures are not formally included in the school's class room instruction. Some believe that manual gestures are taught rather than only permissively used. This confusion is unfortunate because until practices are known, analytical judgments about educa tion of the deaf cannot be made.
School Practice
Deviations from stated educational programs may be of many kinds, and it would be useful to identify them in the hope that the extent of their effects upon the school product can be judged so that 65 priorities in preventing deviations can be determined. Also, all those concerned should be able to identify deviation.
Deviation is evidently not always recognized— or at least its seriousness is not. For example, teachers in a primary oral program who occasionally use a gesture or accept a gesture from a child may be violating agreed-upon practice. Children may be using gestures among themselves, but the teacher is usually expected to offer a preferred oral form of communication when she accepts a child's gestural communication with her. However, for the teacher to use gestures herself is usually considered by supervisors to be a viola tion of good example.
Attributing success or failure to any program cannot be done unless that program is known and honestly followed. This is no less true in speaking of the success or failure of practices with individ ual children or with classes.
I recall a class one year which had a teacher who placed much emphasis on speech work and was able to motivate children to a point of enjoying their limited auditory experience. In the following year, the class did not even have a group hearing aid or record player in the classroom. Under these circumstances, one would hardly be sur prised if these children, at the beginning of the third year, showed certain deficiencies in auditory cognizance, lack of interest in auditory experience, and poorer-than-expected speech. However, not knowing these circumstances, one might be misled into deciding that 66 the children could not benefit from an oral program, or that the school's program was generally faulty.
Whatever writers, including this writer, have to say about different types of school programs, their statements are valid only insofar as their descriptions of the school programs are accurate.
How to get accurate descriptions is clearly one of the first con cerns in education of the deaf. An epistemology will help do this.
In various ways, each of the following writers has contributed to foundations for an epistemology, but it will become clear that there is a great need to bring isolated proposals together and to reach agreements.
Helmer Myklebust
Helmer Myklebust has concerned himself considerably with "de velopment and disorders of written language . . . acquisition of the 4 written word by the deaf child. He logically supports the thesis that speechreading, conceived as the oral gestures suggested earlier by the writer, can satisfactorily serve in the place of the spoken word in reception. "lf_ speechreading were taught as the basic lan guage, the deaf child would learn to comprehend the spoken word through this mea n s , and it would constitute his basic inner language symbol system.
^Helmer R. Myklebust, The Psychology of Deafness (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1964), p* 235. 67
Myklebust admits, however, that "... all of the movements made in speaking are not visible on the lips. However, study of speech has shown that one need not hear all of the sounds in order
to comprehend. It is evident from the number of individuals who can speechread with marked accuracy that likewise it is not necessary to see all of the speech movements.""* (See pages 137-138 for the an
thropologist's contribution to establishing firmly that it is not necessary to see all speech movements in an epistemology of deaf ness.)
Myklebust's support of speechreading becomes even more con vincing when he points out, "... speechreading has not been taught
as the basic language system, [but] there is evidence that it becomes
such a symbol system for many with deafness."
Myklebust emphasizes that speechreading as a_ basic language system is not the same as speech as a basic language system. He
equates speechreading with reception of language and identifies re
ception with the development of inner language. Speech is considered
a channel for expression of thought and is identified with the later-
acquired social aspects of speech. Next, he theorizes that a word must be "established as meaningful inner and receptive language before
it can be produced as meaningful expressive language." He follows by
saying, "our point of view stresses that speech would be expected and
5Ibid., p. 242.
6Ibid., p. 236. 68 emphasized only after a minimum of inner and receptive language has been acquired."^
Several things are evident in Dr. Myklebust's views. We need some way to distinguish between the teaching of speech and the teach ing of speechreading. How can we decide whether a program emphasizes speech (expression) to the detriment of speechreading (reception)?
The writer has always assumed that a child would have to learn to read
a word on the lips before he could begin to imitate it vocally (speak
it). Does Dr. Myklebust intend to say that the signals a teacher makes in asking the child to say a word are purely through pointing
to an object, a picture, or some action? Is he saying that even after
repeated efforts, a child might be able to speak the word without
associating it with meaning? Or is Dr. Myklebust saying that too much time is spent in attempting to perfect the auditory emission of
a word when it would be better if more words were introduced, re
quiring only an oral gesture in response. (By oral gesture, we mean
.. .asponse "uttered" without sound or with imperfect audible produc-
;ion.) If only an oral gesture is required as a response from the
child, we assume that the teacher also uses oral gestures to elicit
certain oral gesture responses from the child.
It seems further evident that we need to explore better ways
of describing such behavior of communication in teaching. Dr. Mykle
bust 's restriction to terms "speech" and "speechreading" and his
^Ibid., p. 236. 69
association of them with different directions of communication (ex pressive - receptive) is not clear. We have no term to describe the action of a deaf child who may be expressing himself orally but without sound (this is what we mean by oral gesture). We also need a term which would describe the teacher's speech unheard-by-the- child. The child's reception of this communication has been called speechreading or lipreading, but what is the teacher's expression called if she does not accompany her oral gestures with sound or if the sound is unheard by the child?
Dr. Myklebust does not describe the process whereby the deaf child acquires inner speech. One might assume, from his statements, that inner speech is acquired by the child simply by observing oral gestures from the teacher and associating these oral gestures with objects and actions. This assumption is not in accord with observa tions made by Vygotsky, as explained in some detail on page 145. If
Vygotsky's theory to the effect that egocentric speech precedes inner speech is acceptable to Dr. Myklebust, then it is evident that he has omitted an explanation of an equivalence of the deaf child's egocen tric speech, which precedes even his inner speech.
Myklebust describes manual gestures as non-verbal, saying that speechreading is a verbal-visual system. The writer believes that to the deaf child, the oral gesture made when one utters the word "cow," for example, is not more "verbal" at first then when he observes someone making the manual gesture for "cow." (Fig. 2)
(We associate "verbal" with speech and then ultimately with meaning 70
derived from the symbolic, printed word.)
Furthermore, to the deaf child, the chief difference between oral gestures and manual gestures is that the manual gesture offers some concrete "ideographic" or "iconographic" association between the symbol and the object while the oral gesture does not. This ex plains why manual gestures are often more useful to children than oral gestures. Moreover, manual gestures are more visible, and prove to be within the deaf child*s ability to use expressively. By expressively, I mean in talking to^ someone else to express his own idea or feeling.
Later, when the child is introduced to speech, the oral ges ture associated with sounds might be useful in the child's acquisition of speech. The relevance of the oral gesture to speech, to a child who is trying to hear and to learn to pronounce a word, is no doubt inherent— i.e., oral gesture will help him acquire speech. It is at this point of expressive effort that oral gestures become "verbal," as
the writer understands "verbal," to the deaf child. But the relevance of oral gesture and speech to the printed word seems remote because of g ambiguities— kow, cau, kau, or cow. The work of Brannon seems to sup port this view. He reports that the conversion loss for speechreading to speech was 52% and for reading to speech it was 78%. This means
that writers who say that speech and lipreading are more "verbal" mean
that they are verbal in the spoken, auditory sense, but not so much in
8Ibid., pp. 263, 270. 71
the written sense. That is, oral gestures and speech do not assist
the deaf child a great deal in learning to read. Oral gestures alone
are mostly valuable in helping the deaf child to acquire speech. The
distinction is important when evaluating oral instruction for its relevance to the communication of involved and abstract thought by means of reading and writing.
Expressive language, using auditory modes (speech) comes after
receptive language (speechreading) in Myklebust's hierarchy of the
deaf child's language system. In view of the slow growth of speech
in the deaf child, but with the possibilities of manual gestures for
expressive language available very early for the deaf child's con venience and requiring little or no formal training, it would seem
that there is further support for the trial of gestures as a basic
language.
In short, to the deaf child in the beginning of language or
symbolization for communication, there is nothing more verbal about
oral gestures than there is about manual gestures. Moreover, the
truth of the matter is that so far as adults' communication with the
child is concerned, the symbols are likely to always be both oral and
manual gestures, simultaneously, with the manual gestures observed
peripherally.
Another consideration which Myklebust seems to overlook is the
9Ibid., p. 238. 72 weakness in claims by some educators that manual gestures are a lan guage, as such. It is true that studies by S t o k o e ^ and Tervoort"^ indicate that manual gestures, as used by deaf children in their spontaneous conversation with each other, have a different "syntax" than our spoken language and this seems to be inherent in manual ges tures. The writer suggests that what has been observed as inherent syntax in manual gestures may be immaturity or lack of cultural influence.
Immaturity would correspond to the patterns of growth of lan guage in normal children. For example, negatives are initially formed by prefixing a negative element to a simple affirmative sen- 12 tence— no drop mitten for 1^ didn't drop that mitten. As another 13 example of immaturity, Cooper says that morphological development with deaf children is similar to that of hearing children but slower
William C. Stokoe, Jr., Sign Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the Deaf, Studies in Linguis tics, Occasional Papers, No. 8 (Buffalo: University of Buffalo, 1960).
■^Bernard T. Tervoort, "Esoteric Symbolism in the Communication Behavior of Young Deaf Children," American Annals of the Deaf 106 (No vember, 1961), pp. 436-480.
■^David McNeil, "The Capacity for Language Acquisition," Research on Behavioral Aspects of Deafness, (Proceedings of a National Research Conference on Behavioral Aspects of Deafness), ed. E. Ross Stuckless (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1965), p. 27. 13 Robert L. Cooper, "The Development of Morphological Habits in Deaf Children," Research Studies in the Psycholinguistic Behavior of Deaf Children, ed. Joseph Rosenstein and Walter McGinitie (Research Monograph Series B, No. B-2; Washington, D. C.: National Education Association, 1965), pp. 3-11. 73
and at a lower level. In other words, it takes a deaf child longer
to pay attention to the cultural affixation of s^ in "A farmer
see sheep" than it does the hearing child.
In reference to this, Myklebust does not realize that manual gestures have not been formally taught in any schools for the deaf.
He says, "The Combined Method uses both oral and manual [sign lan- 14 guage] means of communication in its approach to language training."
Manual gestures are used almost entirely as a spontaneous or esoteric communication means. However, this does not mean that manual ges
tures must remain untaught, any more than speechreading must remain
secondary to speech in the language training of deaf children, as he says it is.
Lack of cultural influence, as the reason for the syntax of manual gesture "language," could correspond to the syntax of such people as the Burmese, whose culture does not come under our western
influence. Their structure is quite different from ours. Win^"*
reports that Burmese verbs are tenseless, e.g., tomorrow g o , today go.
He also says that a verb without a subject is a complete sentence in
Burmese in every case where the subject is known from previous con
text. For example, "Bobby have candy. Give me." (which means, "He gave me some") would be acceptable Burmese.
■^Myklebust, 0£. cit. , p. 240. 1 s Khin Maung Win, "The Burmese Language: An Epistemological Analysis," Cross-Cultural Understanding: Epistemology in Anthropology, ed. F.S.C. Northrop and Helen H. Livingston (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 223-236. 74
In the first sentence, Burmese do not entertain exact con cepts of time; in the second instance, Burmese regard the act as more important than the actor. Perhaps the "syntax" of manual gestures should be thought of as being culturally uncontaminated, as reflecting cultural deprivation and perhaps also as reflecting the "philosophical concepts" which deaf children in isolation acquire. In other words, what syntax might we expect to find among the populace if no efforts were made by parents or in the schools to shape it and no models were available to imitate? In conclusion, considering the environmental circumstances in which manual gestures develop, we doubt that there is any evidence that manual gestures cannot be put to use by child, parent, and teacher— the substituting of a gesture or fingerspelled word for spoken word or printed symbol.
As much as the writer would embrace the trial of teaching speechreading (reading of oral gestures, in our terminology) as the basic language of deaf children— assuming that Myklebust is correct in thinking that it has not been done previously— there are doubts that the accuracy with which some people can lipread is evidence that oral gestures are visible enough to serve young deaf children well in exacting learning situations. The following statements give some idea of the general usefulness of lipreading and conditions necessary for its utilization. From them we may determine the utility of lip- reading for young deaf children in early learning.
It [lipreading] has its inevitable limitations. It is far from being perfect. It does not put the deafened on a 75
level with those who hear. It does not enable its most ardent practitioner to understand sermons, lectures, the theatre, or talking pictures. It does not make general conversation a glorious pastime for the hard of hearing person. But it puts him in touch with his world as does nothing else. A very little facility is a definite gain, and a large facility is invaluable.
With lip-reading, one who cannot hear the conversa tional tones of the voice is equipped to confront the small daily contacts that, without lip-reading, are in tolerable. Taxi-drivers, ticket-agents, porters, conduc tors, servants, clerks, traffic policemen cease to be formidable menaces and fall into their natural places in the scheme of things, because lip-reading enables a hard of hearing person to know at least a part of what they say.
The deafened person is not deaf with his own family or his intimate friends, for with increased ability to read the lips he learns to understand most of them, and talks to them without strain. That alone makes it worth a great effort to achieve.
Most important of all, lip-reading gives the deafened person greater self-confidence in the economic world. It enables him to hold his own in the average business con tacts. He will not be able to sit in an office reception room and interview strangers, but, given a chance to grow slightly accustomed to those with whom he works, he will understand directions, commands and casual remarks so easily that his deafness will not handicap either himself or his co-workers.
As for the larger benefits which accrue after steady use of lip-reading over _a period of years, they could scarcely be described without fear of exaggeration.^ (Italics added.)
As frank, yet encouraging, as the preceding statement is, it does not tell us what utility lipreading has in the early learning of
Fred DeLand, The Story of Lip-reading, its Genesis and De velopment . Revised and completed by Harriet Andrews Montague. (Wash ington, D. C.: A. G. Bell Association for the Deaf, 1968), pp. 230-232. 76 deaf children. However, it does point out that the matter of accuracy in speechreading relates to many different situational factors. It hints that these benefits may be the fruits of years of training and practical experience, not something that is easily within the means of a young deaf child to learn and utilize early.
Further, teaching speechreading to very young deaf children involves the question of maturity, especially as it relates to visual skills. Vision receives the attention of a chapter in Myklebust, but references to such things as hyperopia (farsightedness) and stereop- sis (depth perception), which are not normal until approximately
7 years of age, are not related to speculations about when young deaf children can be expected to cope with the exacting visual demands of speechreading— fine, fleeting movements of the lips and tongue.^
Various abilities of deaf children from day schools and resi dential schools for the deaf are reported, the results of studies
Myklebust has conducted and comparisons of his findings with those of others. He points out many areas which need further study and identifies many abilities and weaknesses of deaf children which have
implications for teachers and others who work with deaf children.
Particularly useful were studies of errors deaf children make in
language. In reference to this, he suggests for the older children:
The system which might be most beneficial is one which provides for self-correction by alerting and
^Myklebust, op. cit., pp. 350-363. 77
reminding the child of his errors. The feedback system would be devised to provide self-corrective information especially in regard to the errors characterizing his language.
The concept of teaching children to help themselves in de termining specific nature of their errors and correcting them in composition work is in keeping with one the writer demonstrated in
19 his teaching and which is reported in the Proceedings. This featured the practice of using proofreader's symbols and numbers re- 20 ferring to explanations of error in Plain English Handbook, rather than any specific editing of the student's writing. As the student progresses, the references are moved from the place of error to margins of the paper. Later, only check marks indicating number of errors in a line are made.
Lee Meyerson
Outstanding among writers who present a comprehensive picture 21 of the deaf is Lee Meyerson. In several ways his presentation is
■^Myklebust, op. cit., p. 334.
^Ben M. Schowe, Jr., "Suggestions and Media in Teaching Com position to Deaf Students," Report of the Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf (Wash ington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1965), pp. 375-6.
^Oj. Martyn Walsh and Anna Kathleen Walsh, Plain English Hand book (Cincinnati, Ohio: McCormack-Mathers Publishing Co., Inc., 1966).
^Lee Meyerson, "A Psychology of Impaired Hearing," Psychology of Exceptional Children and Youth, William M. Cruickshank, ed. (Engle wood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), pp. 118-91. 78
unique in offering ways of evaluating and thinking about children with
impaired hearing. Central to his contribution are three psycho-
sociological adjustment patterns which hearing-impaired people may
adopt as "styles of life." As they relate to communication, the
first embraces manual gestures and the avoidance of social situa
tions where other modes such as speech and speechreading are neces
sary or more convenient. It also includes those who exclusively
embrace oral modes of communication but avoid social situations where their oral ability may be put to test by normal hearing persons.
The second pattern embraces oral modes of communication ex
clusively and rejects membership in any minority group which employs
gestures or is hearing-disabled. It embraces association with the
reference group of normal hearing persons.
The third pattern suggests openness and employment of all
modes of communication, according to the skill and situational re
quirements in which an individual finds himself. It recognizes mem
bership in many groups not exclusive for their modes of communication.
Negative styles of life were not considered by Dr. Meyerson.
Negative attitudes, for example, might include persons who will inter
act with the normal reference group and their own minority group but
will reject or show antagonism to another minority group. E.g., some
oralists will socialize with other oralists, as well as the reference
group, but will reject "manualists." Some manualists will socialize
with the reference group as well as other manualists but will reject
oralists. 79
Hallowell Davis and S. Richard Silverman
For a general understanding of deafness, including medical aspects, Hallowell Davis, in Hearing and Deafness, presents a group of authorities discussing various aspects. One of the group, Ray mond Carhart, is a lucid writer who makes clear how auditory dis tinctions between sounds may or may not be learned according to one's culture. He adds that the associations of sounds to meaning, the listening skill required for social adequacy, "... ii3 learned in early life." He explains how habits of listening may diminish 22 "... the capacity for mastering new sound discriminations ..."
His explanation of auditory training and conservation of speech clarifies the situation wherein a deaf child entering school without previous training may benefit very little from the sudden exposure to sound through a hearing aid. Miriam Pauls implies in speaking of rehabilitation that this child would have a difficult time in learning to lipread. She says, with qualifications, "If one's language is limited, one cannot hope to speech-read no matter 23 how attentively he observes."
* ) 0 Raymond Carhart, "Auditory Training," Hearing and Deafness, ed. Hallowell Davis and S. Richard Silverman (New York: Holt, Rine hart and Winston, Inc., 1960), p. 370.
^Miriam D. Pauls, "Speechreading," Hearing and Deafness, ed. Hallowell Davis and S. Richard Silverman (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1960), p. 354. 80
As studies indicate, deaf children generally have poor lan guage so their speechreading is correspondingly poor. How can we expect to teach speechreading to young deaf children who have no language? This discrepancy between what Dr. Pauls says and what teachers say about the usefulness of speechreading in education of deaf children is explained in part by: 1) as Myklebust proposes,
(p. 66), language foundations should be taught, with speechreading as a primary communicative channel in the place of sound; and
2) what "adequate speechreading" is thought to be. Grace Barstow
Murphy illustrates this point: "Helpful and essential as lipreading is, I find that when real conversation begins, it is best to whip out a pad and pencil for the key words which seem to be the ones most 24 frequently missed." She also quotes her son who commented, "Where the thought becomes at all involved, lipreading is out."
In the schools, it should be clear why speechreading is taught and used so extensively. The reason seems to have become obscured in defensive debates about the power of speechreading in enabling deaf children to be assimilated into a hearing world as if they suffered no disability at all. In other words, the heat of controversy causes people to make extravagant claims in the defense of speechreading or in an attack upon it— neither view being an accurate evaluation
While we are on the subject of speechreading claims, one way
o / Grace Barstow Murphy, Your Deafness Is Not You (New York: Harper Brothers, 1954), p. 154. 81 or the other, opposing views of participants are sometimes both right.
Strangers do not elicit understanding of the deaf, nor can they understand the deaf. To illustrate the point, Mrs. Murphy said,
"Various pupils in the schools said, 'I get on well here, but outside
I am lost.' The reason is that the teachers know how to deliver lan guage off the lips. . . . Whenever I meet someone whose lips are readable I am prepared for the information which presently is sure
2 5 to be given, that one of the family is deaf ..." In short, the deaf both can and cannot read the lips, depending upon the person to whom they are speaking. Likewise, the speech of the deaf is more often understood only by those who are around the deaf a great deal.
The combined talents of S. Richard Silverman, Helen S. Lane, and D. G. Doehring in writing a chapter entitled "Deaf Children" presents a view that can be distinguished from others. Rather than use the methodological distinction between school practices, they
2 6 stress three goal emphases which distinguish the groups. Briefly, one group seems to focus on the social and educational limitations of the deaf, emphasizing the need for socially adjusted deaf people and not imitation hearing people.
25Ibid., p. 149.
2^S. Richard Silverman, Helen S. Lane, and D. G. Doehring, "Deaf Children," Hearing and Deafness, ed. Hallowell Davis and S. Richard Silverman (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1960), pp. 417, 418. 82
Another focuses upon the great possibilities of the deaf, which have not yet been exploited for their education for full and
normal citizenship in a hearing world. The third points to achieve
ments of the deaf as members of both a deaf group and the hearing
world, having been educated according to their needs. To do full
justice to the distinctions among these three groups, one must read
them in full.
Silverman, et. al., suggest that one of the reasons why chil
dren do not learn to speak well is due to differences in attitude of
teachers.
Fundamental attitude. As we have indicated previously, all educators of the deaf endorse the proposition that all deaf children shall have an opportunity to learn to speak. But the implementation of this notion in everyday practice reveals fundamental differences in attitudes.
For some educators, speech is a subject to be taught like a foreign language to those who can "benefit" from it. Practice and atmosphere are not aimed at vitalizing speech for the child. Rather, speech is viewed as an eminently desirable but not essential skill to cultivate. For the others (including ourselves), a corollary to the proposition of universality of opportunity to learn speech is inescap able; speech is a basic means of communication and hence is a vital mechanism of adjustment to the communicating world about us. Therefore, we set the stage for the child everywhere— in the home, on the playground, in the school room— from the moment we learn that he is deaf, so that speech eventually becomes meaningful, significant, and purposeful for him at all times. We believe that parents, counselors, teachers, and all others who are responsible for the child's development should share this attitude. Only constant practice and actual use of speech will develop fully the deaf child's latent ability to communicate 83
by speech. The absence of a "living speech environment" may account for some of the so-called oral failures in schools for the deaf.^7
Other chapters in Davis' book are aimed at adults who may have suddenly lost their hearing. One chapter deals with organiza tions of the deaf and agencies for the deaf, and one chapter dis cusses vocational guidance. However, the latter two chapters need to be extended to include additions and perhaps minor changes which have occurred since 1960. These have much to say about communication problems of the adult deaf and how to overcome them.
D. M. C. Dale
Parents and other people working with deaf children will find
D. M. C. Dale's recent book very clear, interesting, and helpful. It contains many descriptions of ways to communicate with deaf children and teach them. Dr. Dale speaks as an "oralist." He says, "I have not considered finger spelling or conventional sign languages, be-
28 cause at the present time I know so little about them." Dr. Dale allows the Ewings to speak for him, instead:
The Ewings have said that gestures [manual] are the greatest threat to the child's future mental life. If he uses gestures for all his needs and ideas, he is using a poor sort of shorthand which not only leaves out words
^7Ibid., pp. 429-430.
^®D. M. C. Dale, Deaf Children at Home and at School (Spring field, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1967), p. 9. 84
but puts them in the wrong order. A child who signs 'Bed - me ' there' instead of saying: 'My bed is in there' is leaving out two important words 'is' and 'in', is confusing 'me' with 'my' and puts 'bed' first instead'of second. This jumbled way of thinking be comes so ingrained that if he persists with signs, he will have great difficulty in both reading and writ ing. He must learn, as soon as possible, to say complete phrases and sentences.
The 'oral' method of teaching deaf children is based on lipreading, hearing and speaking. It does not use finger spelling. In many oral schools signs and gestures are used for about 5 per cent of the children who have great difficulty in lipreading, but this, of course, is in addition to reading. Signs restrict the number of people with whom the deaf child can communicate. If parents build up a good set of pictures to help their child to learn to lipread^Q there is often little need to resort to gestures.
The Ewings, long dedicated to education of deaf childre, have always considered gestures a threat to their work. When they refer to children who have considerable residual hearing, are reasonably intelligent, and have social and economic advantages conducive to the development of speechreading and speech through close attention, good models, and high motivation, one must respect their position.
For such children to be absorbed into a community of deaf people by an early exposure to manual communication and children who may also use it may be diverting them from training in oral communi cation which would provide them with an opportunity to achieve their maximum development. Unfortunately, Dr. Dale gives the impression that this statement covers all deaf children.
29Ibid., p. 53. 85
Dr. Dale's later comment that the 5 percent of the deaf chil dren who are allowed to use gestures also use reading overlooks the important phenomenon that children also continue to use speech- reading for reception. In England, it is probable that children are never without the choice of speechreading, for the British do not employ deaf teachers. However, in the United States, even most deaf teachers present a full complement of oral gestures (they talk) at the same time they communicate in manual gestures and fingerspelling.
Children may receive messages through either "channel"— oral gesture or manual. In many instances, the deaf teacher's speech is clear and loud enough for children to receive the third "channel" of sound as reinforcement for lipreading.
Further indication that most deaf people "lipread," regard less of their training, is evident in observation of people who have been profoundly deaf from birth. These people intently watch the face of the person speaking to them. Any gestures or fingerspelling are observed "out of the corner of the eyes." Knowledge and use of gestures has little to do with the attention that the most profoundly deaf person will give to oral gestures in the process of communication.
It is rare nowadays to meet deaf people who advocate and practice the use of manual gestures without accompanying them with some oral ges tures .
Manual gestures, as we have discussed on pages 19-28, do not have to be a "poor sort of shorthand" and may be so only because the 86
proper use of manual gestures is not taught in any schools, except
perhaps informally and in a haphazard fashion when the opportunity
to do so presents itself, such as literary society programs, dramatics,
and assembly programs.
In other words, there is nothing inherently bad in manual
gestures if their use is controlled. Finally, there is nothing in herent in manual gestures which restricts the number of people with
whom a deaf person can communicate. For example, there is nothing
in the writer's daily use of gestures in communicating with deaf
people which interferes with his daily use of speech with hearing
people. Even if the writer's speech were not very satisfactory, he
could use a pad and pencil regardless of whether or not he knew manual gestures.
As for the deaf child, if he were also able to use manual
gestures, his world would be opened to communication with his peers.
As it stands, profoundly deaf children cannot communicate with each
other very readily using oral means because they do not learn to
make oral gestures, let alone speak, accurately enough to understand
each other, until they are older.
Dr. Dale's otherwise excellent book also devotes a chapter to
deaf adults and another chapter to school records. Although the cul
tural setting from which he is reporting is Great Britain, there are
frequent references to other countries, including the United States.
Parents, teachers, social workers, and others who frequently come into 87
contact with the deaf will find considerable practical help in this book.
British Study
It is interesting to note that in Great Britain recommenda tions have been made for considerable careful investigation into fac tors which influence the learning of deaf children. A hearing of opinions of all people working with the deaf and of the deaf them selves was conducted by a committee "to consider the place, if any, 30 of finger spelling and signing in the education of the deaf."
The American reader will no doubt be surprised at the number of schools in Great Britain which use manual gestures in the class room. The degree of oralism practiced in Great Britain is not so
31 "pure" as many have been led to believe.
The recommendations of the committee, after all witnesses were heard and all information was in, were for more carefully controlled practices everywhere and for special research work employing various modes of communication at different grade levels where it is feasible to conduct this type of work. Reading between the lines, the writer assumes that it means that schools should be more loyal to whatever practices they decide are best for their children and are within the
30 Great Britain: Department of Education and Science, The Edu cation of Deaf Children (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1968), p. XII.
31Ibid., pp. 115-126. 88
abilities of their staffs.
Parents, children, and staffs should be brought into the de cision and as high a degree of loyalty as possible be demanded of everyone to that decision. When deviations from the decision are made, these should be a matter of record and agreement. About the only change that may come about in the immediate future is that at the least, practices will be frankly identified and be a matter of record. This kind of openness can lead to honest and supported attack on some of the problems which face teachers of the deaf.
Among the British teachers, there was strong support to con tinue oral training although there were a few admissions that for a 32 few children it might not be successful. Among missioners and welfare officers of the deaf, there was relatively strong support 33 for the inclusion of manual methods in addition to oral ones.
Witnesses before the committee were seldom quoted, but the latter
34 group was quoted twice. The quotes are included here because they are stark evidence that education is failing some people in Great
Britain as well as in the United States. There are professional workers in Great Britain (as well as in the United States) who feel that there should be experimentation using manual modes of communication
^2Ibid., pp. 67-68. 33 Ibid., pp. 72-75.
^ I b i d ., pp. 74-75. 89
in education, which includes training in the proper use of these inodes, in addition to better oral training.
On the subject of the contribution of deaf people to society, one of these witnesses said, 'In my experience, it is the younger oral deaf with no manual communication but with such a poor language attainment that lipreading is of only limited use to them, who are able to make the least contribution to the community. Unable to mix with the deaf who communicate manually, either because they have been taught to look on finger spelling and signing with disfavor or because their parents forbid them to do so, they live in a sub-culture on the fringe of the hear ing environment. Unlike the less oral deaf who are able to achieve normality for a few hours each week in each other's company, these young people seem to become in creasingly conscious of their handicap and their own inferiority. They are usually very dependent upon their families and possibly feel incapable of contributing to a wider community of which they are largely ignorant.'
'They became adept at going through life without using more verbal communication than necessary. They travel to work by bus or tube by tendering the exact fare, they accomplish much with an expressive face and a nod and a smile; they manage much of their shopping by the use of gesture, and the supermarket has proved an incontestable boon to them. They cope with their routine affairs tolerably successfully, but they are baffled by an income tax return, unable to answer the questions on a national insurance certificate, a form for the insur ance or licensing of a car. They require help with a visit to the doctor or a hospital and certainly to arrange a mortgage with a building society or anything appertaining to the law. In short they are likely to require help with any new situation which requires a written answer or brings them into contact with strangers.' 90
Richard Brill
Returning to education of the deaf in the United States,
Richard Brill offers a concise historical background in his chapter 35 on "The Residential School for the Deaf in the United States."
He clearly explains why residential schools are needed in terms of incidence of deafness in a population of school-age children. He covers the socio-communication aspects of deafness, explaining that the residential schools seek to help deaf children to learn how to make a life for themselves within the total social framework. "It
[the residential school for deaf children] is not trying to segregate them [deaf children] from the rest of society, but rather it is recognizing that each deaf person will determine for himself the ex tent and the areas in which he will find his place in a hearing society and the extent and the areas he will find his place in a ..36 so-called deaf society.
Dr. Brill does not particularly elaborate on communication as such, but clearly outlines the philosophy of his own large resi dential school in California as it relates to communication. He explains the services it offers to children, as typical of other
33Richard G. Brill, "The Residential School for the Deaf in the United States," Special Education Programs Within the United States, ed. Morris Val Jones (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1968).
36Ibid., p. 187. 91
residential schools. Simultaneous communication, which is defined as oral communication with the simultaneous use of fingerspelling, is employed beyond the primary grades. Most residential schools will officially designate their programs to be much like the one in
Dr. Brill's school. A few of them are experimenting with simultan eous mode in primary grades and are not waiting until the intermed iate years.
Hans Furth
In assessing deaf children in school and the average deaf 37 adult, Hans Furth is blunt. He offers a comprehensive picture of the deaf children "... whose hearing loss prevents, for all prac tical purposes, auditory contact with the world around them, and has done so either from birth or since before the acquisition of language."
38 Dr. Furth states, "... under our present educational sys tem the vast majority of persons, born deaf, do not acquire functional language competence, even after undergoing many years of intensive
training."
To drive home the picture he paints, he cites a study by Wright- stone, Aronow, and Moskowitz, who administered the Metropolitan Achieve ment Tests - Elementary Battery suitable for grades 3 and 4 - to 5,307
^Hans G. Furth, Thinking Without Language (New York: The Free Press, 1966), p. 7.
38Ibid., p. 13. 92
deaf children between the ages of 10 and 16 years in 73 schools of the United States and Canada. These children, on the average, ad vanced only 0.7 of a year in mean reading level between the ages of 39 10 and 16 years.
SILENT READING ACHIEVEMENT OF DEAF PUPILS COMPARED TO GRADE EQUIVALENT OF HEARING NORMS
Mean Raw Mean Median Percentage Score and Grade Grade Scoring Standard Equiva Equiva- at Grade Age N Deviation alent alent 4.9 or Above
10 1/2-11 1/2 654 12.6 (8.1) 2.7 2.6 1%
11 1/2-12 1/2 849 14.9 (8.5) 2.8 2.7 2%
12 1/2-13 1/2 797 17.6 (9.1) 3.1 3.1 6%
13 1/2-14 1/2 814 18.7 (9.3) 3.3 3.2 7%
14 1/2-15 1/2 1035 20.8 (9.3) 3.4 3.3 10%
15 1/2-16 1/2 1075 21.6 (9.5) 3.5 3.4 12%
Based on his feeling that such low achievement does not reflect the deaf adult's intellectual behavior, he conducted a number of stud ies designed to determine the non-verbal thinking of deaf children.
Twelve experiments covered the topics of concept discovery and con trol, memory and perception, Piaget-type tasks, logical classification, thinking of the deaf, and verbal mediation and the deaf.
39Ibid., p. 14. 93
His studies and personal experiences or observations in work ing with the deaf seem to indicate that . . the internal organiza tion of intelligence is not dependent on the language system; on the contrary, comprehension and the use of ready-made language is de- 40 pendent on the structure of intelligence." He says that the lin guistic incompetency of the deaf is due much to a lack of experience children have in communication at home in their early years. He proposes that this "... would be avoidable if nonverbal methods of instruction and communication were encouraged both at home . . . and „41 in formal school education.
Furth leaves no doubt that he believes that for the children he defines as deaf, manual gestures should be used along with speech in communicating.
The additional general observation can be made that all infants learn any language to which they are exposed in a natural way during the first three years, provided the im portant sensory cues are transmitted and internally pro cessed. It would seem to follow quite logically that a deaf child too could learn society's language in an almost infallible way. If parents were taught to make a dis- criminable sign for each word while they speak it, this procedure would almost necessarily teach the deaf child the natural language. In this manner the deaf child would come to use signs in the say way in which we use morphemes and the transition from these signs to written English would be a matter of transliteration rather than trans lation. That is, the child would sign according to the English syntax, not according to the popular sign language in common use. Thus the greatest obstacle to learning
40Ibid., p. 228.
41Ibid., p. 227. 94
English would be removed because deaf children would al ready have learned to comprehend and express themsleves in English syntax. Comprehension of syntactical rules, it will be recalled, rather than memory of single words, is currently the great obstacle which so few deaf chil dren learn to overcome.
Objections to this proposal may invoke the idea of least effort: "Children permitted to use a manual, easily discriminable form of communication will not be motivated to work at the arduous task of receptive and expressive speech," Even though this argument is patently falla cious, it is hard to see how one could prefer a situation in which 90 per cent of the deaf do not know language and perhaps 4 per cent are excellent in both aspects of speech, to a situation in which 90 per cent of the deaf conceiv ably would have linguistic competence and possibly only 3 percent would be proficient speech artists.
He continues the discussion, suggesting that the criticism of the "syntax" of manual gestures be corrected, much in the way Paget did in his New Sign Language (pp. 167 to 301), by the inclusion of signs for "syntactical features now completely neglected in the con- 43 ventional sign language," and fingerspelling.
The writer has experienced a problem in finding colleagues who might be equally interested in Furth1s findings and who are com petent to discuss them. This situation bears out the suggestion that schools for the deaf individually lack pools of investigators with like skills and interests to lend strength to any interest in assessment and experimentation.
42Ibid., p. 210.
43Ibid., p. 211. 95
One of the few schools which does conduct research and might further investigate Dr. Furth's theory totally rejected his work. 44 In a letter to the editor of The Volta Review which was under signed, "The above is the combined opinion of Staff Members of The
Lexington School for the Deaf . . appeared a statement that
". . . his logic has lead him into taking an untenable philosophical stand." After pointing up some "double flip in logic," the state ment concludes:
Were it not for the fact that Dr. Furth's logic is so patently faulty, this might have been an insidious and dangerous book. To undermine the very considerable results achieved by the oral education of the deaf with such flimsy logic and no research evidence is to do the field a grave misservice. Parents and children who want the deaf to talk, deserve better than that. The goal in the oral education of the deaf is precisely to promote intellectual and social development. It has not been as ineffective as Dr. Furth alleges.
The all-inclusive attack upon Dr. Furth's reasoning is indeed
unfortunate if it stifles either his continued research or further
assessment of his findings and conclusions. There is much evidence
in reports and discussion presented later in this dissertation show
ing that conclusions similar to Dr. Furth's are reached by other
investigators using other frames of reference.
Harley Z. Wooden
In speaking of the acquisition of language, Harley Z. Wooden
^"Letters to the Editor," Volta Review, 68 (June, 1966) 394. 96
says, "... the one common denominator among the various media used was a comprehensive and simultaneous dramatization or illustration of the language presented or both— the same method whereby normally 45 hearing children acquire language."
He gives several illustrations of why English is difficult for deaf children to understand. He enumerates and briefly describes
"systems" for teaching language which were devised by Fitzgerald and
Groht. He then tells something of the work of Helen Thompson in complementing language through reading, and elaborates on this by giving principles which he later, as director of Project LIFE (Lan guage Improvement to Facilitate Education of Hearing Impaired Chil dren) , employed in developing various media for learning of language 46 by young deaf children. (See pp. 192-199 for a description of this project.)
Like other writers, Dr. Wooden points out large gaps in our knowledge which prevent a more thorough and courageous attack on the language problems of deaf children. He supports speechreading as
the best means of receptive communication, but points out that its use by the average deaf adult does not support its efficacy.
He also notes that Heider and Heider's study indicated that
^Harley Z. Wooden, "Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children," Exceptional Children in the Schools, ed. Lloyd M. Dunn (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963), p. 378.
46Ibid., p. 385. 97 indicated that skill in speechreading progresses very slowly and is not attributable to length of training. His enthusiasm for Helen
Thompson's work is tempered by reports of some who say that a young child may not be physically mature enough to read, while others report differently.
Dr. Wooden frankly discusses problems of teaching children and devotes three pages to the socialization of hearing-impaired adults. Unlike some authors, he speaks from long and close associa tion with the entire spectrum of the deaf.
Jack W. Birch and E. Ross Stuckless
In a study, "The Relationship Between Early Manual Communica tion and Later Achievement of the Deaf," Jack W. Birch and E. Ross
Stuckless summarized:
A group of deaf children who had learned to communi cate manually from infancy was compared on several de pendent variables with a group of deaf children who had not learned a system of manual communication before entering school. A matched pairs design was used to control such relevant variables as chronological and mental age, sex, and age at admission to school.
The two groups were compared with regard to speech intelligibility, speechreading, reading, written lan guage, and psychosocial adjustment.
Deaf children who had learned to communicate man ually from infancy were found significantly superior to the group without such an early communication sys tem in speechreading, reading, and written language. There was a tendency toward higher scores for the early manual communication group on scale of psychosocial ad justment, significant at the 6 per cent level of 98
confidence. No significant difference was found between the two groups in the intelligibility of their speech.
It was concluded that when the influence of early manual communication on the language of deaf children is present, this influence is in the direction of facili- ^ tating the development of conventional language skills.
This concise and well-written report is worth reading as it relates to its viewpoint on the status of deaf children in schools and its speculations about them. The conclusions of Birch and
Stuckless are cautious. While they refrain from recommending what schools should do in view of their findings, they suggest, "In the absence of more detailed research, it would seem desirable for parents to endeavor to interact with the young deaf child through 48 the regular and consistent use of manual communication.
At the same time, they suggest, "It seems desirable to initiate research to systematically introduce several groups of young 49 deaf children to various methods of communication from infancy."
Although, as Birch and Stuckless enumerate, there have been
other studies along similar lines, none of them concentrates upon the
effects of early manual communication. Nothing is reported about the
early oral training some of these children are likely to have had. We
4^Jack W. Birch and E. Ross Stuckless, The Relationship Between Early Manual Communication and Later Achievement of the Deaf, U . S. Office of Education Cooperative Research Project 1769 (University of Pittsburgh, 1964), p. 55.
48Ibid., p. 52. 49 Ibid., p. 53. 99
assume that some probably did because 11 fathers in the control group ranked at the middle or above in social position using Hollings- head Index of Social Position.We would expect these 11 to have financial resources and educational concern to seek clinic and pre school training for their children. None of the other studies of manual communication reported by the investigators had as large a population not did they test for as many variables and hold early manual communication constant in one group.
Birch and Stuckless present sufficient and valid evidence to support any school which wants to experiment with early manual com munication as an initial communication mode in the hope that it will provide a firm ground for the promotion of later speech, speech-
reading, reading, and writing. Furth, along with a number of more
cautious observers, recommends such trial. Moreover, their work now poses some "delicate" questions: If deaf children of hearing parents are admitted to school after the parents have spent much time in
learning and teaching their children to communicate manually, as well as orally, what will they conclude when they find that their
child's manual communication ability is completely ignored by the
classroom teacher and he is equated to the level of deaf children who may never have had any previous communication experience? Will hearing parents, who have had to struggle to learn manual communication
50Ibid., p. 27. 100
and have consciously taught it to their children in hope that it would give them an academic boost in school, then continue to value
it highly as a great and immediate entrance to the intellect of the
deaf child? If so, then what will these parents say to the schools when they learn that their children are allowed to use manual gestures haphazardly with no efforts being made to properly refine their use?
What will they say when they learn that little is done to improve the
child's communication ability by conscientiously fostering good manual
communication as well as oral communication outside of the classroom?
Louis DiCarlo
DiCarlo has written a book on oral methods of teaching. Only
the chapter on "language considerations for the deaf" is relevant to
this dissertation. In that chapter, he establishes the function of
language:
The cohesive force of language unifies a people; it both reflects and determines the mores of that society. The basic relationships between social structures and in dividuals evolve from, and are bound by, language usage. Language may also divide societies, separate one popula tion from another, and diversify the status of the in dividuals who compose them. Such diversification often culminates in the creation of subcultures. . • . Lan guage is truly a social heritage existing prior to the entry of an individual into a society. Only upon the acquisition of language can an individual become a mem ber of that society.
"^Louis M. DiCarlo, The Deaf (New Yorks Prentice Hall, Inc., 1964), p. 66. 101
This excellent but primarily sociological consideration of
the function of language does now, however, consider important psycho-
sociological considerations as to how an individual feels when he is unable to communicate with anyone. Assuming that this interferes with an individual's establishing a sense of personal worth and some
degree of specific knowledge of that worth, is not language import
ant first to the egocentric stages of early childhood and only later
to membership in adult society? In other words, there are equally
important, if not primary, considerations relating to the biological
development of children and their psychological states which have
relevance to language and to which language has relevance.
Directly and relatively thoroughly, DiCarlo offers a survey of theories of learning and of techniques of teaching structure of
language such as the Fitzgerald Key, Wings Symbols, and the like.
He says:
At least three methods for teaching language to the deaf are currently employed in the United States: (a) the oral method, (b) the manual method, and (c) the combined method.
The oral method is sometimes considered to be the gram matical method. It is scientific, systematic, and analy tical and is considered artificial by its opponents. It is very difficult to justify this charge, since the purpose of the oral method is to provide the child with a communi cation tool which will permit him to function and become a well adjusted, critically thinking, economically produc tive, first-class citizen in society at large rather than in a deaf society alone. . . .
The manual method of learning language, according to 102
its proponents, rests on the foundation of the mother method. It is synthetic and informal and flows from the beginning of nonverbal communication. This method has a syntax and a structure of its own which differs from English. . . .
A third method, used in the United States, is the combined method. This method permits the learners to de rive the benefits of the natural method as well as the grammatical or oral method. Both means of communication are used simultaneously to supplement each other.
Research has revealed that nether the "scientific method" nor the "mother" method have produced very good results. Propon ents of the scientific method claim that their efforts to conduct an ideal learning situation free of manual gestures have always been contaminated and a "sterile" environment has never been pos sible. The writer's observation of the combined method (the pure mother method has few, if any, proponents) suggests that the mother method part (manual gestures) of the combined method may also con tribute to the failure of the combined method, but not for the commonly assumed reasons.
Mother method requires good models for imitation whether the child is hearing or deaf. Sounds are not a language until they are put together to form a culturally acceptable pattern. Neither are gestures a language until they are put together in culturally ac cepted patterns. Whether the gestures are oral gestures or manual gestures makes no difference unless there is sufficient auditory
52Ibid., p. 85-86. 103
reception to make oral gestures secondary to sound, In which case the child is not profoundly deaf.
Although oral gestures and manual gestures are limited to sight contact as mediators of communication, oral gestures (regardless of scientific attempts to develop them) are more difficult to see and are relatively arbitrary in contrast to manual gestures. In a free choice situation, manual gestures will be adopted as the first medium through which to communicate. As a child develops skill, he estab lishes certain patterns and learn schedules (see p. 137) which en able him to employ oral gestures for convenience in certain situa tions. However, in every case, there must be good models. Very few schools, if any, engage teachers, houseparents, and employees con sidering that they are good models for the "mother method" (manual gestures) and the writer suspects that none of the teachers, house parents, or employees consistently behave as if they were models, both in and out of the classroom.
Behavioral Factors Design
The reader has been exposed to a general communication-educa- tion framework explaining educational practice, Meyerson's psycho logical view, Silverman, et^ al. 's goal-potential view, and now
DiCarlo's language method— sociological concept. Related to these different views, an anthropologist's suggestion is that each frame work is probably appropriate to the particular interest of the 104
investigator (see p. 137). To record these views, to identify over
lapping interests, and to compare them with other constructs for
agreements is a hazardous undertaking, because one immediately is
engulfed in the controversy and conflicting views and claims in
education of the deaf.
The following design is offered as an aid to charting forces which relate to the development of behavior of deaf children in order
to hold in place factors that we can identify and interrelate. The
design is offered as a beginning idea and has been tested no further
than in the thoughts of the writer and in the few examples that
follow the diagram. Readers who are tempted to pursue this design
to see if it seems functional are also invited to share their ob
servations with the writer.
Selecting one relatively concrete factor, let us see what
an examination of some of its cells might reveal. Let us take
Onset of Deafness (III-C, vertical). Onset of Deafness influences
Psychological State (general) (I, horizontal). (See cell "A" on
the chart.): 1) If a child has never heard, early onset will not
generally upset him. He does not know what he has never experienced.
2) If the child suddenly loses his hearing in adolescence, the ex
perience can be traumatic.
The design gives us a reverse cell, Psychological State
influences Onset of Deafness (see cell "B" on the chart) which upon
first glance may appear to be empty, as many cells no doubt are. Upon I Psychological State B A. Personality
B. Learning Theory
II Sociological State
A. School
B. Home
C. Community
D. Vocation
E. Avocation
F. Religion
III Biological State
A. Intelligence
B. Health C. Onset of Deafness A D. Degree of Deafness
E. Other Dlssbillties
IV Educatn'l Technology
A. Media
1. Hearing aid
2. Book
3. Overhead proj.
4 ......
B, Methods
1. Croup Instr.
2. Tutoring
3. Self lnstr.
4 ......
* C. Strategies Extension of Telling Technique:
1. Value A. Telling
2. Rational a. Expressive 1) speaking 3. Didactic 2) speaking to deaf (oral gestures & sound) 3) oral gestures (no sound) 4. Psychological 4) flngerspelllng 5) manual gestures 5. Economic 6) graphic writing 7) graphic drawings ” 6. Political b. Receptive - 7. Authority 1) hearing (rather than listening) 2) speechreading (with sound cues) D. Techniques 3) speechreading (no sound cues) 4) observing (flngerspelllng) ~ 1. Telling C D 5) observing (manual gestures) 6) reading ~ 2. Shoving 7) reading drawings
3. Helping
4. Involving
5. Training
6. Intervening
•From Egon G. Cuba, The Basle for Educational Improvement. an address dsllvsrsd sc the Kettering Foundation--!!. S. Office of Education National Seminar on Innovation, Honolulu, (Bloomington, Indiana, National Institute for the Study of Educstlonal Change, July, 1967), (See pp. 350-353 In this dissertation for definition of terms.)
Fig. 10 Design for Identifying and Relating Factors that Affect Behavior of Deaf People 106
second thought, if there is an adventitious loss of hearing in which the disability can be offset by the fitting of an aid, we can say that the sooner an individual can be acclimated (psychologically) to his hearing loss and persuaded to cope with it by using a hearing aid, the less that person will be handicapped. As the biographical sketches of many deaf people attest, Murphy (p. 80) and Heiner being two good examples, the delay in fitting of an aid burdens both the deaf person and his family— who must raise their voices and otherwise make allowances for the deaf member. If the fitting of an aid is postponed for a long period of time, the period of adjusting to an aid can be a lengthy, difficult time. Acclimatization to the world of sound after a long silence is filled with strain as one learns to identify forgotten sounds and to filter out background sounds not pertinent to useful messages. Heiner states:
There was the wonderful rediscovery period during which I used my new ears [her first hearing aid] to listen first in one room, then another; then outdoors. First I sought the small sounds and then I plunged into the vast admixture offered everywhere abroad in the city. I enlisted Henry and my mother in this practice hearing. They understood my joy in my new found hear ing, but at the same time I realized that they could not know just what was happening to me, for sound is so taken for granted.
Nor did I realize how far I had gone into silence or that it had imposed a burden on anyone but myself.
I got up in the middle of the night, put on my aid and reveled in the drip-drip sound of the rain falling on the porch outside my window. Henry took me to the 107
movies and I sat down literally aquiver with anticipa tion. Someone entered the row in front of us and pushed down the seat. It squeaked.
So did I. Out of sheer glee.
I will be frank. It was a joy to hear again, but it was exhausting, too. Little by little I had gone without this or that sound; now they were descending upon me sometimes unexpectedly, all those lost sounds. My ears ached. At this point, I might have become discouraged. Some do. Fortunately for me, I kept on.-^
Now that we have some idea of what an examination of a rea
sonably "concrete" cell will reveal, let us discover how certain cells
may be related to a problem in education of the deaf. We might, for
example, ask ourselves how the design might help us in classifying
or distinguishing the various descriptions of the deaf. Let us take
Silverman, et al., (pp. 417-418), Meyerson (pp. 145-165), and DiCarlo
(pp. 86-87) as examples.
53 Marie Hays Heiner, Hearing Is Believing (New York: World Pub lishing Company, 1949), pp. 63-65. SILVERMAN MEYERSON DI CARLO
S. Richard Silverman, Helen S. Lee Meyerson offers three adjust Louis DiCarlo presents a view that Lane, and D. G. Doerhing adopt ment patterns which can be equat the writer finds difficult to a "goal oriented" view of the ed with the three communication handle, as explained earlier, be deaf: modes and the philosophical foun cause of strangeness of terms dations associated with them: used. All the more, DiCarlo may be a test for our design. He says:
"One group seems to stress the Adjustment Pattern I - "These in THE MANUAL METHOD - "The manual limitations, especially the dividuals withdraw to the rela method of learning language, ac social limitations of deafness. tively small, restricted, but cording to its proponents, rests It is concerned about the ex safe, life spaces provided by upon the foundation of the mother clusion of the deaf from cer clubs of the deaf and societies method. It is synthetic and in tain types of desirable em of the hard of hearing. Their formal and flows from the begin ployment . . . the difficult if major goals and aspirations are ning of nonverbal communication. not impossible task of learn confined to situations in which This method has a syntax and a ing speech, and speechreading, they can function at equal ad structure of its own which dif and the misunderstandings of vantage with the hearing. This fers from English. . ." the general public concerning "pattern" is often called "with the abilities and aspirations drawal" and is condemned as un of the deaf. This group would desirable by practically all suit the method of communica except those who practice it.. . tion to the child. . ." The deaf individual who chooses
Adjustment Pattern I knows 108 clearly the group to which he belongs and the role he will play." S. Richard Silverman, et al. Lee Meyerson Louis DiCarlo
"A second group emphasizes the Adjustment Pattern II - 11. . . "THE ORAL METHOD - The oral great possibilities of the deaf shows the life space of a person method is sometimes considered yet untapped, particularly for who rejects the world of im to be the grammatical method. education and for participation paired hearing and aspires to It is scientific, systematic, in the world of hearing people. the world of the normally hear and analytical. . . the purpose. It stresses the importance of ing. He desires to do exactly of the oral method is to provide early education and the great the same things as the normally the child with a communication possibilities of auditory hearing and in exactly the same tool which will permit him to training, and it is apt to way. function and become a well-ad emphasize the objective of justed, critically thinking, "normalization." In es economically productive, first- sence, there is "one world" On the one hand, the psychologi class citizen in society at in which the deaf person cal world may be larger and bet large rather than in a deaf must function and that is ter differentiated. On the society alone." the world of hearing and other hand, the person may be speaking people. . . There uncertain about the boundaries is no separate world for the of his world, about the group to deaf." which he belongs, and about his status in the world of the nor mally hearing. This pattern is often considered 'best' by the normally hearing." o vO S. Richard Silverman, et al. Lee Meyerson Louis DiCarlo
"A third school of thought Adjustment Pattern III - "Such a "THE COMBINED METHOD - This points to the record of ec person perceives himself as one method permits the learners to onomic, academic, and social who shares many behavioral areas derive the benefits of the nat achievement of deaf persons with others. Impaired hearing ural method as well as the gram among the deaf and the hear is correctly perceived to be matical or oral method. Both ing, as a strong, tangible only one of his characteristics; means of communication are used justification for the be he has many others. . . . he simultaneously to supplement lief that forward looking, may be a bowler, an amateur each other." proper, and early funda photographer ..." mental training enables the deaf child to make the fullest use of his capa "On the one hand it avoids the bilities." provinciality and egocentricism inherent in small restricted, and poorly differentiated psychologi cal worlds. On the other hand, it also avoids the heart-searing conflicts, the disorganization, and the growth-inhibiting threats that inevitably arise from strong emotional attachments to unattain able goals, or only partially attainable goals." Ill
By placing the descriptions these three writers offer in close contiguity, we have a quick reference to what their views are.
All three views of the deaf are broad, but each seems to be distinctive in concern. Silverman, et al., seem to view the deaf mainly from the two Sociological States (II) of Community (C) and
Vocation (D). The orientation is in terms of attainable goals.
Meyerson seems to view the deaf more within a Psychological
State (I) and is concerned about their positive psychological ad justment which will eventually determine their behaviors in learning, as well as their social behaviors. The orientation is in terms of psychological adjustment prior to consideration of attainable goals.
It is far-reaching.
DiCarlo focuses on Didactic Strategies (IV-C-3) and Tech niques of Telling (IV-D-1) for purposes of language development. In his arguments about criticism of the Oral Method, DiCarlo mentions the Fitzgerald Key, a system of "diagramming" sentences to determine their grammatical syntax. This clarifies, in part, what he means when he associates oral method with grammatical method. The Key is a Didactic strategy. In using this strategy, he must employ certain
Telling Techniques.
DiCarlo's emphasis on the telling technique associated with a didactic strategy (Fitzgerald Key), prompts us to extend the telling technique. It then becomes evident that the technique cells must be 112
considered as two-way in terms of expression or out-going action and in terms of reception or being acted upon. The inset shows an exten sion of telling strategy.
DiCarlo's logic leads him to represent certain telling tech niques as being grammatical while others are not. A close scrutiny seems to indicate that the terms he uses, "mother method," "natural method," and "manual method" are synonymous.
One would also suppose that "manual method" employs manual gestures as its mode of communication of techniques of telling. How ever, DiCarlo says, "The manual method of learning language . . . has a syntax and a structure of its own which differs from English." Ob viously, there is something about the "manual method" that is foreign to our culture. If the speaking technique of telling, for example, turned out to have the vocabulary syntax and structure of French, then we would assume that special efforts were being made to teach
French through speech and not English.
Since there is no known method for teachind deaf children em ploying language systems other than the Fitzgerald Key or others similar to it (English), then it appears that DiCarlo may be saying that manual gestures themselves have a special syntax and structure.
This is to say, for example, that speaking, too, has its own syntax and structure. Since speaking itself does not have a syntax or struc ture but is employed to convey thought, the expression of which is 113
culturally structured, then what can we assume regarding manual ges
tures? If we pursue this discussion further within the framework of
this design, we seem destined to come up with explanations similar
to those on pages 19-21 which, in effect, deny the existence of any
"manual method" in schools. The so-called manual method is actually
describing the untaught but natural and irrepressible development of a_ manual communication which evolves as any primitive communication.
It exists in virtually all schools, but is not a part of the curriculum.
The presentation of this design has no other purpose than to
suggest that there may be ways in which we can analyze certain ideas
and phenomena. A relatively stable location of aspects of a phenomenon may enable us to establish clearer relationships between parts, wholes, and the "universe." In this particular example, for instance, we can
see that the relevance of the various "methods" of communication-
instruction to sociological adjustment, as DiCarlo juxtaposes, are
not clear-cut. The "methods themselves do not seem sharply defined when one fits telling techniques to DiCarlo's communication-instruction
"methods."
The dynamic and systematic interaction of behavior-influencing
forces which goes on all the time, may be easier to identify. Such a
design may generate various types of scrutiny of phenomena (research) whose importance may have escaped scholars in the past.
An example, entertaining the idea that this design might 114
generate some new investigation of phenomena, is offered in the
following paragraphs. Intersections of the Telling Technique with other factors, such as Learning Theory and Community (See cells marked £ and D) bring to mind different situations in which the same question may receive an entirely different answer. For example, if a new neighbor asks me, "Can you read the lips?" I reply, "Yes."
If my college professor asks me the same question, my reply is, "Not very well." The difference in my replies is explained in quotes from
Murphy on page 80. For the present, it serves to raise the question,
"How well do different modes of communication serve different people in communicating with other people who have different experience in communication?" Specifically speaking of deaf people, how well can they be understood by others, and how well can they express them selves, generally speaking? There are related questions: "Can we determine different levels of difficulty or abstract nature of com munication in different social contacts?"
Taking the situation where the neighbor inquires about my lip- reading skill, I assume that we will be talking about the weather, about common neighborhood happenings, and sharing experiences about our flowers and vegetables. (We both have gardens.) We will be speaking about generally known and present things. We may need only phrases or single words to communicate our thoughts. Some examples are: "Nice day!" Pointing to a thread of tomato plant leaf, my 115
neighbor may say, "Tomato worm— have to spray tomorrow. You have worms on your tomatoes, too?" The demands being made on my lipreading skills in this situation are not very great, so my performance as a lipreader is satisfactory. We could also say that lipreading skills were serving me very well in this situation.
In other situations, I might not appear so skilled, and my lipreading ability would not serve me well as a medium of communica tion. For example, if I were speaking to a friend whose garden I had never seen, there would have to be much more description, perhaps done in more complete and complex sentences. My lipreading ability would be put to much greater test. If I were talking to a stranger whose way or manner of speaking might be more foreign to me, I might have real difficulty in understanding him. Still, the demand that I understand every detail of what he is telling me about his garden may not be great, and gaps of comprehension will not embarrass me unless he asks me a specific question about a problem which I did not lipread with great accuracy.
There may be some situations in which my lipreading skill is
inadequate, to the point of being useless. Such a situation might be in a course in agriculture, where my final understanding of theories of control of garden pests would be put to test in an examination. So
the question is, when educators say that deaf children can be taught
to lipread and speak, to what level of accuracy, for what level of 116
abstract understanding, and with what person are they referring? The same question may be used in asking to what degree of service the deaf child can be helped to utilize other modes of communication such as writing and reading. Specifically, can educators agree as to what levels of comprehension different modes of communication can be em ployed and with whom?
To help any group of educators discover the degree of agree ment they can reach regarding the actual usefulness of different modes of communication with different people by deaf children or deaf adults, the following design is offered as a beginning. The design shows receptive (hearing, speechreading . . .) and expressive (speaking, manual gestures . . .) techniques as listed in the inset of the previous design. Vertically, in ascending degrees of abstract attain ment, communication levels are described (word, phrase, sentence . . .).
For each communication technique, three columns are provided— one for the intellectually slow individual (S), one for the average (A), and one for the bright deaf individual (B). Employing symbols provided in the Key, the level of communication a deaf individual may reach with his family (F), frequent associates (FA), the public (P), or with other deaf persons (D), can be indicated in the design. The arrows indicate the direction of communication flow— from the deaf individual to someone else on the expressive side of the design, and from some one else to the deaf person on the receptive side.
The descriptions of levels of attainment in communication have LEVELS OF ATTAI1WENT Above Average Abstract Communication * D Average Abstract Communication D £ Simple Abstract Commlcation D 3 F F Limited Abstract Cosnunication FA V p F F FA Paragraph - Small Talk Communication FA FA FA © FA P © Paragraph - Direction Coommlcatlon D F Sentence - Small Talk Communication F\ & F D Sentence - Direction Coomunlcatlon , FA FA A Phrase - Small Talk Coonunlcatlon ^ Ap F ® ^ ^Phrase - Direction CoMunlcation FA O ■P' 0 O D y One Word Communication © & s A BS AB s AB S AB SAB S A B s AB ^ DEAF COMMUNICATORS ^ s A B s ABSAB SA BS AB s AB SAB
KEY:
S - Slow individual (intellectually) A - Average individual B - Bright individual (with sound cues) sound (with cues) sound no (vlth (rather than listening) than (rather (oral gestures & sound) & gestures (oral F* - Level of communication achieved sound) (no GRAPHIC DRAWING GRAPHIC SPEAKING TO THE DEAF THE TO SPEAKING READING DRAWINGS READING OBSERVING MANUAL GESTURE! MANUAL OBSERVING FINGERSPELLING WRITING GRAPHIC SPEAKING MANUAL GESTURES MANUAL ORAL GESTURES ORAL SPEECHREADING SPEECHREADING FINGERSPELL1NG OBSERVING HEARING with members of family RECEPTIVE COMMUNICATION FA* - Level of ccisonnl cation achieved EXPRESSIVE COMMUNICATION vlth frequent associates P* - Level of coonunicatlon achieved vlth public or strangers (ultimate Interaction level) D* - Level of coommlcatlon achieved with other deaf persons 0 - No conmni cation *A11 individuals are assumed to be of average Intelligence. Fig- 11 A Design Suffigatlnfl Probable Levels of Attalnnent of Adult Deaf in Communication 118 not been tested for consensus among a large number of people. They are offered, with the rest of the design, to identify one way in which educators may compare their judgments regarding the general communi cation abilities of adult deaf. This type of assessment may help educators agree upon what they consider are attainable goals. Hope fully, it will be possible to test their views of what the attainable goals are and establish some degree of consistency and reality.
The writer has indicated that "direction" generally seems easier to communicate than "small talk" because direction is a more scheduled matter than small talk. This is not always true, especially when directions may be involved and require a precision of understand ing that small talk does not require. Paragraph-Small Talk and
Paragraph-Direction might be inverted for this reason. Limited
Abstract is used simply to distinguish it from more extended Simple
Abstract Communication.
P, representing Public or strangers, is circled because com munication with these people is considered to be the ultimate in social interaction. Here are explanations of several areas in which we have suggested probable levels of attainment. The difference be tween the level of attainment in expressive writing for the average individual and the bright individual at the ultimate interaction level P^ is due to an assumption that may not be valid. The assumption that the bright individual's language will be close to "normal" is questionable; but if it is, then his family and associates will 119 probably all understand his written communication equally well. The family and close associates of the average deaf individual will probably understand his written communication better than the public will because the written language may contain constructions a bit foreign to those who do not understand some of the idiosyncrasies of
"deaf language."
The slow individual will be less likely to read the public's communication with understanding because the public cannot be expec ted to know the requirements for simple and unambiguous statements, free of idioms and colloquialisms, which families and close associ ates of the deaf may know.
In contrasting the speechreading of average and bright indi viduals, we reason that the bright individuals will be able to under stand family and associates better than average individuals because he can take advantage of a combination of more careful speaking and a better knowledge of language. However, when it comes to the public, who are less likely to be careful speakers, both bright and the average are up against unintelligible oral gestures and the advantage of brightness is lost. Studies show that speechreading does not seem to be correlated with intelligence, so the difference in skill from one person to another is offen assumed to be some innate talent or skill such as an artist might exhibit. In this case, it is suggested that there is no difference between the slow, average, and bright in reception from family, close associates, or public. Still, we cannot 120
ignore the factor of "family experience" which makes it easier for the deaf to lipread family and associates than an unfamiliar public.
While this level of communication for slow, average, and bright might be the same, it should be better than for the public.
It seems to the writer that this design could be improved if levels of communication could be better described. S. I. Hayakawa’s 54 Abstraction Ladder might be studied, for example, as having sug gestions for refinement of levels of communication.
Here is another extension of the design on page 117. It relates the length of time different people are in contact with the deaf child to a vigorous growth of communication. All people in con tact with the deaf child have an opportunity to communicate with him.
In order to improve communication all around, should we not ask who is in frequent contact and if there is anything we can do to improve the communication in those contacts?
In a speculative estimation, the writer determined that:
1) The preschool deaf child is in communicative contact with his parents up to 3,295 hours a year;
2) He is in communicative contact with his sisters or brothers (assuming they are of similar age), up to 4,015 hours; (4,015 hours would represent every waking moment, based on 365 days x 11 hours— 13 hours allowed for sleeping and napping);
3) He is in communicative contact with hearing peers up to 1,190 hours;
^S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1964), p. 179. 121
4) He Is In communicative contact with deaf peers up to 1,580 hours; and
5) He is in communicative contact with family associates, hearing or deaf, up to 1,095 hours.
The preschool child’s day consisted of 8 hours of play, an hour for napping, three hours for eating, and 12 hours for sleeping.
An equally speculative estimate of the residential school child’s communicative contact revealed:
1) 900 hours of contact with classmates;
2) 900 hours with teachers;
3) 804 hours with houseparents;
4) 1,140 hours with his dormitory and playground friends; and
5) 360 hours with other staff members.
The school child's day was broken down into 6 hours' class
time, 6 hours’ dorm time, 2 hours for eating, and 10hours for sleep ing and time by himself. The school year was 180 days long with
120 summer vacation days, 28 vacation days, and 37 week-end days, of which 22 were spent in the dorm and 15 at home.
During the child's school years, 1) the parents’ contact time with the child was reduced from 3,295 hours to 1,467 hours; 2) sib lings' time was reduced to 1,793 hours; 3) peer contacts at home to
815 hours; and 4) contact with family associates to 489 hours.
Many thoughts arise from the foregoing figures, regardless of 122 how crude the estimates may be. One is that if dynamic communication
depends upon good models, then houseparents are in a good position
to influence many kinds of communication by the children since they
spend almost as many hours in contact with the children as the teach ers do. Even the smallest "custodial service" a houseparent might perform for the children is immersed in a language of love and thought fulness which children need to learn how to "verbalize."
Another thought is that the potential of communication between
peers (in contact with each other twice as much as with teachers or
houseparents) needs to be more fully exploited. One way to do this
might be to employ a sensitive observer to periodically visit club
meetings in the residential schools to offer suggestions as to how
meetings may be conducted with greater effectiveness through clearer
or better managed communications.
An observer might provide adult club advisers with insight
as to how students can be strategically guided to plan activities
which elicit more communication-in-practice. More communication-in-
practice should sharpen students' skills not only because they com
municate more, but also because there will be more communication for
adult advisers to assess.
One area in which strategic guidance might enhance communica
tion is varsity sports. Varsity sports are highly charged activities
for an entire school and loyal community. How can they be used to
provide more communication opportunities? Activities involving 123 ushering, sale of refreshments, hosting visiting teams, and cheerlead- ing all ought to be planned and executed by students with a minimum of interference by adult "supervisors."
A further exploitation of peer communication within varsity sports in schools for the deaf could be half-time entertainment programs planned and performed by students.
Another suggestion for activity arises from the fact that many games are played with young hearing people from distant schools who have little idea of what a residential school is like. Some of these students are interested enough to return to tour the school as members of a class in civics or such. Also, deaf students are a curious phenomenon to many of the visitors, members of the team, its entourage and followers. However, the usual exchange of information about schools which occurs between hearing students is not common when teams visit schools for the deaf because of the difficulties in opening a conversation when neither party "speaks the same lan guage."
To overcome the initial difficulties of establishing contact, select adults and students from other schools could be invited to visit a classroom, the school library, and a representative industrial arts classroom before a game. High school students could conduct the
"tour" with about one guide to every two or three people or family.
The tour could be concluded with a few minutes to talk while taking refreshments. The visitors could be given a brochure about the school, 124
a copy of the school paper, and manual alphabet cards as mementos of their visit. Planning and engaging in such activity demand con siderable communication. This should benefit the student as well as provide visitors with information about the school. It would also provide an opportunity for the visitors to meet and perhaps gain a degree of empathy with a deaf person.
Sensitive observers may also make suggestions for the estab lishment of more school activities to generate much communication.
Among the more successful activities one can observe in some schools for the deaf are:
Dramatics clubs
Literary societies
Student-planned and student-financed trips
Student councils
The extent of sibling contact in preschool years is another thought-provoking statistic. The experiment in which preschool-age deaf children and their hearing brothers and sisters are taught to gether in a church-operated preschool deserves much critical atten tion. (See description on pp. 304-305.)
The preceding discussion illustrates that when we think about the amount of time deaf children are in contact with others, we wonder how more communication of the right kind can take place. Contacts in the home and in the classroom, as well as in the residential cottages, are all worthy of observation to see how much communication occurs and 125
its nature. Educators who are mainly concerned with the development of speech and oral skills of communication have made suggestions to parents for increasing communication. Rephrasing some of these into questions offers a means of deciding how much contact time is ac
tually used in communication without having to send observers into
a home. In turn, these questions focus attention on certain ways in which parents can utilize contact time for more communication. Some of the questions are:
1. At mealtime, does the family talk much? How is the deaf
child included in this?
2. When you have trouble with the plumbing, the furnace, the
lock on the door, and such daily occurrences, does your
child know about them? Does he "listen" to discussion
which leads up to a decision for action— such as calling
a plumber?
3. If father repairs the loose back step or mother makes a
pie, does the deaf child share in any resulting conver
sation among others in the family?
4. Is the deaf child included in plans for going to the store,
the zoo, or the library, and does he join in the comments
made by members of the family on such excursions— includ
ing the review of events which may be made from time to
time upon your return?
The dynamic nature of communication clearly involves factors 126
of early beginning, varying opportunities of contact with people who have different "functions" (siblings, peers, parents, teachers) and different social situations (home, school). Also related to the dynamics are the amount of communication which actually takes place and the relative importance of different topics. Finally, the most aggravating question is identifying the most appropriate medium or method for communication. It seems to the writer that the crux of the problem lies within the realm of determining the universe of affective "logic" that supports or denies manual or oral methods.
Among the questions which must be asked is whether the amount of early communication of deaf children is more important than the medium used to communicate. In turn, the question arises as to whether one medium can serve as well as another in this early period of a deaf child's life. The third question might be how communica tion can be managed to satisfy the experimental requirements for useful feedback, leading to better teaching and teachers, in the interests of better learning by better prepared learners.
The power of our design on page 105 to generate close exam ination and more careful distinction of factors influencing the behavior of deaf children and adults remains to be tested by other persons who may be tempted to meditate on various cells which indi cate interacting forces. Again, the reader is invited to share his experience with the writer as an effort to test and perhaps develop the design. 127
Thomas E. Jordan
As much as we are in debt to Dr. DiCarlo for generating a train of thought leading to the preceding designs, we are in debt to
Thomas E. Jordan and Cyril Fry for supplying further evidence that some means of reaching agreement upon phenomena related to deaf ness is needed. Dr. Jordan writes:
Historically, the education of the auditory handicapped has been split over the role of language and the value of non-oral means of communication. Some people assert that language is beyond the reach of the deaf and that manual systems such as finger spelling and signing are most suited. In some places the state schools for the deaf have been strongholds of such views. . . . Consequences of pursuing non-oral goals are (1) poverty of thought processes (2) re striction of vocational opportunities and (3) acquisition of status in a segregated minority group.
An alternative point of view is asserted in this chap ter; namely, (1) that manual methods of communication are poor and (2) that oral communication and full integration are the more desirable goals. Manual methods are not merely the absence of oral language techniques but the deliberate impoverishment of the intellectual-cognitive processes. On the other hand, oral methods are "natural" in that all people use them. They are also "natural" in the sense that normal people use language to think with and to cope with novel situations. However, oral language may be difficult for dull children.
A particularly ill-founded idea is used to justify non-oral methods; this is the assertion that deaf children are incapable of normal concept formation. . . .^5
Dr. Jordan's statement raises many questions. What is meant by "language"? If language is beyond the reach of the deaf, then of
^Thomas E. Jordan, The Exceptional Child, (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, Inc., 1962), p. 89. 128
what use could manual systems for expressing language be? What does Jordan mean by "normal concept formation"? Particularly, what does he mean by "normal"? Does he mean to imply that children who cannot hear can still obtain the same concept of a busy city street, for instance, as children who can hear? Does he imply that what is normal for hearing persons can also be considered normal for deaf persons? What is Jordan's manner of thinking about this? Are non oral goals really different from oral goals or do oral and non-oral more accurately indicate different ways of realizing the same goals?
Again, we can see how an epistemology of deafness is needed for the purpose of rationally reporting phenomena and validating assumptions which arise from observations.
Cyril Fry
Cyril Fry drives home, as few others have done, the need for better understanding among professionals. The quotation below seems to be a mixture of truth and unreality which clearly indicates keen perception but leaves me bewildered and very anxious about orienting myself to the views expressed. Of fingerspelling, Fry says:
Finger-spelling . . . does not form part of the training of teachers of the deaf and such use of it as is made in the schools is unofficial and often very unskilled. Although few deaf children or even adults can communicate by finger- spelling alone, some children often use it as a visual 129
mnemonic for memorising words. This requires consider able mental agility, maturity and formal training in finger spelling.
I can understand that communication by fingerspelling requires mental agility and maturity because it is nothing more than writing out a message in the air. It has no medium such as paper and pencil or board and chalk to hold it constant long enough for the inexper ienced "reader" to grasp the meaning of the symbols. To be able to read verbal symbols does indeed require certain experience and in tellectual ability. However, fingerspelling itself is known to be
comparatively simple to learn, even without formal training. Per haps Fry means something other than the writer thinks he does, or
Fry is not really familiar with fingerspelling and therefore assumes
it is complex.
Speaking of gestures, Fry says:
The use of conventional signs, as distinct from natural gestures, gives a superficial impression of good communica tion and is resorted to by many people including parents, but while it facilitates understanding at a very simple level and at that level could be called communication it is not really so. Conventional signs, even when used in con junction with speech are ungrammatical. Often one assumes that the child is making up this deficiency by lip-reading but he is, in fact, following the signs. The use of signs
5^Cyril Fry, "Language Problems in Profoundly Deaf Children," The Child Who Does Not Talk, ed. Catherine Renfrew and Kevin Murphy (London: Spastics Society Medical Education and Information, 1964), p. 117. 130
is a very primitive form of language and creates a barrier against correct and fluent communication between adult and profoundly deaf child; it is an easy way out for the adult and expects very little in return from the child.^7
Is the sole criterion of good communication its degree of adherence to grammatical rules? And is Fry really talking about usage rather than grammar? We need to have a better understanding of what good communication is— for various communicators, at dif ferent times, and in different situations. Would Fry agree? If so, would this alter the significance of what he has to say in his thought-provoking statements?
Fry offers a translation of written language into sign lan guage and then tries to show what the signs mirror in terms of the
CQ concept held by the deaf person. How he arrives at the "deaf concept" he does not say.
Example: 'A hearing child meets these problems but is able to overcome them as he is continually bombarded with incidental language and has the linguistic ability to ask questions at the appropriate times.'
Signs: 'Hearing child meet lots of trouble but can fight them because he will receive bombs with here and there talk and has good talk and can ask questions at right time.'
[Example] Where are you going to my pretty maid? I'm going a'milking sir she said.
57Ibid., pp. 117-118
58Ibid., pp. 118-119 131
May I go with you my pretty maid? Nobody asked you sir, she said.
Signs: Where you go to my pretty girl? I go milk gentleman she say. Perhaps I go with you my pretty girl? Nobody ask you gentleman she say.
Deaf Concept: Man asked pretty maid where go? She said I went for milk. Perhaps pretty maid go with him? She said nobody asked the man.
One may have reservations concerning Fry's knowledge of sign
language (manual gestures). In translating from one foreign language
to another, one will find that there is not always a one-to-one cor
respondence of words. The connotation of a word in one language
might require a whole paragraph of words to explain in another lan
guage. The ideographic nature of many manual gestures presents the
same kind of problem. Because the connotation of some spoken words
is extensive and there are no definite manual gestures for them, they
are sometimes spelled out on the fingers. For example, Fry's sug
gestion that incidental language might be interpreted in gestures as
"here and there talk" is not very likely to happen. An interpreter would fingerspell "i-n-c-i-d- ..." The interpreter might also in vent a sign for some word which is used frequently in a speech, estab
lishing it by making the gesture, following this by fingerspelling it
the first two or three times it is used.
Fry's explanation of the cognition of a deaf child in reading
a nursery rhyme raises more questions than it truthfully answers. For 132
one thing, is Fry tacitly suggesting that a deaf child would enjoy
a rhyme more if he used only oral means of enjoying it? Is he sug
gesting that the "oral child's" conception would be superior to the
"manual child's" conception? In other words, exactly how and why does he assume that manual modes are primitive as opposed to oral modes?
Serious consideration of some of the things Fry explains
could lead to the establishment of an epistemology of deafness. The
realization that manual gestures are seldom used alone in communica
tion, but are accompanied by oral gestures demands a "knowing" beyond
Fry's assumptions and beyond those of anyone so far submitted. For
example, we do not know which medium predominates in the thinking process when simultaneous modes of communication are used.
Another area which needs definition relates to Fry's sug
gestion of "Deaf Concept." Is "Deaf Concept" the "inner speech"
that Vygotsky explains? (See p. 145). That is, does "Deaf Concept" mean the way Fry assumes a deaf person silently thinks, as he signs
the given nursery rhyme? Or, is Fry suggesting that this is the way
a deaf person would verbalize the rhyme when he sees it rendered in
signs? In addition to the idea of Vygotsky's "inner speech," "Sched
uling" explained on p. 137 seems to be a very good way to obtain an
understanding or knowledge of how deaf children might translate signs
into a written or spoken word. A given sign in one context may mean
something different in another context, just as written words change 133 connotations in changing contexts. As the deaf child's knowledge of schedule develops, he chooses words more appropriate to a given situation at a given time, place, and with given actors or partici pants in his translation— either a translation to let hearing people know what the signer says in signs, or a "translation" for "storage" as inner speech or a language of thought.
Contributions by Anthropologists
Generally, the "sixties" have seen a number of new people from disciplines other than education of the deaf interest themselves in communication among the deaf. This will become more apparent in later chapters. One of the disciplines which is most poorly represented among this new group of people is anthropology.
Although we know of no studies of the deaf by anthropologists, they have contributed much to an understanding of communication by contrasting communication of one culture with communication in another.
Would it not be reasonable to hope that the views of anthropologists, as cross-cultural observers, might add to the dimensions of understand ing of deaf people?
Among the things which need clarifying about communication among the deaf is the extent to which manual gestures are actually a cultural language, in contrast to their function as a vehicle for transmission of the printed English word and its syntax.
Anthropologists might also help answer the need to identify the 134
59 rituals of schools for the deaf, particularly residential ones, which contribute to helping the deaf child to orient or identify him self as an able and worthy person among his peers. By rituals, we mean customarily repeated acts that children be accustomed to expect such as periodical joint Scout meetings with a neighborhood troop, spring camp, and daily social hour. Other rituals may extend the contacts of deaf children to help them realize their potentials for identifying with groups of adult deaf people and with groups of adult hearing people. Possessing such realizations will enable them to move freely among people of society to give what they owe and graciously receive what is due to them.
If anthropologists are challenged by problems related to ob servation of groups of people with whom communication is difficult and "cultural" understanding hampered, then the deaf should interest them. For one thing, communication with the born-deaf adult can never achieve assured and complete empathy by a communicator who is not also born-deaf. Just as only a person born into a culture can approach a complete understanding of it, only a person born deaf can approach an adequate understanding of the "world of deafness." We say "approach" because sub-cultures of born-deafness no doubt exist, depending upon family relationships, exposure to education, and other factors affecting life perspectives. Who really knows what another's
CQ Customary and formal act. 135
"world of deafness" is really like?
The writer's feeling that cross-cultural studies by anthro pologists could be highly relevant to understanding the deaf arises
from various sources. It is greatly influenced by one book edited by F.S.C. Northrop and Helen Livingston. Reporting in this book,
Jacques J. Maquet^ and a group of his colleagues reached an epis- temological decision which admits the term philosophy as denoting a philosophy which can be determined through discussion with a^ people.
The strength or weakness of such description exists in determining how closely one culture's philosophy can be described in the terms of the observer's culture. Another term, philosophical construct, denotes implicit or covert philosophy— one that is derived from observing the behavior of a. people in a culture rather than what they have said to be their philosophy. A study of philosophical constructs of the deaf in just the United States, comparing "cultures" of oral day schools, oral residential schools, and combined residential schools might be mutually rewarding to educators and anthropologists.
Certain cultural differences among these different educational en vironments might be revealed. Awareness of these differences could be useful even if they are on a theoretical level because they could
Jacques J. Maquet, "Some Gpistemological Remarks on the Cultural Philosophies and Their Comparison," Cross-Cultural Under standing: Epistemology in Anthropology, ed. F.S.C. Northrop and Helen H. Livingston (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 13-31. 136 be different from those previously derived from sociological and psychological studies.
Anthropologists could also observe the deaf in schools and communities abroad. Studies of both groups within the United States and cross-cultural comparisons with those abroad might reveal certain universal phenomena in the "World of Deafness."
Some persons might argue that the world of deafness relates to a study of physical disability and not to disciplines related to a study of cultural groups. The writer suggests that communication barriers uniquely acculturate the deaf to the extent that they may be worthy of an anthropologist's interest.
Dr. Maquet supports the scientific usefulness and validity of observational techniques which offer much promise in understand ing the deaf. He says:
. . . in its present stage, comparative anthropology, using inductive and deductive logical processes and con trolling by observation the deduced hypothesis, produces a knowledge belonging epistemologically to the sphere of the humanistic disciplines rather than the sphere of the physicomathematical sciences.61
The anthropologists can help educators to relate logically seemingly contrary views to a systematic order so that the views re inforce the total picture of "deaf education." For example, appar ently divergent ways of classifying social and educational treatment of deafness suggested by DiCarlo, Silverman, et al., and Meyerson
61Ibid., p. 25. 137
(see p. 100) can be explained by Dr. Maquet's words, "... classi
fication has the advantage of being logically satisfactory and of
responding to the requirements of the student of philosophy who 62 has chosen it."
Dr. Maquet's point becomes even clearer as he pursues an
explanation of the contrasting classifications of cultural philoso
phies of Sorokin, Northrop, Benedict, and Tempel.
Among several fascinating ideas, in addition to Maquet's
discourse, is the concept of scheduling described by Hockett.
Briefly, an ethnographer's task ". . . is to discover and describe 63 the ways of life of a human community." He does this as a par-
ticipant-observer obtaining "inside views" and "outside views." As he studies a culture, the ethnographer learns of patterns of living
to the extent that certain occurrences are expected under certain
conditions. The word am, for example, is scheduled to follow the 64 pronoun 1^. American presidential inaugurations are scheduled to
occur every four years with all their accompanying "ritual." Such
scheduled events are called traits. "The ethnographer's report of
the inside view should appear as a tabulation of the traits of the
62Ibid., p. 29. 63 Charles F. Hockett, "Scheduling," Cross-Cultural Under standing . . ., p. 126. 64 See p. 103 and p. 132 as an example of the sufficiency of the term scheduling in explaining how both manual and oral gestures cue for proper English words. 138 community, of the distinctive properties of each, and of their schedulings. . . . no format can yield greater accuracy and „65 clarity.
Of course, not all occurrences are equally predictable. Pre dictability is explained by saying that persons, actors, are in states, and states may differ. States "... differ from one to an other in at least these four ways: (1) predictability; (2) freedom of choice; (3) urgency; (4) anxiety.
Characteristics of a state, for example, could be listed as
H (1), L (2), H (3), L (4) for sitting in a barber's chair and HLHH for sitting in a dentist's chair, while they would be MLVV for watching a football game. The predictability that we will sit in either chair is H (high) and generally there is not much freedom of choice about our behavior in these acts, so the second letter is
L (low). Hockett determines that urgency is H (we assume that no one expects to prolong the act), and we need not wait too long to be served. And, while there is no anxiety in the barber's chair, there is considerable anxiety in the dentist's chair; therefore, fourth letters L and H, respectively, for barber and dentist. M, indicating an intermediate probability, identifies the predictability (1) that we may watch a football game. Our freedom of choices of behavior (2) in doing this are "few" (1). Urgency (3) and anxiety (4) exhibited
65Ibid., pp. 130-131.
66Ibid., p. 138. 139
during the game vary (V). V symbolizes variable, indeterminate, or irrelevant.
"Suppose a culture repeatedly subjects participants to states in which freedom of choice is low and anxiety high. The participant learns this pattern, and comes to interpret all sorts of states as though they involve little freedom and much anxiety.Hockett explains how these states identify changes in personality and possibly social structure. The relevance of this to descriptions of educa tional practices and the resulting social structures is strong. Con trasting the states of persons from "oral" school environments with those from "combined" school environments would be more revealing than the type of observations we are now making, using personality tests and the like. Contrasting the states of persons from day schools with those from residential schools might also be fruitful and could lead to better management of both types of schools.
Perhaps more valuable than this would be the opportunity to distinguish differences between observers. This system is supposed to give an inside view, but inside views are still subject to the
"bias" of outside observers. Would educator-observers in an oral school identify the children's state as LVHH in the act of speaking?
Would they agree that the state of such a child's counterpart in a combined school might be identified as LVHL? In all probability,
^ I b i d . , p. 141. 140
ethnographers would say that determination of states of many in dividuals within the "cultures" would be needed before a "cultural trait" could be agreed upon, and that such traits are scheduled to appear under certain educational practices.
In the context of preserving human dignity in times of great technological change, Klausner feels that the anthropologist's role
. .is - one - to help identify the needs within the community as expressed by the community itself and - two - present the various modernization alternatives available to that community and the con- 68 sequences attendant on such changes." The discussion which fol lowed this statement was long and it involved almost all partici pants in the symposium from which the material in this book was drawn. Ethical problems related to anthropology could not be re solved, partly because some practices in cultures were inhuman and
they were not what the cultures needed although they may not have been so considered by the people themselves. Interestingly, this reflects an issue in education of the deaf— some citizens complain
that the deaf themselves are not consulted about what they believe
to be the best educational practices.
The point we are trying to make is that it seems possible
that the deaf, from the ethnographer's scrutiny, might take on a dif
ferent appearance than what we have been able to obtain from the
^®Quoted from a brief statement made by William J. Klausner in the discussion, "Some Practical Implications," Cross-Cultural Understanding . . ., p. 365. 141
educator, sociologist, and psychologist. This appearance might help those who work with the deaf to find innovative ways and perhaps better ways to help deaf children learn, help deaf adults to accli mate to technological changes which may even require them to change vocations, and generally improve the roles and status of the deaf in society. 142
SUMMARY
This chapter enumerates some of the reasons the disability of deafness may be extremely handicapping. It stresses that while professional educators, who write, are an important means of diffus ing knowledge of the deaf and the means for educating them, there is considerable disagreement among the educators regarding the nature of the handicap of deafness.
Some of the disagreements about the nature of deafness or the effects it has upon the communication abilities of deaf children lead to the schism between educators. Some educators advocate ex clusive oral means of spoken communication in schools and some would allow other means of communication in addition to oral ones.
One of the reasons there are disagreements seems to be due to the confusion as to what is meant by certain terms and the exact nature of learning phenomena. The writer suggests a need for and submits a tentative design whereby various factors influencing learn ing may be more exactly identified and held in place of relationship with other factors.
The writer suggests that until there is a more exact under standing of what educators mean when they talk about certain things, there will be no valid way of testing theory or evaluating programs.
This is one reason why the possible use of manual gestures in the learning of deaf children has not been explored. In spite of repeated 143 evidence that manual gestures may have potential in helping deaf children learn, their nature and possible function are not commonly understood.
The writer also proposes that a study of the deaf by qualified ethnographers might bring a totally new perspective of deafness into consideration which would generate different attitudes and approaches toward learning of deaf children.
The writer implies that a more total understanding of learn ing of deaf children could lead to a unification of educational facilities toward systematic attention to the needs of deaf children in place of the present competitive schools and frequently poorly tailored learning facilities. CHAPTER III
LEARNING THEORY AND PROGRAMS FOR DEAF CHILDREN
Learning Theory
A few of the many learning theories seem to have special relevance to how people think deaf children learn. In this chapter, we will discuss some of these learning theories and describe pro grams being developed especially to promote the learning of deaf children.
To fully sppreciate theory for the insights it may reveal,
teachers must read widely, perhaps discuss what they read with
colleagues, and then try to relate theory to their observations of children's behavior. In the following pages are a few examples of the influence which theory might have upon the way a teacher con siders common problems of communication development.
One such theory is the concept of egocentrism which "... de notes a cognitive state in which the cognizer sees the world from a single point of view only— his own— but without knowledge of the existence of viewpoints or perspectives . . Its importance
^■John H. Flavell, The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1963), p. 60.
144 145
strongly suggests that the utility this communication should have for the child in childhood far outwights any concern for the future modes of communication a child may use— or those he might use as an adult.
Thought which proceeds from a single point of view, and without orientation towards and coordination with the thoughts of others, is necessarily unreflective. Consciousness of one's own reasoning processes arises from the disposition to prove and justify to others what one has asserted; to do the latter one must turn back upon, reflect on, one's own thinking critically, and with the eyes of an outside observer.
There remains the question of the mechanism by which the child ultimately frees himself from the grip of ego centrism, with its attendant ills of absolutism, lack of introspection, disinclination towards logical-causal justification, and all the rest. It is not simply ex perience with objects and events in the real world; the child, says Piaget, can and does readily distort physi cal experience to fit his preexistent schemas. Rather, social interaction is the principal liberating factor, particularly social interaction with peers. In the course of his contacts (and especially, his conflicts and arguments) with other children, the child increas ingly finds himself forced to reexamine his own per cepts and concepts in the light of those of others, and by so doing, gradually rids himself of cognitive ego centrism . . .^
In studying egocentric speech, Vygotsky wrote:
We took as the starting point of our experiment three of Piaget's own observations: (1) Egocentric speech occurs only in the presence of other children engaged in the same activity, and not when the child is alone; i.e., it is a collective monologue. (2) The child is under the illusion that his egocentric talk, directed to nobody,
2Ibid., p. 279. 146
is understood by those who surround him. (3) Egocen tric speech has the character of external speech: It is not inaudible or whispered.^
Nevertheless, the data obtained strongly suggest the hypothesis that egocentric speech is a transitional stage in the evolution from vocal [external speech] to inner speech.
. . . as egocentric speech develops it shows a ten dency toward an altogether specific form of abbrevia tion: namely, omitting the subject of a sentence and all words connected with it, while preserving the predi cate. This tendency toward predication appears in all our experiments with such regularity that we must assume it to be the basic syntactic form of inner speech.-*
The decreasing vocalization of egocentric speech de notes a developing abstraction from sound, the child's new faculty to "think words" instead of pronouncing them.6
At three, the difference between egocentric speech and social speech equals zero; at seven we have [ego centric] speech that in structure and function is totally unlike social speech.7
In other words, when children seem to be talking to themselves or talking without caring if people around them respond, they are
"processing" language that they hear, which will become a tool in
o Lem Semenovich Vygotsky, Thought and Language (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M. I. T. Press, 1962), p. 136.
4Ibid., p. 17.
5Ibid., p. 139.
6Ibid., p. 135.
7Ibid., p. 134. 147
thinking and communicating for the rest of their lives. As they proceed in this, vocalization becomes increasingly abbreviated to predicates and finally ceases. We assume that the vocalization be comes "inner speech" or a language of thought. This phenomenon sug gests that thought language is much like the vocalization made by the child just before he ceases talking aloud without concern for the response of others around him. Most vocalization after about seven years of age is intended to elicit some response from people in contact with the child and is not "egocentric." At that time, his communication is full or no longer abbreviated.
In view of the dependence on social intercourse with peers for this growth of language and thought, what can we say about the need of deaf children for peer relationship? (This is discussed on pp. 17-18.) What questions are important ones concerning the form inner language of the deaf can, must, or will most naturally take?
Wooden presents some views on this matter, but he excludes manual gestures as being a good "form" of inner language, in contrast to Q auditory form, oral gesture form, or reading form.
Wooden suggests, for example, that "A normally hearing child's inner language is auditory." It is thus that when he begins to read he "wants to read aloud because he understands better in
^Harley Z. Wooden, "Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children" Excep tional Children in the Schools, ed. Lloyd M. Dunn (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963), p. 399. 148
Q that medium." Wooden tacitly suggests that the most desirable inner language for the deaf child would be speechreading. However, he points out that it is not very satisfactory because, as Pauls indi cates, too many of the sounds it should mediate are not visible on the lips.'*'®
The important thing, if we accept this concept of explaining the phenomenon of learning and communication, is to determine what other ways than sound there might be to bombard the deaf child with communication as the hearing child is immersed in sound messages all day long. And, since he is correspondingly unable to manufacture sounds, how can we provide a means for him to "vocalize" some other way?
It seems equally important that communication for deaf chil dren be established early because there is persistent evidence that certain processes are closely related to a biological time-clock which, in the case of language development, is set very early.
One of the earliest and best ways of communicating with the deaf child is through reading. However, there is a special problem involved in using reading to communicate with many deaf children.
Unless the deaf child has deaf parents, we can assume that the child has no language associated with direct experience beyond possibly a few common manual gestures and oral gestures. Accordingly, there is
9Ibid., p. 386.
10Ibid., p. 390. 149 no medium of communication which would relate direct experience to reading. There is nothing for the deaf child which functions as speech and hearing do in helping the hearing child understand just how printed symbols relate to direct experience.
If this difficulty is clearly realized by the teacher, then virtually all early reading will be preceded by writing. The writing must be done by the teacher, clearly associating it with direct ex perience. In first lessons in reading, hearing children indicate what a teacher has written by speaking it. With deaf children, such indication would be by reenacting some incident reported, pointing to some picture which might represent the action described, com pleting some action, or describing the result of some incident through pantomime. This soon leads to the children's learning to express experience through writing.
However, there is a kind of writing which comes too soon.
The kind of writing that comes too soon is writing which is not part of £ dialogue. It is the kind of writing done when a teacher tells the child to sit down and write some "news," or to write the news during the evening and bring it to school the next day.
The kind of writing that should be pursued, perhaps exclus ively up to the intermediate level, is writing that relates only to the here and now or to direct, purposeful experience that the children are having or have recently had together. This writing should not deviate from conversations the children would have as they did 150
something or afterwards, or were planning to do something. But in writing something in planning, "We will go . . ., we will see ..." and the like, care must be taken that pictures or some other visual description be used if possible to provide as much relevance to con crete experience, that will occur, as possible. A high degree of comprehension should not be expected until after the planned event takes place. Even in writing about an event which took place, such as a field trip, photographs should be available to help the chil dren recall specific details and events of their experience about which they may verbalize. (To which they may relate verbal symbols.)
The primary teacher who can handle a camera and has rapid process service available or can obtain a Polaroid camera offers her chil dren a great advantage in learning. Sketching is also a useful skill for the primary teacher. This kind of writing, recorded on a chart story, might not be very suitable reading for another class in an exchange of experience chart stories we mention later in this chapter. [In an aside, let me add that any thought that I am talking only about concrete things and acts is far from the truth. Insofar as children can be determined to have common feelings or ideas within some shared experience, these should be named and become an important part of the written dialogue of living.]
Vygotsky has provided us with an explanation of writing from which we have drawn the insights in the preceding paragraph.
Communication in wr.ting -lies on the formal meanings of words and require a much ^ceata number of words than 151
oral speech to convey the same Idea. It Is addressed to an absent person who rarely has in mind the same subject as the writer. Therefore it must be fully deployed; syn tactic differentiation is at a maximum; and expressions are used that would seem unnatural in conversation.H
In an illustration-filled discussion, Vygotsky elaborates that in oral communication (as opposed to formal writing) the sender and receiver are both in the same surroundings, allowing for abbreviated communication. For example, I could say, "Cold!" to my wife to indicate that my wrist watch felt very cold when she sees me bring it out of an open-windowed bedroom in winter, shivering as I strap it on. To convey this same sense of chill to a letter-correspondent would require several sentences describing the situation.
Dialogue always presupposes in the partners suf ficient knowledge of the subject to permit abbreviated speech. . . . It also supposes that each person can see his partners, their facial expressions and ges tures, and hear the tone of their voices.
In written speech . . . we are obliged to use many more words, and to use them more exactly. Written speech is the most elaborate form of speech. . . . Psychological investigation leaves no doubt that monologue is indeed the higher, more complicated form, and of later historical development.^
The teacher of the deaf intends to use writing as a substitute for speech but in the actual process of teaching often forgets the
•^I b i d ., p. 142.
^ I b i d ., pp. 142-143.
13Ibid., p. 144. 152 finer difference between use of writing for this purpose and the purpose Vygotsky is talking about (an elaboration of speech) and begins demanding the next-to-impossible monologue-for-distant- person writing from young deaf children.
Perhaps relevant to the frequently unintelligible written ex pression of deaf children is this:
The key to this experimentally established fact is the invariable, inevitable presence in inner speech of the factors that facilitate pure predication: We know what we are thinking about— i.e., we always know the subject and the situation. Psychological contact be tween partners in a conversation may establish a mutual perception leading to the understanding of abbreviated speech. In inner speech, the "mutual" perception is always there, in absolute form; therefore, a practically wordless "communication" of even the most complicated thoughts is the rule. ^
Programs for teaching language to young deaf children through reading and some writing are heavily based on things that Vygotsky so clearly explains. Among these is an explanation of the sense of a word, how a word acquires its sense, how a word out of context can mean both more and less than when it is in context, how sense pre dominates over meaning in inner speech, and how at its peak in inner speech, "A single word is so saturated with sense that many words would be required to explain it in external speech.When we refer to
"concept development," we are talking about "saturated inner words."
14Ibid., p. 145.
15Ibid., p. 148. 153
Besides having relevance to directing learning of deaf chil
dren in school, much of Vygotsky may have relevance to the idiosyn
crasies of manual gestures, as observed in use by deaf children and
even those used by deaf teachers.
In all fairness to what we say about communication observed between deaf persons, let us realize how it can be between hearing people. Suppose I invited you out for lunch one cool, spring day.
As we are about to leave your classroom or office, I turn to you with a questioning expression on my face and ask, "Coats?" This might be equivalent to directly verbalizing my compacted "inner thought lan guage." But within the context of the situation, do I need more words to communicate?
Such an example of abbreviated communication in manual ges ture could easily occur in a school assembly program. A deaf teacher might have a relapse from formal expression, especially if he does not talk and sign simultaneously. For example, if he were lecturing on the care of teeth, he could gesture with a questioning expression,
"Brush teeth?" and then stamp his foot to the floor as he emphatically gestures, "Must!"
Here is a more general explanation for the "syntax" of manual gestures. I believe that deaf children often talk in "exclamations."
By this I mean, for example, that a child seeing a dog may touch his companion and gesture and point, "Dog!" "See?" "Big!? "Careful, bite!" A hearing child might vocalize, "A dog! Do you see it? Boy, 154 it’s big! Careful, it might bite!"
When the deaf child arrives in the classroom, he would prob ably report to the others, "Dog, see big careful bite no." We need to ask questions about just how the child’s message ought to be treated by the teacher in the classroom. Since the child obviously wants to communicate something to the teacher and others in the class room, he should be helped to express himself. The difficulties facing the teacher are these:
1. She must find out precisely the nature of the event the child is reporting. Did some big boy escape being bitten by a dog, or did some boy escape being bitten by a big dog? Or did the boy avoid being bitten by a big dog because he was careful?
2. She has to ask the best questions to elicit the full de tails of the story.
3. She has to decide what details should be left out to maintain "dialogue level" writing.
4. Sometimes, she has to include monologue writing if the message is for others in the classroom who may not have seen the dog.
The teacher's questioning might go, "Dog? I don't see a dog.
Who saw a dog?" From this, the teacher would learn that the boy saw the dog outside. She might write, "______saw a dog. It was big."
(For an advanced child, she might add "outside." At a still more ad vanced level, she might combine the two sentences, "______saw a big dog outside.") 155
The next round of questions might go like this, "Careful?
Who was careful? The teacher would have to decide from the response whether she should say, "______was afraid, but the dog did not bite," or whether she should say, "______was careful. He patted the dog carefully. The dog did not bite." In the course of the dia logue, it is probable that details, such as patting, will be told to enlarge the experience.
No matter how such incidents are reported, the teacher must be careful about correcting the communications. What frequently hap pens is that children are required to write "news" on the board which is not comprehensible to the teacher, which she callously adds to and corrects until it is grammatically and monologically correct. If deaf children develop inhibitions after such treatment of their efforts to share the daily events of their lives, it should hardly be surprising.
The implications of what Vygotsky explains go still further.
Not too long ago, a teacher of fifth year students (about second year reading level) was commenting on the garbled and incomprehensible language which students were giving her in "news" assignments— more or less journal accounts of what happened to the children during the past few days. I commented that I had encouraged the children, when I was teaching at that level ten years ago, to write as they gestured when they experienced difficulty in writing something out. I would get ungrammatical construction, but I usually could understand what they wanted to say from just reading what they wrote. Some of the children 156
who were striving to achieve grammatical perfection in writing be
came so tied up that it seemed as if they just couldn't think any more. Certainly, what they wrote made little sense.
The teacher's response to this was, "I forbid my children
to sign^ in connection with their writing. Many of them will sign
some sentence to themselves before they write it on the board. I want them to think such things out in their heads. If you allow
them to sign before they write, they will write bad English."
This is an area which needs research. In the fourteen years
I taught at about this same level as my colleague, I cannot recall
seeing children signing before they wrote. I have seen them spell
out a word on their fingers occasionally, but sign— almost never.
Can we account for the difference in the behavior of my children and
my colleague's? We hypothesize that since we accepted first-draft writing without much criticism, the children may have been signing
in their thoughts and writing accordingly without too much worrying
about correct grammatical form.
The fact that the end product was less confusing to me and
required relatively few major changes may have developed confidence
in them which did more to aid their improvement in grammatical con
struction than if I had insisted upon fewer grammatical mistakes in
the first draft of their "news."
1 6 Use manual gestures. 157
We are hypothesizing that the greater the pressure for gram matical perfection or the greater the strangenss of some experience, the more likely a deaf child will feel it necessary to gesture "out loud" what he is trying to say. Just as normal children may feel it useful to express something out loud before they write it, to see how it sounds, the deaf child may need this "concretizing" by gesture when his "inner speech" fails him.
There are many more contributions to theory of learning which appear in recent books on creativity, thinking, reading, theories of learning, teaching, and some from other disciplines, of which our reference to Vygotsky must serve as an example.
We wish to acknowledge a number of books not directly in the field of deafness which are continuing to develop our sense of edu cation of the deaf. These books are not mentioned, or are very briefly referred to, elsewhere in this dissertation. The reports of the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) relating to reading instruction, theory of learning, and evaluation, particularly, are generally rich in generating insights. Others are:
Peter L. Berger, Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Per spective (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1963).
Jerome S. Bruner, et, a l ., A Study of Thinking (New York: Science Editions, 1962).
Charles R. Wright, Mass Communication (New York: Random House, 1959).
Sidney J. Parnes and Harold F. Harding, ed., A Source Book for Creative Thinking (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1962). 158
James H. S. Bossard and Eleanor Stoker Boll, The Sociology of Child Development- New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960).
Among the writers in the field of education of the deaf who 17 18 discuss or review learning theories are DiCarlo and Furth (men- 19 tioned in Chapter II) and Wooden (mentioned earlier in this chap ter). Aside from an excursion into the realms of biological view and a brief return to anthropology for a glimpse of their territory, we will pass over other theoretical ideas except when they seem nec essary to clarify the rationale or the development of certain pro gram materials which we want to evaluate.
Biological View
At the close of the previous chapter, we mentioned that one of the disciplines which appears to have no representative working in the field of deafness is cultural anthropology. Another dis cipline is biology. Psychologists have entered our field and we know what deafness appears to be, as seen through their eyes. We are beginning to know what deafness appears to be through the eyes of sociologists. What would biologists and anthropologists say
■^Louis M. DiCarlo, The Deaf (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964).
^®Hans G. Furth, Thinking W ithout Language (New York: Free Press, 1966).
^Harley Z. Wooden, "Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children," Exceptional Children in the Schools, ed. Lloyd M. Dunn. (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963). 159 about how deaf children learn if they turned their attention to deafness?
In the foreword to his book "So Human an Animal," Rene
Dubos, a microbiologist, said "Each human being is unique, un precedented, unrepeatable. The species Homo sapiens can be de scribed in the lifeless words of physics and chemistry, but not the 20 man of flesh and bone." He later explains:
The structure of the present book has emerged from my personal interest in man's responses to his physical and social surroundings and from my professional knowl edge of the forces that can be observed in the labora tory to affect all manifestations of life. I have used both kinds of information to illustrate that each in dividual is unique in the ways his innate endowment responds to his environment.
The unifying theme of this book is that all exper iences leave a stamp on both physical and mental char acteristics. I have placed special emphasis on the very early influences, prenatal as well as postnatal, because their effects are so profound and lasting that they have large consequences for human life. From juvenile delinquency to racial conflicts, from artistic sensibilities to national genius, few are the individ ual and social characteristics that are not profoundly and lastingly affected by early influences.^
Dubos offers several frames of reference within which one thinks about the deaf in a slightly different way. Here I present one way of viewing the deaf— inspired by Dubos— that is, a view of
communication of deaf children within a biological framework.
^®Rene Dubos, So Human an Animal (New York: Charles Scrib ner's Sons, 1968), p. vii.
^ I b i d . , p. x. 160
Have you ever tried to give a small toy to a very young child and discovered that he may become visibly excited but will not reach for the plaything? Experimenters have discovered that in order to induce the child to reach for the toy at about two months of age, one must move the toy until the child's vision also incorporates his hand— then he will reach for the toy.
This observation is one example of "biological abilities" of an individual which become evident under certain fortunes of a special situation. We know that the infant can see and we know that he can grasp, but it is not until he sees both an object and his hand simultaneously that he thinks to reach for the object of his desire.
In due time, the need to see both hand and object before the infant reaches will disappear. He has experienced the usefulness of his hand and when he wants something, he recalls that he has a tool with which to get what he wants. He automatically employs that tool; that is, he reaches for what he wants.
If, by accident, the infant never perceived his hand and a desired object simultaneously, would he ever learn to reach for the object? By the same token, if a child never has an opportunity to see something to want— for example, if he is never offered toys or is not played with— might his manual dexterity be retarded?
This general idea may be carried further by asking: If a child is generally neglected and never given toys or other things he may want, never has an opportunity to learn that "Thank you" opens 161
the door to continued favors, will he ever learn such a social grace?
What we are getting at is that biologically endowed powers may never be exercised or reach the full potential of their function if the environment of the child— the social situation of the child— does not encourage the use of these abilities. The reverse is also true. The child who lacks certain biological powers may be limited to a circumscribed environment. For instance, a child with a bad heart might never be able to leave his hospital bed and thus may experience nothing of the world outside the confines of his room except through pictures and sound. Biology and environment are so closely related that man is often hard put to determine where the function of one dominates over the function of another in controlling the behavior of people.
If biological powers enlarge the environment of the child and environment sharpens the biologically powered skills, then we can easily see biological weaknesses or environmental experiences of different nature or intensities could combine to create individuals of considerably different natures, viewpoints, abilities, and the like.
— Asking children what the world is like, or asking adults, for that matter, is equivalent to asking them what experiences they have had in associating their biological selves with social situations.
Their perception of the world is colored by experiences. Let us turn our thoughts to the perception of atypical individuals— deaf ones, to be particular. 162
What might we assume to be different in the perceptions of
deaf people— particularly deaf children? What factors operate to
generally create deviation in deaf children's perception? These are
difficult questions to answer for several reasons. To decide whether
certain behaviors are the effects of biological causes or whether
they are caused by environmental factors is often difficult.
It is not possible for one with a certain biological ability
(hearing, for instance) to understand precisely what it is like to be without such a sense. Even if that person were suddenly deprived of the hearing, he would already have a learned treasure of exper
ience which cannot be taken away. For example, to suddenly not be
able to see is not the same as never having seen; to suddenly become deaf is not the same as never having heard; and to suddenly lose a sense of smell is not the same as never having smelled. What does
this difference lead to? It leads to difficulties in establishing
insights of empathy which could lead to better solutions of educa tional problems in dealing with deaf children.
In the instance of deafness, where the biological function of hearing ceases, several matters confuse the picture. We might hypothesize that an older person suddenly losing his hearing would have difficulty with communication until he learns to lipread. The learning of lipreading would depend upon the biological strength of vision and the extent to which certain skills of vision had been exercised by the individual. It might be observed that a suddenly 163 deafened person who never depended much upon sight in his daily life might find it difficult to learn to see and follow the movements of
the lips and face to the extent that these movements could cue him
to the auditory sounds being made.
Biologically, the older person would be "behind the eight ball" in learning to read the lips. However, he is still probably
far ahead of a young deaf child in such learning because he has had considerable social experience and has a vast vocabulary, or is
familiar with "symbolic associations to reality" used in communica
tion. The older person has a better chance of being able to lipread,
for example, "contiguity" because he knows the meaning of such a word. In context of a sentence, "contiguity" can be guessed if the
lips do not clearly convey all the proper signals made when audi
torily forming the word.
In teaching young deaf children to lipread, it is assumed
that, biologically speaking, the child is in possession of every visual acuity and flexibility of visual skill. It is further assumed
that if he is taught early enough, he can employ his vision in a
specialized way which could never be achieved by an older person whose
environment may not have utilized vision to such an extent at_ the best biological time. In aside, this is one area which needs research—
can sight for lipreading be especially sharpened at a certain age as
skills of speech and language development are best acquired before
3 years of age? 164
Unfortunately, the young deaf child does not have the uni verse of experience— particularly, familiarity with symbols— which stand for experiences. The process of learning words for concrete objects, actions, and conceptualizations is not an easy and rela tively constant matter of auditory bombardment. It is only the occasional and accidental experience of being able to see a per son's lips at the time a certain thing occurs. To watch the oc currence and read the lips at the same time is virtually impossible.
This all adds up to the fact that, at best, learning through lip- reading is a difficult and infrequent process. The process is spotty because of the physical inability to receive the full communi cation via lipreading because attention must so often be divided be tween the action and its verbal description on the lips.
To be perfectly frank, this is always a problem with deaf children— even if manual gestures are used instead of lipreading, the problem exists. What then is the difference between the two which seems to attract deaf children to the employment of esoteric gestures instead of speech and speechreading which they are taught to use in the classroom?
I believe the answer lies in the developmental nature of man.
Biologically, man's physical and mental powers enable him to communi cate only crudely in early life. Moreover, socially, his associations are restricted and the necessary environmental counterpart for growth is delayed until the man, as a child, is physically able to make en vironmental contacts. 165
With the deaf child, physical (visually speaking) contacts are made without the benefit of symbolic associations of speech. Of course, the deaf child may see oral gestures but these, as we have pointed out, are not seen repeatedly as sounds, in a constant stream, are heard. Moreover, some sounds do not have equivalently clear oral gestures. Furthermore, a high degree of visual precision is required for lipreading— visual precision which may be beyond the young child's biological capacity, to say nothing of his capa bility of giving the close attention which lipreading requires.
Considering that a great amount of sound escapes any deaf child's association with affairs going on around him, and that a great amount of it is needed before meaningful associations can be made, the deaf child is very much deprived.
In contrast to oral gestures, manual gestures do not require great concentration or visual acuity to observe nor do they require great precision, such as in speaking, to communicate an idea to others. Granted that manual gestures in their early stage may be crude and very general, they are no more crude than the early lan guage of normal children and can often be far more inclusive in their pantomime than word symbols. In short, manual gestures are biologi cally within the ability of the deaf child and they do satisfy his early needs for identification in his environmental situation. Manual gestures do contribute to the deaf child's learning, for they enable him to react in many ways to his environment and to receive its 166
influence far earlier than he could otherwise do if speech and speech- reading were the only means open to him.
One might point out that the deaf child's ticket of admission to society, beyond his immediate family, is the ability to communicate using a mode acceptable to the majority of people. This is quite true and behind this communication ability is a supply of knowledge and an ability to think. It seems reasonable to assume that an accumulation of knowledge and skills of reasoning can be started early if parents and associates would learn to use the most natural means of environmental contact for the deaf— namely, manual gestures. As time goes by and a foundation for thought is established and a store house of fact accumulated, it would then be a relatively easy matter to begin giving the deaf child printed symbols for his natural ex pressive language. From these printed symbols, the deaf child could extend his communication abilities to speech and speechreading. The speech and speechreading will have meaning because the deaf child already has a means of indicating objects, actions, and thoughts.
The exacting nature of speech and speechreading can now become a point of focus without other disturbing elements of a lack of knowledge to interfere.
One might reason, "What about the early biological flexibility of speech organs which enable a person to acquire the variety of sounds and oral gestures necessary to make these sounds?" Will these be lost by postponing speech training? Frankly, I do not know how this matter may be handled. 167
However, Sir Richard Paget, of England, proposed that the
whole process of acquisition of communication be simultaneous. As
"nurses" (houseparents) use gestures, and he invented a whole new
sign language for this purpose, they will also use speech so that
22 the deaf child sees both being used at the same time. It seems
theoretically sound that the deaf child might learn to use a com bination of oral and manual gestures. Since many deaf children do
actually have some hearing, it is also conceivable that they might make sounds at the same time. Some method needs to be worked out whereby manual and oral gestures are enlarged to include complete and
grammatically correct segments of communication, just as the hearing
child progresses from "wa" to "water" to "drink water" and so on.
Simultaneously, efforts may be made to help the child make sounds.
The preceding views relate the communication of deaf people
to views Dubos presents relating man to his environment. The views
are the reactions of an educator trying to see the deaf as he thinks
Dubos might. How much more insightful might Dubos' direct views of
the deaf be in illuminating a different aspect of the deaf, visible
only through the eyes of a biologist? What new paths of learning
for deaf children might such views suggest?
Exploration of other disciplines by educators can prove to
be personally fruitful, if not also helpful, to the field. One example
^Sir Richard Paget, "Education of the Totally Deaf," Advance ment of Science, 9 (1952), No. 36, pp. 437-441. 168 of such fruitfulness has been an exploration of the discipline of
cultural anthropology, as seen in Chapter II. Other examples will
appear later.
Theorizing how children learn and how this might hold true
for deaf children is probably an inexhaustible subject. We now turn our attention to programs which help deaf children learn.
Programs and Special Materials - Evaluation
In a general way, we have shown why special programs or learn ing materials are often needed for deaf children. However, when the
time comes to examine materials with a critical eye for selecting
the ones which might be helpful, more definitive criteria are needed.
Some criteria are needed to help us decide whether material
can claim a high priority because it helps children grasp a difficult
concept for which we do not already have a good learning program.
There should be criteria which identify factors in an otherwise good program which might lead to rejection of the program by teachers or
children. Teachers might reject an excellent program because the program is presented in a format they do not know how to use or be
cause the medium (some electronic machine, for example) frightens
them. Of greatest importance are criteria which will help decide whether certain knowledge or understanding really needs to be taught
to deaf children.
In the final analysis, it is usually the behavior of the 169
teacher and the children which affect an evaluation of a program.
A low evaluation of a program may have little to do with its excel
lence. A poor program, by certain standards, in the hands of a teacher who has special insights into possible applications might be a very successful program. The reverse could be equally true.
As deserving as it is, we will not explore evaluation in depth as it relates to teaching programs. For one who wants a quick review of current thinking on evaluation, Educational Evalua-
23 tion: New Roles, New Means offers an excellent review of methods, media techniques, strategies, and theories.
An evaluation of programs in relation to the teaching en vironment in which they are used is a matter of educational field 24 study. O'Keefe is most helpful in this area. This is usually referred to as contextual evaluation.
As an example of criteria for evaluation of some types of materials for use with deaf children, the form for evaluating motion pictures and some other visual media is offered in Fig. 11. Em phasis is on good visual completeness and continuity in communicating.
Media which employ sound should not depend upon sound to bridge any gaps in pictorial presentation of events or ideas. A proposed form
23 Ralph W. Tyler, ed., Educational Evaluation: New Roles, New Means, The Sixty-eighth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1969).
^Kathleen Gnifkowski O'Keefe, Methodology for Educational Field Studies (Columbus, Ohio: Evaluation Center, Ohio State Univer sity, 1968). 170 for recording observations upon which evaluations of implementation of materials, as well as their quality, is shown in Fig. 12.
A brief explanation of the two forms follows. Items #6 and
#8 in Fig. 11 particularly relate to deaf children. Item #11 is intended to be a summary of the preceding items. The other items were requested to help the resource director locate more suitable materials and also to explain further why a film was or was not particularly suitable. Finally, among these items were suggestions to Media Services and Captioned Films regarding special treatment of the film in adding captions and providing guides if the films were added to their film depositories.
The Observation Check Sheet (Fig. 12) serves to record first impressions the observer receives. It then aids him in making his detailed after-observation comments and suggestions. In instances where many observations were being made by many people, the mar ginal tabulations would enable tabulators to quickly determine the extent to which the various types of media are used and their most frequent source. Certain phenomena might be observed and causes determined, with some changes being dictated. For example, it might be observed that opaque projection, found very helpful to teachers in rooms with northern exposure, is almost never used by teachers in rooms with southern exposure. This phenomenon might be traced to the lack of heavy shades to darken rooms sufficiently for good opaque projection. TITLE_ .COMPANY____ 12. Please identify any film which you feel is more suitable than this one SUBJECT. .RUNNING TIHE SOUD □ COLOB □ 1 6 m □ SILENT □ B & W □ 8m □ 13. If this film was rated low, do you feel a suitable captioned file la needed on thla topic/ EVALUATOR______SCHOOL------□ no Dyes □ very much EVALUATOR______SCHOOL------14, Considering the topic and goals of the particular lesson for EVALUATOR______SCHOOL______which this notion picture Is suggested, it is: □ especially helpful in □ less effective than * CAPTIONED EDUCATIONAL FILMS . EVALUATION REPORT * concept attainment soother medlim If less effective, which nedia do you consider better? EVALUATION PROFILE □ classroom or laboratory expoatlon □ flat pictures High Lou 1. To htlp grasp the relationship of the fila to the goals of the lesson, the □ filastrlps □ slides □ transparencies following are helpful: □ books □ other______a) the teaching guide for thla file, if evallable, 15* For what levels do you feel this film is most suited? b) the correlatloo-of-flie-to-textbook P I J 8 A guide, If available. 16* For whet years to school do you feel this film should be 2. The file is accurate and up-to-date. captioned? 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 3. The quality of photography or art 17, Istimate the umber of new words to be taught: work la good. □ leas than 23 □ 25 to 30 □ more than 30 4. Conaidariqg the hard of hearing child, the sound is good. 18. the following features make for difficulty in captioning a film. Please check if you feels 5. The film is wall organised. □ scenes are too short to get the idea sod read the caption 6. The aeount of notarial presented la ' □ scenes too detailed, captions could not adequately within the capacity of the deaf child. explain □ captions would be a physical obstacle to observing 7. The setting, age of actore, and overall aaaanrial dorsiIs labels, signs, etc. preaentatlon coincide with the sspattsd intereat level. Uft Should a study ajSbld geared to the classroom needs of the deaf child: be yrtpar j B p , this film? 8. The pictures tell the story without do* pendence upoo narration. 20. If fii» film is captioned, should a new sound track be made so that the captions end sound will be exactly the same? 9. To be effective, this file m a t be In color. 21. Please explain lew evaluations and differences of opinion and freely give us the benefit of your thoughts. 10. What is the najor purpoee(s) of this film? □ coopiate preaentatlon □enrichaant □ notivating discussion or reaaaxch □ review or s u m a r y 11. This film is excellent and should Be caption ed to enhance verbalization of the concepts presented. T i g - 12 172 TEACHER _ SUBJECT 60 v «HO >. •H0 OBSERVER ifri H 4)0) u 60 4J 60 U0 0*H 4> *H0 u 0 ■H bOO"g 0 •H*0 JS O 3 H DATE_ BO 24-1 04Jus u 4>0 X> i 5 •o •H cow H <8 s •H0 •5 3
Chalkboard REFERENCE TO UTILIZATION OF MEDIA South Newspaper WEATHER
Magazine Bright Flat Picture Cloudy Chart INSTRUCTIONS: LIGHTS Filmstrip Use Numbers 1 to 5 to Indicate high to low evaluation. Capital lettera Indicate hardware used; lower case On Slide (2 x 2) letters Indicate slide, transparency, etc. A designates the first used, 13, second, etc.; a first Off Slide (3 x 4) used, b^ second, etc. SHADES Transparency
Opaque Open 1. SUITABILITY OF LIGHT 16 mm FP rp For Projection Part. 0.. For Communication (T) 8 mm FP gp For Communication (P) Drawn
Study print 2. PHYSICAL VISIBILITY Programmedogramm Obstructions: Text Teacher Programmed Equipment Machine Students Television Focus
Video-Tape 3. FAMILIARITY WITH MEDIA 1A,B,C,D.E.F Operstlon Application Efficiency
SOURCE OF MEDIA SUITABILITY OF VISUALS ,A-a, -b, -c, -d, -e -=i Adequate Size Teacher-made Legibility Content School-made 5. EVIDENCE OF PREPARATION A-a -=h ^=1 _=1 _=k Commercial Effort Skill Library 6. STUDENT RESPONSE A-a _=& -=Z Classroom Relaxed Supervisor Participation Attitude Subscription Comments and auggestlons related to Items 1 to 6 on other side. Fig. 13 173
Other observations might indicate that a teacher's visuals
are not legible to the entire class. These would dictate remedial
measures such as changing the neatness of the materials, changing
the lighting or arrangement of the room, changing the place at
which the teacher stands, or changing the height or type of screen.
In explanation of the symbols, capital letters should be
used on the left hand margin to indicate which medium is being
checked by notations made in the center-page boxes. For example,
assuming a teacher opens an exposition using a filmstrip— Filmstrip will be marked A. The inner boxes under A will be marked with the
evaluative numbers 1 to 5, depending upon the observer's assessment
of the filmstrip presentation. Suppose, then, the teacher uses a
series of three overhead transparencies to reinforce her exposition.
JB will appear in front of Transparency and notations made in the
center boxes. Under Suitability of Visuals, the observer will write
in 15 in front of 15, £, and jd, to indicate that the next three media were overhead transparencies. (Aa was the filmstrip.) The observer
numerically evaluates each one of them as before. If the teacher
then uses the chalkboard for an elaboration of her presentation, in
this same evaluation of Suitability of Visuals, the observer would
enter C before e_ after entering JC in front of Chalkboard at the left margin.
The following is an explanation of some of the terms used in 174 the observation check sheet:
1. Is the light in the room suitable for good projection image?
Is the illumination adequate for communication between
pupils and teacher? (T)
Is the illumination adequate for communication between
pupils? (P)
2. Does everyone have a clear view of the screen?
3. Does the teacher or student operator know how to operate
the machine?
Is the medium being used the most appropriate for the cir
cumstances or would some other medium be better?
Are the materials being handled efficiently or is the oper
ator all thumbs or is the material poorly arranged for fluent
presentation?
4. Is the printing, for example, large enough to read easily?
Is it neat or legible enough? Is spacing, amount of detail,
and general appearance praiseworthy?
5. Does the presentation show careful planning on the part of
the teacher?
Is it evidence of considerable creativity and skill or has
the teacher made technical errors?
6 . Are the students at ease or do they display anxiety?
Are they active participants or are they attentive observers?
Do the students appear interested, bored, or antagonistic? 175
The use of such a recording sheet is flexible— not all ob
servations may be recorded. Much depends upon the objectives of the
observations and agreements that observers make with each other for
tabulating. The reverse side of this form (not shown) allows space
for narrative comments after the observation period has been com
pleted. Readers interested in such observation recording for media
use, as well as teacher and student behavior observations, may find
Dr. O'Keefe^"* helpful.
These two sample evaluation forms, developed by the writer,
are intended to do no more than show what most evaluation takes into
account. For deaf children, a few added considerations regarding
the need for visually oriented materials and problems of mechanical
presentation because of deafness are evident. Unfortunately, the
abstract nature of other important factors in evaluation do not lend
themselves to easy form-reporting. They therefore are not so often
nor so carefully scrutinized.
What Should Be Taught - Some Criteria
Probably the hardest evaluative question to answer is: Why
are we teaching what we teach? Some of the new materials being pro
duced to help deaf children learn can be very clever expositions—
helping children obtain clear concepts with a minimum of teacher help.
Because an innovative way of teaching a concept appears, it is taught
25Ibid., pp. 174-175. 176
without asking whether it really needs to be taught or why it is being taught. Unfortunately, the programmers who develop innovative ways of presenting concepts are often guilty of the same sort of automatic performance when they choose to work on some problem which teachers find most frustrating, without asking whether what they plan to help the children learn is worth their learning.
In a general way, the superfluous in learning could be classified as the teaching of academic subjects which have little relevance to the future education or employment of a student. Much of the current criticism of curriculum, as not being employment- oriented for many non-college-bound students, falls into this type of wasteful teaching. However, this is not the type of superfluous learning we are thinking about.
An example of the superfluous learning we have in mind is the teaching of the progressive tense for expressive communication to young deaf children. Considerable time has been devoted to develop ing 8mm loop film programs to help teach this concept because it has usually been taught, with difficulty, to deaf children at about the third grade level in school. The writer’s suggestion in the past— that trying to teach the present progressive for expressive communi cation was a waste of time— has never been accepted. The writer is gratified to find some support for his opinion in The Human Animal, by anthropologist Weston LaBarre. LaBarre says,
. . . what objective temporal difference, please, is there between "I write this sentence" and "I am writing 177
this sentence"? They are not different facts just be cause they are different forms. And what difference is there between "I slept last night from midnight to dawn," "I was sleeping last night from midnight to dawn," "By dawn I had been sleeping since midnight," and "By dawn I had slept since midnight"?26
Besides being of infrequent functional value for expressive communication, complex verb tenses cause deaf students in high school to tortuously produce sentences such as the following. Each quote is from a different student— all received by the writer on the same day.
"Well, I had been enjoying my summer time." [enjoyed]
"I was enjoying my summer job. I worked ..." [enjoyed]
"I had been groofing around for three weeks since school
closed. And I finally find a job." [goofed] [after] [found]
"Now we are finishing our summer vacation and have to study
again." [We finished]
"I'm still enjoying to study again." [I enjoy studying]
Although teaching complex expressions seems to be a waste of time, nevertheless it is necessary to teach receptive understanding.
Still, writers of programs particularly intended for individual study by deaf students find it advisable to write in a simplified way.
Among the most serious students of this art of writing for the deaf are Mr. and Mrs. John Olson of the Indiana School for the Deaf. Some
^Weston LaBarre, The Human Animal (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 197. 178
of their programs are copy-photographed for examination later in this chapter.
An example of better writing for the deaf student appears in one of the instruction "monographs" the Olsons have used for the summer workshops held at their school. This monograph relates to the use of conjunctions and cautions against the use of lengthy "buts."
The first example, labeled "Not too bad," is: "Lincoln made a plan to rebuild the South but Congress did not accept his idea." The second example, labeled "More clear for the deaf teen reader," is:
"Lincoln made a plan to rebuild the South. Congress had a different plan."
The fact remains that the knowledge that some teachers have concerning developing suitable reading materials is not shared in published form. The evaluation of many special programs for the deaf amounts to almost intuitive appraisal which can be acquired only after years of experience in working with the deaf.
The following materials will give some idea of what is con sidered especially suited for deaf children. These items are illus trative of the programs being produced under various grants— mostly
27 from Media Services and Captioned Films U. S. Office of Education.
The programs are also presented to provide teachers of the deaf and prospective teachers with information as to what is available
27 Media Services and Captioned Films is a branch of the Division of Educational Services, Bureau of Education of the Handicapped, U. S. Office of Education, known as Captioned Films for the Deaf until 1967. 179 to them or what may become available within a short time. As ex plained more fully in Chapter IV, most of these materials may be obtained free of charge from Media Services and Captioned Films.
We also want to emphasize that many of these materials are the result of co-operative efforts of teachers in the field. They are concrete evidence that stepped-up communication among educators of the deaf is rewarding the profession with the fruits of joint professional endeavor. These are fruits of planning and production of educational materials which might never have occurred had not the talents of these people been discovered, brought together, and encouraged.
Because so much of the material is relatively new and evalua tion is a matter of judging suitability for certain children, in a certain situation, in the hands of certain teachers, and for certain purposes, very few critical suggestions have been made. Educators are urged to test all the innovations themselves and involve them selves in the joint efforts of many people to solve problems in help ing deaf children learn. There has never been a better time or more opportunity for this purposeful endeavor. Evaluations and accounts of utilization are requested by Media Services and Captioned Films,
U. S. Office of Education, Washington, D. C., 20202.
While people theorize and investigate matters related to how children learn, the teacher and children are in close grips with learn ing problems. From the picture of language-handicapped deaf children 180
painted in Chapter I, we realize that teachers must help the deaf child re-live his life up to the time he entered school and help him associate language to his activities. This is indeed a formidable task. The total experience of a classroom of five to eight small children could add up to 25 to 40 years of experience. Each child's five-year preschool experience could be very different and, even if it were not different in the eyes of the teacher, it could be mark edly different in the eyes of the deaf child. The problem of giving a deaf child language for what he sees and experiences is confounded by how well the teacher's view coincides with the child's Anticipa tion of such coincidence is not enhanced by the story of four artists who agreed to paint the same landscape as accurately as possible.
When they compared their pictures, they found that each picture was quite different.
Clearly, the teacher needs a means of bringing into the class room many experiences which in the interests of economy and perhaps safety cannot easily be managed on "field trips" or around the school.
The teacher must depend heavily upon visual presentation in the place of experiences, insofar as a picture will actually recall to the mind of a particular child his own similar experience. To have at hand an easily accessible supply of materials has always been a problem for the teacher. This problem has, within recent years, been reduced by the appearance of instructional materials centers and a steady growth of library services. Such centers will be discussed more fully in
Chapter IV. 181
Another problem has been to provide ways for children to ob tain enough repetition of an experience, and accompanying verbaliza tion of the experience, to enable the child to communicate that experience through writing. We could add speech in place of writing, but since good speech is beyond the ability of most of the deaf chil dren we are talking about here, we will confine ourselves to writing and reading.
Education of the deaf is just beginning to investigate newer, more systematic ways of obtaining such repetition through self- instruction. One mode of self-instruction is programmed instruction, which carefully develops a concept by presenting one small aspect or phase of the concept at a time until the whole emerges. It is one way to reinforce an initial learning of words and phrases associated with some thing, activity, idea, or feeling. Regardless of what medium programmed instruction uses— the written word, printed pic tures and words, filmed still pictures, motion pictures, or tele vision, there are basic problems in dealing with the meanings of words or related symbols to experiences, thoughts, feelings, or state of being.
Here is an example from a workbook which illustrates both the need for many experiences and the use of words in these different con texts of experience. It also shows, indirectly, the need of repetition to firmly fix the idea which words can convey. Workbooks, as much as they may be misused by some teachers, have long been helpful in pro viding reinforcement through repetition. It is difficult to prepare 182
a workbook which is free of ambiguities, as viewed by a relatively
"uncultured" deaf child. The following is an excerpt from a work book:
"Each word has more than one meaning. Write the right meaning in each sentence."
(Consider the preceding sentence— "Write the right mean ing ..." Such a sentence does not really tell the child what to do— namely, to choose the word he feels makes the sentence meaning ful.)
The words to be placed in the blank spaces were:
"sentence tower palm pool ground flat lies bark"
Selected sentences and the answers given by members of a class reveal that deaf children do reason out answers. However, if one does not have "an ear for language" well in tune with culture, reasoning alone will not serve— as is evident here.
1. "I held the money in the ______of my hand."
A frequent response was "flat." Is this unreasonably inaccurate?
2. "Birds eat insects found in the ______of trees."
"Ground" was a frequent response.
3. "I stumbled and fell ______on my face."
"Lies" and "ground" were frequent responses.
4. "Keep on telling ______, and no one will believe a word you say."
This elicited the response "sentence." 183
Thirteen of sixteen sentences contained ambiguities which would lead deaf children astray. For certain purposes, this type of
ambiguity may be good to illustrate multiple meanings of a word, but
it is hardly fair to the deaf child. Some will say that no reason
ing was exercised by the children— they were merely associating words
in the list with words in the sentences. This can be done, they say—
getting right answers without comprehending the sentence at all.
Either process requires a certain degree of logical thought. For the hearing child, accultured to language, replies such as given in our
examples may be considered absurd. But for the deaf child, unaccul-
tured to language, such replies might be considered evidence of
commendable logical thought. Obviously, from this example, materials
for deaf children must be carefully planned for them, as a rule.
As with slow-learning children or deprived children, the deaf
child needs written materials similar to the "high interest, low read
ing level" type wherein the topics are of interest to older children but simply written. Some educators have advocated special materials
for the deaf which differ from the usual high interest, low reading
level materials. They feel that the high interest, low reading level
materials do not take into account the "straight language" needs of
the deaf student, free of idiomatic expression, colloquialisms, and
certain complex structures. Other educators argue that if reading
is carefully taught and children can be persuaded to immerse them
selves in reading, they will read for bare ideas and gradually 184 assimilate the more sophisticated idioms and constructions for more complete understanding.
Individualized reading has much merit, but this does not mean that it can take the place of carefully guided group reading instruc tion for the deaf. Reading instruction for the deaf is similar to literature appreciation instruction for normal children— i.e., mean ing is more closely associated with unique expressions of ideas, or appreciation of outstanding thoughts. In reading for the deaf, meaning rather than appreciation is usually the focus. Outstanding examples of creative writing (literature) may not be appreciated.
To be successful, reading instruction more often than with hearing children must be done in groups. Group discussions develop the child’s confidence in his ability to think and his respect for others' think ing. It is often helpful to realize that other people besides oneself have difficulty in understanding what they read.
It is also important to understand that words do not always mean the same thing to every person. Deaf children, perhaps more than any other group, need to understand how the experience they bring to the printed page makes it more meaningful to them. They need to understand how their understanding may be warped by bias, which reads into some expression support for what one already knows or believes— excluding the idea the writer is trying to communicate. Awareness of this pitfall of selective perception in reading, as well as other pitfalls which trap the uncritical reader, are necessary for mature 185
reception of messages in adult communication. The situation is similar for the child with normal hearing; however, the mechanical accomplishment of such classroom procedures presents unusual problems to the deaf child.
"Mechanical Problems"
The mechanical problem of group instruction in teaching read ing to deaf children rests in the inability of the teacher or another child to direct the reader's attention to certain parts of the mater ial being read "out loud" or being discussed unless all are looking at the speaker. Deaf children must both see and hear with their eyes.
Chart stories and parts of books written on the chalkboard are still serving as the only means of overcoming this mechanical problem in some schools. Experience stories on charts for younger children will never be replaced as good reading lessons. For ready- prepared materials from textbooks and the like, photo-copying or other processes for copying the printed page and projecting it on a screen are available. These means permit concurrent reading by all members of a class and quick reference to parts which the children need or want to discuss for more complete understanding.
The photographs on p. 189 (Fig. 14) show several mechanical ways of facilitating group instruction in reading— whether it be in acquisition of reading skills or reading for information in any subject area. 186
The first photograph shows an experience story on a chart.
Use of charts such as this is not fully exploited in most schools.
The charts could be handed on from one teacher to the next, cul minating in a record of things a class has done over a period of time. These charts could be not only a source of fond recollec tions but also an excellent means for interesting repetition of experience-associated words to insure their "internalization" by the children. These charts are written in "straight language" which younger deaf children find easier to read. They are about "live characters"— actions which took place in surroundings they know, actions in which they participated, actions by them or by children they know in other rooms. This language-experience approach, the
"symbolization" of direct, purposeful experiences, makes beginning writing and reading meaningful to young deaf children. It is a convincing and exciting way to introduce them to the mysterious miracle of black marks on paper.
The second photograph on p. 189 (Fig. 15) shows the opaque projector— one of the most useful tools in the primary classroom for
the deaf. The opaque projector instantly projects in full color any material— a single page, a page in a book, or even an object which has a flat surface. People who think of the opaque projector as an
old-fashioned, bulky, expensive tool which does not always project materials clearly may be overlooking many factors which make some
primary teachers of the deaf declare that they would not be without 187 an opaque projector. Full color, not easily obtainable in overhead transparencies, is often essential to pictures accompanying primary readers. No pre-processing of a book or other material is needed to use it with the opaque projector, as is true with other projection media. Primary type is usually large, making for a large and clear image on the screen. Most primary children sit close to the front of the room— especially when a group hearing aid is used.
The opaque projector can be placed behind the children, throw ing its beam over their heads. Light leakage from the projector disturbs no one. Because the projectors are so close to the screen and the print is so large, the image is bright and successful pro jection can be managed in rooms with considerable tungsten light.
In rooms which can be reasonably shaded from strong natural light from the windows, problems are not beyond management. The increasing use of projected materials has dictated complete light control in classrooms. The opaque projector today seldom needs to contend with unsuitable lighting. This photograph shows a scroll like length of brown paper to which pages of a pre-primer have been glued. This makes the change from one page to another easier.
The third photograph on p. 189 (Fig* 16) shows a photo-copied basic reader— the negative is projected on the screen. Negative pro jection is satisfactory under lighting conditions which would not allow satisfactory positive black and white or positive color pro jection. Primary readers can be photocopied, using color film, at 188
a cost of about twenty cents per page if developing is done commer cially. Purchase of color film in bulk will cut costs. About
25 pages can be copied on a 36-exposure length of film. (This allows
for sufficient leader.) Slides used in slide projectors are more
suitable than filmstrips in many instances. We use this medium in
28 teaching children to use Walsh's Plain English Handbook to aid
the students in correcting their own compositions.
The fourth photograph on p. 189 (Fig. 17) shows overhead pro jector transparencies made from pages of a book. The use of such
transparencies is becoming quite frequent in schools for the deaf.
It is easy, with this medium, to write over or underline the text.
Also, the text can be exposed step-by-step by covering parts of the
transparency. Unlike other projectors, this one is designed to be within the reach of the teacher for such marking and projection con
trol. The writer believes that the overhead projector is so bright
that room lights can and should be left on. Even with the low-
illuminating opaque projection, lights should never be dimmed to the
extent that a teacher's lips cannot be read or children are deprived
of sight contact with each other for whatever empathetically inspired
communication they wish to make during a classroom lecture. As much
respect as the writer has for certain educators who extol the bene
fits of the overhead projector, he has serious doubts about the
^®J. Martyn and Anna Kathleen Walsh, Plain English Handbook (Cincinnati, Ohio: McCormick-Mathers Publishing Co., Inc., 1966). i i i i a 190 validity of remarks related to Its exceptional value for Illumination for llpreading and certain other claims relating to holding the attention of deaf children.
Generally, each of the teaching tools has a special useful ness. This usefulness can be stretched and strained to serve where other tools could serve better— a practice to be avoided If possible.
Just as we might use a wrench In place of a hammer to drive a nail, we might use the overhead projector Indiscriminately for some color lift and photocopy transparencies when color 2 x 2 slides would be more Impressive and legible.
The photograph In Fig. 18 shows a diagram for the use of a
MEDIATED INTERACTION- VISUAL RESPONSE
Fig. 18 191 series of overhead projectors. This arrangement is unique in its
facility for requiring and recording a private response from each child to each question in the give-and-take of a classroom dis
cussion. Each student writes his answer to a question on darkened acetate. When all are finished, the master control in the hands of
the teacher can be turned on, exposing all answers. Communication by all members of the class is increased.
This system is called MIVR (Mediated Interaction Visual Re sponse) by Dr. Ray Wyman who designed the innovation with technical help of General Electric Company and Buhl Projector Company. A report of field testing and other details are published in Audiovisual
Instruction, 13 (September, 1968), pp. 714-717.
Special Materials
Numerous materials are being produced or are being prepared for production— tailored to the particular needs of deaf children.
Most of this endeavor is being funded by grants from Media Services and Captioned Films, a division of the United States Office of Educa
tion in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Information about Media Services and Captioned Films appears in Chapter IV.
Probably the largest single grant goes to the National Educa
tion Association, which administers a large number of projects under
the name of Project LIFE (Language Improvement to Facilitate Education
of Hearing Impaired Children). This project has been headed from the 192
beginning in 1963 by Harley Z. Wooden, and more recently by Glenn
S. Pfau. The extensiveness of this project deserves some explana tion.
The rationale for special attention to language instruction for deaf children used in Project LIFE consists of paraphrased and condensed statements from such writers as Bruner, Guilford, Mykle-
29 bust, Rosenstein, Russel, and Vygotsky.
1. The limited exposures of the deaf child to language result in a retarded rate of development in his communication skills.
2. Language develops on the basis of experience.
3. Experience should be categorized on the basis of concept development, rather than being subject- centered.
4. The sequence of man's experience in reaching the higher intellectual skills starts with sensation and proceeds through perception, imagery, and symbolization to conceptualization.
5. Vocabulary and language are highly dependent on concept formation, and the referent to which mean ing is attached is significant and therefore must be clearly established.
6 . The thinking skills are not only essential to the development of reasoning and critical intellectual activities but are fundamental to the total learn ing of the child. They include the abilities to (a) recognize relationships among objects or events; (b) store information and recall it; (c) recognize logical order; (d) evaluate materials and informa tion for quality, adequacy, and suitability; (e) adapt the known to new situations; and (f) do trial-and-error and original thinking.
^Harley Z. Wooden and Lorna L. Willard, "Project LIFE . . .," American Annals of the Deaf 110 (November, 1965), pp. 541-552. 193
The procedures in initiating Project LIFE were:
A limited survey was made by questionnaire and personal visitation of schools for the deaf to obtain a cross-sec tion view of the profession’s concept concerning its needs for a language project and to obtain advice on the goals toward which it should be directed.
. . . a committee, containing a representative from each of the four organizations professionally interested in the education of the deaf^O made recommendations for the development and operation of the project.31
In June, 1964, a group of six educators of the deaf was assembled to select the concepts, vocabulary, and so forth, for the primary level. Following a two-day orien tation conference, the members spent the balance of the six-week's period at the task. Upon completion of their writing, they and other experts reviewed the product and made recommendations for its final revision.
In June, 1965, another group of six educators of the deaf met to develop a similar outline for the intermediate level.
The stage was set for contracting with various universities and schools for a large number of activities.
In an August, 1969, communication from David A. Spidal,
Assistant Director of Project LIFE, I learned:
The Project itself has expanded in number of people involved in the programming and artistic work. There are three coordinators: A coordinator of language, a coordinator of programming, and a coordinator of pro duction. These three individuals outline and follow through on all phases of the program material. The
30 The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, the Con ference of Executives of American Schools for the Deaf, the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, and the Council for Exceptional Children, NEA.
^Papers read at this meeting were published in Exceptional Children, April, 1964. 194
coordinator of language outlines the language words and concepts which are to be used in the unit. She also works with the programmers and the other coordinators in seeing the language follows a step by step proced ure for teaching.
The coordinator of programming is responsible for seeing that the different aspects of programming are followed. This includes the areas of frame production, format used, and other aspects involved in the pro gramming procedure. He is also responsible for the follow-through of all such related areas of programming.
As of September 1, 1969, we are going to in-house production of materials. As such, we have a coordin ator of production who is in charge of the artists and production staff and will be the person responsible for the photographing of materials as well as the artistic aspects of the Project.
New areas of consideration either begun in this past year, or being initiated at this time are the areas of percepto-cognitive skills of which there will be 24 filmstrips, thinking-skills in which there will be a large number of filmstrips, and a programmer in charge of motion, either to teach or to supplement such lan guage and/or thinking-skills as the test centers, re search, and the programmers find necessary and helpful.
The Project has also employed a full-time research associate who will begin quantifying data on the Project LIFE materials. It is our hope that the research will dwell not only into the area of the deaf, but will also seek to answer questions regarding the effectiveness and usefulness of Project LIFE materials in other areas of exceptionality.
Project LIFE is presently field-testing a series of pro grammed instruction lessons. The series is presented in approximately
36 filmstrips with 50 frames each, using a special teaching machine.
Four frames, chosen at random, are shown in Fig. 19.
To supplement the programmed instruction, a number of filmstrips n g . 19 NO tn 196 Fig. Fig. 20
198
have been produced and distributed to schools for the deaf. Printed
story booklets similar to the filmstrips are to be distributed
later. Four frames from one filmstrip, "Tim's Pet," are shown in
Fig. 20.
Project LIFE has also developed a "concept-oriented" picture
dictionary which is in its final trial stage before general dis
tribution. An alphabetized picture dictionary is to come later.
Four pages have been chosen at random to illustrate the dictionary
(Fig. 21).
In addition to these materials, workbooks are being planned
and some experimentation is being conducted with programmed motion
pictures and materials for auditory training.
Project LIFE has been exploring some of the most difficult
areas of education of the deaf. Much time and talent are needed.
The usual problems of locating and obtaining the services of talented
people faces Project LIFE. Considering the scope and the depth of
its projects, one can do little less than praise highly the efforts made so far.
Two things must be insured in order for this project to ma
ture. Conditions which will persuade able people to stay with the
project must be maintained. It is also imperative that teachers in
the classrooms critically evaluate the materials which come from the
project. Only through proper feedback from the practicing teachers
can the project refine its output. Teachers must understand that 199
their comments, however mundane they seem to them, may be of very great importance to the programmers and other staff people of Project LIFE.
The attitude of the teachers toward their comments should not be one of modest uncertainty, perhaps never reported, but one of a forth right, candid nature to be submitted to Project LIFE for whatever value can be extracted therefrom.
Because commercial producers of educational material are seldom familiar with the problems of deaf children, Media Services and Captioned Films has encouraged teachers of the deaf who have plausible ideas for developing some medium to help deaf children learn.
In the summer of 1967, I was privileged to visit a workshop of 20 people who were working on different ideas for presenting a series of lessons using filmstrips as the medium. One participant was working on health, another on safety, and one on a technique to help teach rhythm. This group of people had certain technical experts on call from George Washington University to advise them on principles of programming, writing a storyboard, and similar phases of "film strip programming." At various points during the workshop period, they would make progress reports to others in the group. During these reports, suggestions were made on possible ways to present cer tain ideas and criticisms were also made of each other's work. The rhythm filmstrips worked out by Mrs. Warren Fauth have now (1969) reached the stage for general distribution. About 60 more filmstrip 200
scripts from this group are now in production. Two frames from one of Mrs. Fauth1s series of eight filmstrips are shown below.
on Little Indians
ti'. # 9
Fig. 22
In one instance, John R. Olson, Jr., Indiana School for the
Deaf, wrote a proposal for his school to conduct a number of summer 201 workshops In which a few members of the school staff worked under
his direction to plan and produce transparencies and workbooks to
aid in the development of certain concepts in American History.
The pictures in Fig. 23 are reproductions of some of this work
which is undergoing field testing.
Mr. Olson has since become a supervising teacher and has
guided his staff in creating other programs in science, geography,
consumer economics, and structured English. We include here four
pages from the English program (Fig. 24). Throughout the program
one can perceive emphasis on training in how to think.
Staff members in three of the four Media Centers for the
Deaf prepare many special materials for classroom work. The cen
ters are located at the Universities of Massachusetts, Tennessee,
Nebraska, and New Mexico State. (See p. 213 for more information
about these centers.) Figs. 25-28 show some of the materials pro
duced and made available to the schools.
These materials are all printed sheets from which overhead
transparencies can be made or thermal masters can be made from which
"hand-outs" can be run off on a spirit duplicator. There are approxi
mately 250 originals, covering many subjects, and 200 transparencies
dealing with language concepts. The selections show a variety of
purposes.
Fig. 25 shows different types of shirts, to aid in descrip
tion of kinds of clothing. Fig. 26 is an example of a language lesson Tho govern- DlrectJoas: Sh the problsas below. The problsas have several thing* to think about. ■ont says all people hood ooch probla. Amuor tho question. Write tho oust pay O M u t r on tho lino. taxee for A nan with aehoola. four chil dren feela 1. I Joe wants He has an |sons wood old dead I for his tree in Questions How will the nan with four children feel about that? | fireplace. his yard. An ewer; ^
llbat uust no oorj Question: How will the nan with no children feel about that? Answer:______2. Joe is caaplng His food 4 The river has near a river. is good. •any fish. Older people *ay: {Vhatauat ho doTy U.S. custaa: "Short hair for boys." Young people 3. Joe caught He wants say:______soae fish. ♦ to eat thM. Question: How will older people feel about the custoi
(Vnat aust no coVj Answer: ______Question: How will young people feel ehout the custon? 4. Joe is His drink He wants River caaping ing water soae water. 4 water Answer: ______near a is gone. ■ay be river. iapure. A nan with no Job and no money who TVhatinist ho dor] steals bread and nilk for his chil dren feels T S. Scbo lead Soae people It is against has coal • want the ■ the law to A policeman under Jr. coal. steal. feels______
(What aust they ho to get tho coail’V
6. A nan lives He needs The island on an ♦ a Jar to ♦ has soae Question: How do you feel about the nan who steals the food? island. carry water. clay. Answer: ^
(Unat can ha dor)
Lesson 12 Directions: Read below, Directions: Read below and then answer the questions.
They decide to rice; they bet; winner gets inproved both aotorcycles the other aotor- and tools._____ cycle to fr lm d t,
Question: What does Joe get when he rents a aotor cycle to hit friends?
Answer: ______
He gets He gets Directions: See para-rarh 1 to answer "the nuestion below, that. Question: b'bat other two thinrs did businessmen want? (Rnxes 1 and 2 above) Answer: i. Question: What do you think Joe will do neat? 2. _ _ _ _ _ —__.___— Answer: ______Directions: Read helnw and answer the nuestion. Joe has He rents He gets He buys More auch better throe two of two aores business ships aotor- th«. aoney. altogether cycles. he has four. He needs a person to help \ Hen hla. could rhicstinn: ‘hat two inventions Question: What do you think Joe will do next? explore. helped to cause exploring? (Par. 4) Answer: ______
Directions: Below are four boxes. The boxes tell the characteristics of Furope fron paragraph 10. Rox 1 is filled in. You write the Mother characteristics for the other boxes, t'rite thas on the lines. keeps house. Father cares for the works. Two people for two duties fasily. TuropsT" many Directions: Read the above. nations.
Question: why does father work?
Answer: ______
Question: Why do all fanilies need noney? FI#. 23 Answer: ______265 SENTENCES
l«a 2+? = some
Write the words:
Write the sentences:
(to want-pres.) 3 (noun)
sdtrtrtiZ
.. r-
$ $ “I ______2 (to want-pres.) to buy (5 V 3 (noun)
”1 2 (to want-pres.) T75 rrr
230 229
a person thing animal animal J I the the pronoun pronoun
(See page 229) (See page 90) (See page 9?) Copy the sentences:
a* A boy _ _has a dog * ~ V ~ t, The toy As Ton Copy the sentences: - p ^ - r - Tcm has a dog — j— a, The^dog ls^ bl^ The dog Is Yogi t. The dog’s name Is Yori — — ?- -r- Yogi Is sad
a. A man has a toothache has a h e a d a c h e “ I ?---- 3---
b. The ma n Is Mr. Dodd 1 1 bad — I— 3---- 5--
b. Draw the arrows 1 a, Jane has book r _
The book Is bltt —I T ' T "
Fig. 24
To the teacher: Students will need corrections written on this page before they can continue. Be sure that they have drawn the arrows from the antecedent to the pronoun. 204
to be used in discussing comparative adjectives. Fig. 27 is a back
ground picture to be used in telling the story, "Little Red Riding
Hood." Fig. 28 is a sheet from which cardboard figures may be
traced and cut to make stick puppets for dramatizing "Little Red
Riding Hood" or for use with the background transparency.
The centers have been fortunate in obtaining the advice and
assistance of experienced teachers in their areas. The important
task remaining is for teachers (who have just begun to use these
materials, which came out in 1968-1969) to provide critical evalua
tion and descriptions of how the transparencies were effectively
used.
A criticism which has been widely applicable to most visual materials is that they do not include information as to why they were made or how they might be used. It cannot be a reflection upon the
skill of a teacher if she is at a loss as to how to use some of the
overhead transparencies. Some of our finest teachers and supervising
teachers fail to see immediately the advantages of some material.
It is reasonable to assume that even the programmers may overlook some
uses and may not make minor allowances in their material for such
use. These observations beg for rationales, objectives, and tech
niques from the programmers, and feedback from the teachers after
they have tried the materials.
A number of programs have been produced under single grants
to various educational institutions. Among them, Media Services and Captleoad Pllae far the D nl, 0.1.0.I., Uaahlafteo, P.C. Caatraet Ha. OCC-J-7-000199-01*9 CeptleaeS Mlee lot the Deaf. U.S.O.E., Uaehlattae, D.C. Caatraet ho. OCC-l-J-0001*S-Om
o puppy o moutu I2 =1 II 9 ^ - ;r |? an ant as ;! ?* I s5 r; Compare tho mouse, the puppy and the ant. Use Tfny. .than the. s? The. .is . ra The. .is . Use L a m * . The. .is . .than the. Pl«. 14 The. .is .
Master priateS oa Tn i I n U m taper Tiwapiwatlaa aey te aria hy either the Captleae< n laa far the m £=33 ^ ^ 5 206 Captioned Films is field-testing a series of 99 optical sound 8mm film loops designed to teach speech and speechreading vocabulary to deaf children. Fig. 29 shows one frame from the series. The pro gram is designed with pauses in the presentation to allow for re sponses from the child and then confirmation within an individual- learning framework, but without the usual tabulating of wrong and right responses. Different speakers from various angles, and words repeated with and without picture cues allow for considerable repe tition or practice. (Dr. Frank B. Withrow's Noun Vocabulary Films.) Fig. 30 shows one slide of a set of 412 slides designed to assist deaf children in learning idioms. The slides were correlated with A Dictionary of Idioms for the Deaf, by Maxine Tull Boatner and John Edward Gates, published in 1966 by the American School for the Deaf, West Hartford, Connecticut. In addition, 200 slides, with student workbooks and teacher's guides on the junior-senior high school level, were distributed last year. Fig. 31 shows a frame from an 8mm loop film with captions. The frame illustrates the appearance of captioned educational films, which we describe on p. 244. (From the Living in Early America Series, produced by Coronet Films.) Fig. 32 shows a page of a test booklet which accompanies a kit composed of the booklet, a set of 6 filmstrips, and records. The kits, produced under grant from Media Services and Captioned Films, are designed to teach and help children learn to identify common She is giving him the air. Fig. 31 Fi*. 32 209 sounds heard in the city, at home, and in the country. Children can test themselves by listening to a record and checking a picture which represents the source of the noise heard. Pages of the books are plastic coated and can be reused if marked with china-marking (wax) pencils. Other materials, either produced and available on loan or in 32 progress, have been listed in a brochure. Among these are eleven 16mm films to teach lipreading on the primary level, a series of 25 vocational guidance 8mm loops, 30 loops for fingerspelling, three on verb usage, and three on prepositions. In contract with a motion picture production studio, Media Services and Captioned Films has promoted the production of ten 16mm educational films about everyday experiences, such as a birthday party, holidays, and getting along with people, in which scenes are designed to encourage speechreading. The films have sound and cap tions. In some of them, the sound is synchronized with the captions. Ten more of these films are in production at this time (1969). In addition to these many materials especially produced for deaf children, Media Services and Captioned Films has supplied many schools with commercially-made and -sold transparency sets and film strips which are also suitable for use with the deaf. All of these "^"Media Services and Captioned Films" (Washington, D. C., Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, U. S. Office of Education, 1969). 210 materials remain the property of Media Services and Captioned Films, although most of them are loan items with no specified time limit set. Up to this point, we have discussed some theory relating to the learning of deaf children and some programs and materials which hopefully will meet the special needs of deaf children. Most of the program development has been done under grant from Media Services and Captioned Films. In the next chapter, we continue a description of the influence of Media Services and Captioned Films— more from the view of diffusing innovations than of the invention and produc tion of innovative materials and programs. In other words, the finest products for school or home on the market will not sell unless the consumer knows about them, can get them, and knows how to fully utilize them once they are in his hands. Diffusion of innovative materials is as important a part of a system for better living as is invention. 211 SUMMARY Theories related to language development are related to the special problems of deaf children. How this relates to the deaf child's search for identification and his later social interaction with hearing people is briefly covered. Related to theory are some designs for evaluating materials for their special relevance to use with deaf children. This is followed by descriptions and photographic samples of recently de veloped programs. CHAPTER IV DIFFUSION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF LEARNING PROGRAMS FOR DEAF CHILDREN Role of Media Services and Captioned Films We have described some of the learning materials especially prepared for deaf children and programs being developed for them. Most of this work has been done by people under grant from Media Services and Captioned Films (MSCF). Two surveys of schools for the deaf indicated that many schools were not equipped with the neces- f sary equipment needed to utilize the programs which MSCF was pre paring to lend to schools.^ Since 1966, MSCF has been lending "hardware" to schools and classes for the deaf. Approximately half of each school's needs were supplied each year. The program will continue until each school's needs are completely met. In 1966, for example, 1000 overhead projectors, 1000 filmstrip ^•Jerome D. Schein and John J. Kubis, A Survey of Visual Aids in Schools and Classes for the Deaf in the United States (Washington, D. C.: Gallaudet College, 1962). Patricia Blair Cory, Phase I School Library Programs in Schools for the Deaf (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Captioned Films for the Deaf, 1966). 212 213 projectors, 2 0 0 0 projection tables, 2000 screens, 2000 acetate rolls, 1000 starter kits, and 50 technicolor cartridge projectors were pur chased and loaned for an indefinite period of time by Media Services and Captioned Films. To prepare the teachers for the sudden influx of all these new materials and equipment, and to help in the general diffusion of knowledge about newer ways of instruction, four media centers for the deaf were established with funds from Media Services and Captioned Films: Northeast Regional Media Center for the Deaf, University of Massachusetts, Dr. Ray Wyman, Director. Southeast Regional Media Center for the Deaf, University of Tennessee, Dr. William Jackson, Director. Midwest Regional Media Center for the Deaf, University of Nebraska, Dr. Robert Stepp, Director. Southwest Regional Media Center for the Deaf, New Mexico State University, Dr. Marshall Hester, Director. Each of these four centers conducts from two- to four-day media workshops in schools for the deaf, upon invitation. All except the Southwest Regional Center have six-week summer institutes— each composed of 30 teachers of the deaf. These are intended to show the teachers how to plan units of study incorporating various media available and how to produce their own materials to supplement those which their schools have. These institutes have been offered for the past five years. One of them was designed for people who were to become directors of media services in their own schools. The Southwest 214 Center is now offering summer institutes for teachers interested in programmed instruction. More information about some of these projects is available in the November, 1966, issue of Audiovisual Instruction. The Midwest Center has been holding three-day symposiums each spring since 1965. Reports of these symposiums are published in the November issues of the American Annals of the Deaf. The sym posiums are directed at administrators of schools for the deaf and teacher training personnel from universities, clinics, and social welfare departments. They have dealt, in turn, with research and utilization of educational media systems, media centers, design of instructional facilities, and instructional programming. As we have just suggested, symposiums, workshops, and summer institutes have served the profession in two ways. The first way has been by diffusing information about innovative programs designed to help deaf children learn. By learning, we particularly think of helping them overcome their communication handicap. The second way has been by providing a means for educators from schools all over the United States to meet and communicate regarding their individual knowledge and skills, utilizing them in joint efforts to improve learning. In Chapter V, we will discuss the nature of such meetings, considering, in particular, the systematic nature of educational ac tivities of people associated with education of the deaf. In 215 Chapter VII, we will present a specific design for planning and evaluating workshops. The design appears in Chapter VII because the example used in describing it relates to planning programs for multiply handicapped deaf youth who need rehabilitation after leav ing school Criteria for Assessing Summer Institutes At this point, we wish to comment upon summer institutes as diffusors of information about innovative programs— communication serving the profession in the first way mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. How can we evaluate such institutes? James W. Brown directed an evaluation project, "Educational Media Institute Evaluation (EMIE)," in 1966 and 1967. The three major concerns for his report were: How does the attendance at an educational media specialist institute change participants— immediately, and over a period of time? In what ways do these institutes influence professional pro grams for the preparation of educational media personnel? 2 What makes a "good" educational media specialist institute? Our comments will relate to the third concern, using some items from Dr. Brown's list of criteria. 2 James W. Brown, Evaluations of Summer 1966 NDEA Institutes for Educational Media Specialists and School Library Personnel (San Jose, California, 434 East William Street: Educational Media Insti tute Evaluation Project, 1966), (Supplementary Report, 1967), p. 3. 2 1 6 Here are some of the writer's observations concerning criteria for assessment described by Dr. Brown. Institute planning is greatly affected by the quality of facilities which the host University will provide. Universities probably cannot uniformly provide suitable facilities from one year to the next for six-week summer workshops. New campus building programs, for instance, sometimes affect the availability of rooms, their suitability, their desirable proximity to each other, their distance from dormitory facilities, and their distance from other services related to the institute. A summer institute receiving a high priority in selection of university facilities one year may not do so the next year. It may receive a lower priority some years in competition with other summer institutes the university may contract. Perhaps one summer the university staff for planning and administering an institute may be freed from most other university obligations so that full attention can be given to the needs of the institute. In another summer, for various reasons, such personnel may be saddled with many other con cerns, making it difficult for them to participate closely in insti tute planning and administration. Planning the media institutes must recognize varied needs of people who have different roles in their respective schools. Some participants have been thrust into the role of establishing a media center in their school while still carrying a full-time teaching load. They will be seeking varied information about storage and retrieval 217 systems in addition to better ways of implementing various programs. Other participants may be supervisory personnel. Their needs may be more general in contrast to the needs of a classroom teacher who might be attending for very specialized reasons. Still other par ticipants may expect to become materials production specialists, but need a better understanding of programming so they can meet the needs of teachers. Planning must also consider that schools for the deaf from which participants come are often varied. Some may be large residen tial schools with well organized media centers and adequate personnel. These institute participants have little reason to be interested in learning to operate copying machines, learning darkroom techniques, and the like. Others, coming from schools which have few facilities, want help in establishing a production area in their school for some specific programs, using specific media. Some participants may come from a classroom characterized as a special class for hearing-handi capped— the only one for such children in a particular school. Such participants will be interested in obtaining help with smaller scale projects than the participant from a school where classes for the deaf are centralized. Since there are three summer media institutes for teachers of the deaf, the writer suggests that it might be a useful undertaking to try to plan each one to serve a generally different category of participant. Further, more specific planning after participants have 218 been selected but before they arrive might result in their attend ance at some class sessions elsewhere on the campus when they touch on something the participant needs. Perhaps specialized tutoring of small groups of participants could be scheduled. Admission to summer institutes, when highly competitive, en ables its participants to gain a respected status among their col leagues. This also enables the institute to maintain its prestige, as a desirable place to obtain useful training. Highly motivated and innovative teachers can profit greatly from a summer institute and give much to its successful operation as an inservice training experience. It is fortunate that most school superintendents recog nize the value of the summer institutes in meeting the needs of ambitious teachers. These administrators approve only the applica tions of those who would gain the most from attendance at an in stitute and who would benefit others by their attendance. Industrial technology is quick to develop and diffuse better production methods which insure higher quality control and more economical products. Summer institutes, as laboratory schools for teachers, would be expected to maintain a collection of the latest "technological innovations" so that participants could learn about these devices and techniques of production as well as better ways of planning and implementing programs. If summer institutes are not highly innovative, it is difficult to expect them to serve as insti tutions for the introduction and promotion of new ideas. 219 Exemplary teaching is one form of innovation which could have a strong impact upon institute members. "Do as I do" is stronger than "Do as I show you how to do" and the latter is stronger than "Do as I tell you to do." There is no better way, for instance, for an institute instructor to introduce the innovative use of a video camera and monitor for magnification than to use the video system to show how to set a 35mm camera for f-stop, film speed, shutter speed, and the like. By using a mock-up of a camera lens barrel, charts, transparencies, and 2 x 2 slides, the instructor could show how other media join the video camera in complementing each other to provide a convenient, clear, and confidence-developing exposition with a convincing impact. A later analysis of such an exposition would serve to reveal the techniques of exemplary teaching employ ing the media mentioned. Institutes should be practical, but still operate within a theoretical framework which is not just "nuts and bolts." Institutes are excellent opportunities to relate learning theory and implementa tion— something no good teacher ever achieves to her own satisfaction and continually strives to improve. Media institutes cannot fully serve teachers of the deaf until more of the mechanical operations of producing media are taken over by teacher-aides and technicians in the participant's own school In structional Media Center (IMC). The greatest value of Media Insti tutes should be in showing teachers how to identify rationales, set up 220 objectives, and then develop programs and ways of implementing the programs to help children learn. Too much time is spent on the mechanics of producing materials, however necessary it may be that teachers learn this in the absence of technicians in their own schools. When summer institutes make clear that they are not insti tutes for mechanical production, more supervisory personnel will attend. Supervisors and school administrators, upon their return from an institute, will encourage their teachers to attend also. Teachers who attend institutes will be encouraged, more than now, to share their experiences with teachers who have not had such an opportunity. When this occurs, later institutes will be attended by participants of a consistently higher calibre. It is axiomatic that it matters little what a teacher or a school has to offer a child to help him learn if the teacher or pupil cannot find it when it is needed. Collections of materials are be coming larger through loans from Media Services and Captioned Films, teacher-produced materials, and materials purchased through ESEA Titles I and II and other special funds. Knowledge of the materials available is needed, and the problems of storing these materials and easily retrieving them are cropping up. Libraries and media centers in the schools are therefore more necessary. Some schools for the deaf have had libraries for many years. Their librarians have been pressed into administering to the needs 221 for visual media services. Other schools have wisely added personnel to the library staff to care for the added responsibility for visual media; some have established separate media services. Schools which once lacked collections of books or had no person assigned to their care are now assigning a teacher part-time to the responsibility of keeping books and visual materials in order. Usually, the assignment to this function grows from year to year until the teacher is doing this work full time. The training of these people is varied, but for those who have grown with these responsibilities, the summer media institute for teachers and one for media specialists have helped. Also, Gallaudet College offered summer institutes for librarians for two years. Reasons why the summer institutes for librarians were dis continued should be investigated. The role of librarians in a school for the deaf is unique. It is not unique in the usual sense that librarians share with teachers, parents and houseparents the respon sibility for enticing deaf children to read. It is unique in the weight of this responsibility because reading is the best way educa tors know to provide deaf children with repeated exposure to cultur ally established language patterns, in the absence of hearing. Consequently, it is a grave mistake to consider the librarian to be merely a custodian of books. Both the librarian and the media specialist should be regarded as persons who have a broad knowledge 222 of all fields of education: they are generalists. At the same time, they are learning specialists who impart certain basic skills to teachers who come into the field. They are much like good supervising teachers except that their counseling of teachers is limited to teaching techniques and learning habits of children. Their administrative responsibilities differ from the supervising teachers' in that their responsibilities are mainly the operation of learning materials services provided for children and teachers. They are not concerned with the supervision of teachers' performance or the social behavior of the children. As the years pass, people in the visual media field will probably become specialists in the true sense of the word. It is a serious oversight that such assurance is not evident for librarians. This assurance stems from the fact that beginning in the fall of 1969, the University of Massachusetts is offering a "Media Special ists Program." It will give increasing monetary support to fifteen students as they progress from their Junior year through one year of post-graduate Master's study toward IMC service in schools for the deaf. The graduate year provides a fellowship of $2,200, full tuition, and a dependency allowance of $600 per dependent. The first students from this special program will graduate in June of 1972. They will have had a course of study especially fitted to the needs of deaf children. This will include a study of educational 223 systems, speech and hearing science, educational research, communi cation theory, media production, administration, and curriculum implementation. Some reasons why media specialists are needed for schools for the deaf are evident in the previous discussion of the education of deaf children. Additional reasons may be observed in the design on p. 231 in identification of needs and the evaluation of an instructional materials center (IMC) in a school for the deaf. A Design for Planning and Evaluating Instructional Materials Center Services An important reason for introducing the following design for planning and evaluating an Instructional Materials Center in a school for the deaf is that centers have become essential to the utiliza tion of the many new programs and materials. Such centers and their personnel are responsible for storage and retrieval of materials, their operational use, and important guidance in strategic implementa tion of the materials in various ways. Moreover, besides locating suitable materials, making them readily available to the right teacher or the right pupil at the right time, the center directors must know why these materials are appropriate and how they can be used to full advantage in helping deaf children learn. In effect, they assist supervising teachers with inservice training, as well as working directly with teachers and children to insure maximum benefit from the materials. 224 Since most schools for the deaf of larger size are state residential schools, several considerations for planning and eval uating an IMC enter into the picture which would not be true for a day school or a school for hearing children. Because of these - special considerations, a design— such as the following— is needed. The special considerations which stand out are: 1. Some schools have several "self-contained" instruc tional units— specifically, primary grade children may be completely segregated from intermediate chil dren— going to school in the same building in which they sleep, eat, and play. 2. More generally, these schools where children are away from parents and under the direct living super vision of houseparents who may have up to thirty chil dren in their care. Evening study supervision may be provided by teachers or qualified houseparents, but this is not always true. 3. Public library facilities are not generally or easily available to these children because of lack of trans portation, inadequate parental supervision, and com munication difficulties, especially with younger children. More important, public library personnel who understand the particular language handicap of 225 deafness and can provide appropriate materials are rare. 4. State residential schools are not a part of a sys tem which provides supplementary services of specialists and makes large collections of learn ing resources available to schools in its system. They are "one school systems" with average enroll- 4 ment of 273 students. Here are several considerations for planning and evaluating an Instructional Media Center which are general to any system but are perhaps more important in a school for the deaf. These consid erations may be more important to schools for the deaf because they do not have the resources previously mentioned as accruing to an urban public school system. 1. The adequacy of any particular service in the school depends upon the services performed by other depart ments or people in the school. For example, there are principals, supervising teachers, media specialists, coordinators of different types, and teachers who have special skills and are assigned to extracurricular re sponsibilities. Sometimes educational leadership rests ^Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States, American Annals of the Deaf 114 (May, 1969), p. 621. 226 in the hands of the supervising teachers, while the principals are responsible for teacher accounting and pupil discipline. Vacuums may exist wherever specifi cations for responsibility are poorly defined or where personnel are overloaded, or where there are not enough clerks to relieve the supervisors from paper work. 2. Adequacy of any service is relative to needs. For ex ample, to suddenly equip a school with all modern in novative devices for teaching would be very uneconomi cal because it is extremely unlikely that any faculty would be ready to utilize all of the innovations. Being faced with too many innovations and without proper guidance can be discouraging to both teachers and chil dren, amounting to near traumatic experience. The ques tion is, then, are services barely keeping ahead of needs and demands or are they lagging behind? The latter two considerations indicate that "standards" pub lished for national consideration will not serve as criteria of ade quate services, but reflect polar points known as "ideal," and little more. The object of the design on p. 231 is to identify areas of concern in an IMC and hold them in relation to other areas for a careful scrutiny. Each cell identifies an area of concern except 227 when a cell is empty, such as cell ^-c. Some cells may be duplica tions of other cells, being significant only in additional amounts of the same "product." For example, cells related to volunteer services and student assistants for the IMC are similar in terms of the kind of work done. The design has been fitted between an "introduction - ration ale" and an "explanation - rationale." The introduction-rationale deals particularly with BUILDINGS'’ as a factor of consumption which is pervasive throughout all the other consumer factors. Other items (1 through 15) deserve as extensive an examination, but the limits of this paper prohibit it. Only some phases of BUILDINGS are dis cussed but, hopefully, enough to show the reader how an examination of related cells raises many questions for study. If it does noth ing else, the discussion should hint that the IMC should be cen trally located unless each building is to have its own IMC and be relatively independent of a central IMC. In examining some of the BUILDINGS-related cells, the follow ing questions arise: 1. Which of the school's buildings does the IMC serve now? ■’BUILDING - Because services to a consumer increase greatly if they are located in other buildings at greater distances from the IMC, building has been listed as a factor coupled with service to all other consumers. With the connotation of distance should be factors such as weather elements in passing between buildings, steps in the event the buildings are multi-level and without elevators, and the availability of communication. If instructors are deaf, someone must phone for them or they must walk to the center or send a child to place an order. 228 2. Which of these buildings might the IMC serve in the future, if not now providing service? 3. Which of these buildings provide support services, (equipment repair, art work) to the IMC now? 4. Which of these buildings might be expected to pro vide service to the IMC? (The same questions might be applied to departments within the buildings and personnel or supervisors; but, at this point, "geography" is in focus for the purpose of economical flow of materials or per sonnel "travel.") 5. To what extent are dormitories provided with: a) hard- and soft-back books, for recreational reading; b) evening educational film programs - motion pictures; c) other learning resources such as encyclopedias, film strips, or viewers which can be used with strips brought from classrooms or the IMC; d) magazines and newspapers. 6. To what extent would some of these buildings serve as display areas for pictures and realia not commonly con sidered at present? For example: a) Dietary (Cafeteria) d) Auditorium b) Health Center e) Gymnasium c) Dormitory 7. How should the IMC serve certain buildings with collections 229 of books and magazines not already served? For example: a) Health b) Auditorium c) Gymnasium As we pointed out in an aside in Item #5, "geography" is in focus up to this point. As more is learned about the function of buildings, revealed more explicitly in the departments they contain, more questions will arise. For example: 1. What services could the IMC offer to waiting rooms in parent-child programs or in clinics. In other words, for adults who must wait around while their children are being tested or counseled. Parents, relatives, friends, or social workers can be "informed" as well as entertained while waiting. 2. Departments in which children must wait to be served— the health center, for example— are areas for IMC attention, particularly with displays, magazines, and paperback books about hobbies, sports, science, or other subjects of interest to children. 3. With specialized services from residential schools available to citizens in the state, the IMC is more critically responsible for seeing that new professional materials reach special services staff members or that 230 attention is called to them. For example, all persons who are concerned with infant hearing testing should be alerted to the Bibliography on Infant Hearing Test ing in the VOLTA REVIEW for January, 1969. For certain other staff members, EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN contains an article, "Improved Learning Conditions in the Estab lishment of Reading Skills with Disabled Readers." Perhaps a monthly Newsletter could list such new re sources, as well as the new materials the center has received or has produced. Let us now examine the design (Fig. 33). The Evaluation and Planning of Instructional Materials Center (IMC) Services diagram is designed to serve as a road map— to show what happens when you go one way and what happens when you go another. It helps to show how there are limits to personnel services. It points out the need for selecting priorities. For example, if there are ten calls for some service that cannot be put off, but one can make only five of the calls, then it becomes clear that more people must be brought in to answer needs, or the program must be reassessed. Many of the details that can be charted are of themselves small, but when one recalls the story of a rider who was lost for the want of a horse . . . that was lost for the want of a nail, then one can see that small details may need attention as well as the big ones. Some instances of service details follow. CONSUMERS AND FACTORS OF CONSUMPTION 231 . RECREATION 7. SUPERVISORS RESIDENT . 6 SUPERVISORS . SPECIAL SUPERVISORS 5. VOCATIONAL . 4 SUPERVISOR BUILDING . ACADEMIC 3. SUPERVISORS *TEACHERS . 2 . CHILDREN 1. EVALUATION AND PLANNING INSTRUCTIONAL OF MATERIALS CENTER SERVICES Distance Number Function ctivation A Levels Number ctivation A Assignment Activation Levels Number Assignment Levels Number ctivation A Assignment Levels Number ctivation A Assignment service Levels Number ctivation A Number ctivation A Levels Number service service function service function function service function service function P R O D U C E RAN S PR D O D U C T S 231 CONSUMERS AND FACTORS OF CONSUMPTION 5 EQUIPMENTL5. LI.*VOLUNTEER SERVICES lo 4 COLLECTIONSL4. CLERKSL3. L2■*STUDBNT ASSISTANTS 5 . MffilT SPECmiSTg MffilT . 5 8. 2 Suet eces n Ads also. Aides, and Teachers Student 2. * 1 1 ., 12. IMC help but also help In other departments such as Scouting, Scouting, as such departments other In help also but IMC help 12. ., 1 1 . 5. e .g ., A udiologlst, Psychologist, T herapist, P arent-child Preschool Services. Services. Preschool arent-child P herapist, T Psychologist, udiologlst, A ., .g e 5. t a r t s i n i m d a JIUL Number ctivation A Assignment Number Activation Number Levels Activation Activation Assignment Number Number Activation ctivation A service function service service function service function service od roig esos n vnns ohr lb i tes. s itie tiv c a club other evenings, in sessions grooming good 6 rs i. 33 Fig. P R O D U C E RAN S PR D O D U C T S 232 233 A major service of the IMC is to provide a student with direction in locating needed information. A sudden interest satis fied or whetted by information can lead to a life-long pursuit. However, if the Instructional Materials Person (IMP) is busy order ing supplies urgently needed, the student may not be able to get needed personal assistance. The IMC is a systematic arrangement for serving the school and when something happens in one part of the system, other parts are affected. The Instructional Materials Person must be kept informed of plans being made in any department which expects to need IMC services. Let us take a concrete example from Cell ^-4. The new speech thera pist is preparing materials for testing children. Thermal masters were consumed by the box and copy paper was used by the ream. For tunately, the therapist has no other demands upon her time and is able to do the work herself, however unprofessional the task. Still, a box of thermal masters sometimes represents a two months' supply, or one-fifth of a year. A number of incidents such as this can upset plans for budgeting funds, allocating student help in the library, allowing time to order materials, and, specifically, explain why there is a change in the IMC needs. For another example, note Cell 11-a. The inauguration of once-a-week sessions on personal grooming for girls by volunteer services may call for ordering motion picture films, transparency materials, an overhead projector, and a 16mm projector for a building 234 apart which has not previously been served by the IMC and at hours when the IMP and student projectionists and other helpers are not available. Of great significance affecting IMC services are changes in the curriculum and changes in teacher behavior. The sudden assign ment of students to projects which require library reference work requires more reference books of various types, more time of the IMP in guiding these students, and increased stress when student demands are not anticipated. A situation such as this can involve Cells 1-a, 1-b, 1-c, 1-h, 1-i, 1-j , and 1-k. Cell 1-k, for example, might find the IMP bringing in a collection of resource books from a nearby public library if the school library collection is weak. This weakness would call for action under Cell 1-b, as a strength ening of the collection to supply needed information. Let us suppose that supervising teachers are demonstrating "exploration and discovery" as a method of teaching and six teachers or more decide to try this out experimentally. The typical library would probably be filled to overflowing several times a day. Space may not have been too much of a problem in the past because many teachers may have been text-book or "lecture" oriented and deaf children may not have been required to read much since "they are poor readers." More library personnel would be needed to answer more difficult reference requests, schedules would have to be set up for classes and perhaps plans for addition to library space as well as 235 facilities such as reference books must be considered. Cell 1-i and Cell 1-h come into focus when students find exceptional pictures or diagrams which contribute heavily to their understanding of some idea and they want a copy for their note books. Thermofax machines and materials may be used. While all needs cannot be predicted, careful planning can prevent wide gaps between planning and realization. Planning also raises questions which lead to important self-evaluation or critical examination of a school's program and the behaviors of its chil dren and staff. Let us look at some of the cell factors which may seemingly not relate to IMC services. The number of children (Item //I in the diagram) in the school could, for example, dictate the number of classes and the number of duplicate copies of books, filmstrips, and the like. The age of the children would dictate levels of material and perhaps the kinds of £ materials and programs. Activation refers to the motivation and skills children have in the area of independent study. The number of teachers (Item //2) at given levels or academic Activation - Refers to how well children have been motivated to use various means for learning and recreation. Presumably, this will determine the breadth and depth of their interests and their need for resources in the Instructional Materials Center. In refer ence to teachers and other personnel, the term connotes about the same— what variety of ways does a teacher use, and to what extent does she use them, to help children learn; does she exhibit skill and creativity in the use of media? 236 grades has somewhat the same effect as number and age of children. The strong influence of function^ is better illustrated for super vising teachers (Item #3). We could say, for example, that among the functions of supervising teachers are: Influencing teacher be haviors through critical observation, influencing teacher behaviors through formal inservice training, planning tailored programs for individuals and for groups of children, testing children, counsel ing children, liaison between school and administration and other departments (cottage, counseling . . .). Under the circumstances, counseling children could consume large blocks of time, especially if the school had no counselor, as such. However, if counseling is performed by a counselor or by the principal, then the supervis ing teacher could attend more to inservice training. If the function O of testing became that of the psychologist, then supervisory services to teachers in the way of critical observation of their teaching could become a major item of assistance. Accordingly, it can be seen that we view function as what one is supposed to do and service as what one succeeds in doing. Depending upon what the supervisors can do, IMC services in areas she influences w i l l be greater or lesser. Accessibility refers to the ease w i t h which a collection can ^Function - Refers to the assigned responsibilities of the personnel as opposed to actual performance. O Services - Refers to performance on the job as opposed to assigned responsibilities or function. 237 be used, usefulness refers to its degree of relation to needs, and use refers to frequency a collection is actually utilized. The reader might also ask how it is that such a non-personal item as a collection is both a consumer and a producer. A simple answer might be that a collection of filmstrips requires storage cabinets, thus consuming equipment. A bit more complex is the lack of an adequate collection of text books, which may induce the teacher to duplicate certain pages from a single copy of a text for the entire class. The immediacy of need, or the thought that no one will approve the purchase of an adequate number of copies of some book, can induce this expensive endeavor on the teacher's part. Other examples might be: Clerks require desks, chairs, and typewriters. Equipment consumes repair services. As mundane as these details may seem, they relate to the smooth operation of services. Taken care of, they provide time for the IMP to concentrate on attending to more important matters of direct service to children and their teachers. Although most of the terms used in the design could profit ably be explained in depth, the term activation, especially as it applies to the teacher or media specialist, is particularly revealing of further factors which influence planning and growth of the IMC. Activation may be thought of, on the one hand, as an internal condition of the teacher or media specialist— is the person a go- getter, an early adopter, and an innovator? Does he have missionary zeal, or is he content to keep his discoveries to himself? On the 238 other hand, activation may be thought of as external conditions that are having some effect upon the teacher or media specialist. The following terms come to mind as a listing of such conditions: Diffusion tactics employed to promote an innovation Training provided for utilization Evaluation activities for feedback Programs being developed related to needs of children in teacher's care Technical developments which open new avenues to "reach" or challenge children Inventions which inspire technical application Philosophy adopted by people as a guide in their work Certification requirements for personnel Standards or criteria for IMC service or good teaching (Goals) Funds made available Public Relations programs that require preparation Time and space do not permit us to go into an explanation of each of these terms. However, we do want to pursue Philosophy and Funds a bit further. Philosophy is a broad term, but for our purposes here we limit it to the question of whether an IMC should be developed with all its sophisticated refinements, using the argument that people cannot learn to use what does not exist; or, whether the IMC refinements 239 ought to stay a jump ahead of the ability of a majority of its teach ers and children to use them. The question is not a light one because federal funds are sometimes available almost to the exasperation of administrators, who are taxed to plan for wise investment. Sometimes they are inclined to spend funds on the material development of an IMC, years ahead of the time teachers and children can learn to use it. There is no clear-cut answer to the question, but it seems reasonable to assume that the farther ahead of use an IMC gets, the greater the pressure becomes for inservice training and preservice training of teachers and other consumers of IMC services. Increas ing pressure to learn to use an overwhelming array of innovations at once can be discouraging to children and teachers alike. It seems logical to assume that a program of growth in services, bal anced with a growing need or ability to utilize the services would be more economical and satisfying. The preceding design is dedicated, therefore, to a conserva tive development of an IMC, meeting the needs of children and teach ers as their skills in learning and teaching broaden and penetrate. 240 SUMMARY This chapter describes the efforts of Media Services and Captioned Filins to make it possible for schools and classes for the deaf to utilize the special materials prepared by Media Services and Captioned Films which it lends to schools. Simultaneously, equip ment was loaned for indefinite periods to the schools and special summer institutes were provided for training teachers of deaf chil dren. It was pointed out that instructional materials centers were needed to provide for the efficient storage of materials for immed iate retrieval when needed. It was also mentioned that the final stages of diffusion of innovations require the services of someone who has special knowledge of new practices, in order that they may become a part of the natural learning behaviors of children. Two summer institutes for librarians in schools for the deaf, and a special university program for preparing media specialists for service in schools for the deaf were identified. A few observations about summer media institutes and the need for library institutes were offered, and a system for planning and evaluating the services of an instructional materials center was suggested. CHAPTER V SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF - AS A SYSTEM Rationale - A Communication System The rationale for this chapter rests in the belief that im proved communication between schools for the deaf in the past decade will lead to major changes in educational practices in the Seventies. Good educational practices which were once limited to the province of a few neighboring schools are now being widely diffused among all schools. The talent of a few outstanding teachers is no longer a provincial possession but is being tapped to benefit other schools. In short, the growth of systematic relationships between schools for the deaf is making better educational guidance available to many more deaf children. Improved communication has several forms, but the evidence of a quickening of professional pulses can be observed by examining the increased amount of writing about professional problems which appears in the monthly and semi-monthly school papers. Most resi dential schools for the deaf publish school papers to keep parents informed about activities of the school, to provide motivation for pupils' writing, and to furnish experience for students in vocational 241 242 arts printing classes. More and more of the school papers are print ing professional reports. Many of these reports are first-time-in-print articles, rather than just articles reprinted from other papers. The reports are often evidence that teachers and parents are hearing directly from research ers and experimenters in the field of education and related fields at meetings of their new or invigorated local organizations. Parent- teacher organizations, teacher organizations, and even several national organizations have been established in the Sixties. The writer regrets that there seems to be no serious study of this phenomenon of growth in the diffusion of knowledge of educa tional activities and innovative programs in the field of "deaf education." Human problems arising from rapid growth in technology cannot be overcome unless diffusion of programs for learning compen sating behaviors is an efficient and vigorous operation. Specific ally, for example, children need to appreciate the importance of pollution problems and discover ways to study the problems so that they can make decisions about them. Even as young people, they need to think twice before they discard food wrappers and cartons on the street where they will blow onto the grounds of homes and public buildings, to be chewed and spewed by power mowers in the hands of unconcerned caretakers, spoiling even the appearance of civic centers. Young children can be the consciences of their parents when they ask what their parents are going to do about community-wide use 243 of DDT, disposal of garbage and rubbish into lakes, and the penetra tion of super highways into every forest glade. Rene Dubos said, Despite so many intellectual and ethical setbacks, despite so much evidence that human values are being spoiled or cheapened, despite the massive destruction of beauty and of natural resources, as long as there are rebels in our midst, there is reason to hope that our societies can be saved. Finding better ways of teaching sensitivity to the interrela tion of technology and biological forces is immediately needed to insure survival of man. The discoveries need to be quickly dispersed throughout our cultures. Clearly, a science of diffusion of innova tive educational practices is at least as important as a science of diffusion in industrial technology or medical technology. Of what importance are these two technologies if man is to use their products for atomic and biological warfare? The sacrifice of a few million lives to a political principle may be considered noble, not barbarian; but, total destruction leaves no one to consider the nobility of the sacrifice. Because education of the deaf is a relatively small and closed system, it seems especially suited for studies of diffusion of educational practices. The writer is convinced that a study of diffusion of educa tional technology throughout the schools for the deaf will reveal that the greatest influence leading to the establishment of new Rene Dubos, So Human an Animal (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968), p. 5. 244 organizations, an awakening of old ones, and the general sensitivity to responsibility for improving education of the deaf can be attribu- 2 ted largely to Media Services and Captioned Films, a branch of the Division of Educational Services, Bureau of Education for the Handi capped, U. S. Office of Education in the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. It is not possible to give credit here to the people who, directly and indirectly, were responsible for initiating Media Services and Captioned Films. The first conception of this service was to pro vide for the captioning and distribution of cultural entertainment films to organizations of and for the deaf so that the deaf could understand the filmed message through visual captions added to "talking pictures." In 1960, the first thirty films were donated to Media Services and Captioned Films by Captioned Films for the Deaf, Inc., a philan thropic organization located at the American School for the Deaf. By March of 1961, the number of captioned films had grown to 89. The captioning of educational films for school children had been authorized, also, and 13 titles were available. Today, there are approximately 300 entertainment and cultural titles available for borrowing without charge, and 400 educational films. There are three regional 2 When first established, this division of the U. S. Office of Education was named "Captioned Films for the Deaf." The name has been "Media Services and Captioned Films" since 1967. 245 distribution centers for cultural films and 60 centers for distribu tion of educational films. Film users must be registered with Media Services and Captioned Films, U. S. Office of Education, Washington, D. C. Information may be obtained by writing to this office. On the one hand, there has been a free captioned films serv ice to schools under Media Services and Captioned Films. However, it is on the other hand that lies treasure in the form of a sys tematic attack on educational problems of the deaf. A diagram (Fig. 34) showing the services of Media Services and Captioned Films appears on page 246. The scope, but not the dynamic nature of Media Services and Captioned Films is revealed in this diagram. In the initial year or so of MSCF, John A. Gough, its first chief, traveled throughout the United States searching for professional workers who might be en gaged in planning and carrying through various phases of the MSCF he dreamed of building. As MSCF took shape, educators of the deaf— from superintendents to teachers— from all parts of the United States were brought together into conferences, suggesting, planning, initiat ing, and evaluating the services of MSCF. Never before in the history of any nation have so many educa tors met to cope with problems in education of the deaf. Similar to problem solving, planning, special training, and evaluation which take place in large school systems, schools for the deaf were suddenly enjoying the benefits of close professional contact between its best people from most schools for the deaf. Entertainment and Educational Films Educational Media Regional Media CentersOther Cultural Films Curriculum Development Workshops Curriculum Development Research and Development Grants Selection Media Specialist Training Outlining and Script Writinf Sumner Institutes for Programmed Instruction Caption-Writing Workshops Filmstrip Programming Summer Institutes Workshops Writing Captions in Use of Media Inservice Training Workshops_____ Production Study Guide Workshops Study Guides Symposiums Fig. 34 Activities of Media Services and Captioned Films *• a* 247 Dr. Gough appreciated the benefits of involving as many people as possible in initiating the MSCF services. He also realized that, at least in the beginning, talent had to be uncovered from among members of the profession. He could, for example, have employed a few persons to caption educational films. Instead, he organized summer workshops composed of different members each summer to examine exemplary films and write captions for them. Teachers involved in operations such as this and film guide writing workshops (See Fig. 35 for sample guide.) pooled their talents, learned, and became advo cates and diffusers of the innovative use of motion picture films to help deaf children learn. Moreover, these people are among a grow ing number of critics who are so important to MSCF in improving its programs. Summer institutes offer direct inservice training for teach ers, to help insure better implementation of materials and programs which MSCF offers. Symposiums for college teachers and school ad ministrators create an awareness of the availability of MSCF aid. They also encourage training centers to improve their programs in undergraduate and graduate teacher training. Administrators know toward what goals they can encourage their teaching and supervisory staffs to aspire. They are also aware that Regional Media Centers for the Deaf stand ready to offer inservice training to a teaching staff during the academic year or to work on solutions to problems the schools identify. III. Pranaratlon for the Film HOW P L M T S HELP US A. Preview the film and select objectives. A * » 0 B. Oather visual aids. A Captioned Film for 1. Bean Sorouts (8 os single concent film - plant growth) Intermediate Level 2. Flannel board materials By Arrangement vith 3. Package of bean seeds, pots, and soil Young America Films (McGraw-Hill) li» Various plant products - illustrations or actual objects Captioned Films for the Oeaf C. Select desired vocabulary. U.S. Office of Education Washington, D.C. Nouns. sponges air soil corn meal plant food photosynthesis Time: lU minutes Color, 8YHCAP (water) roots stem leaves COg (carbon dioxide) products lumber culture wood pulp T. Film fluairv shelter flax blouse paper mill silk sap Plants are virtually indispensable to man's life. The film shovs plant laboratory microscope mold processes such as seed plsnting, plant grovth, food production, and food drugs diseases bacteria storage vithin the plant. The numerous ways plants help man are clearly forest flavor yeast depicted in this film. syrup chlorophyll sunlight decay earth II. Puroose of the Film Adjectives fluffy maple important A. To show bov seeds are planted tiny wonderful B. To show what they need for grovth Others bury against C. To introduce the process of photosynthesis D. Selected idioms and expressions D. To show where different plants store their food very useful a Ivmp of coal tons of earth E. To show that although some animals and fish give us meat, they themselves by nan millions of years care for require green plants in order to survive by nature drying up earth's surface almost all bloving away save our soil F. To show products and services which plants provide us with to need for give off IV. Motivation A. Show several objects and ask where they come from. B. Have students list bov they think pleats help us. 89 90 C. Show a loop film on plant grovth. 2. How Plante Lire and Grow. PS D. Show students a plant which is growing and ask them how it helps than. 3. Life of a Plant. EBF E. Use flannel board material to show parts of a plant. 1*. Photoavnthesis. EBF V. Follovuo B. Filmstrips A. Suggested questions 1. Hov Plants Helo Us. EBF 1. Explain the process of photosynthesis. 2. Leaves of Plants. EBF 2. List, next to the plant, where it stores its food, e.g., tomato— 3. Plant Factories. SVE around the seed, celery— in the stalk, lettuce— in the leaf. li. Plants: Hov Thev Live and Grow (series). EBF 3. How do plants aid the living processes of hissan beingsl 5. Roots of Plants. 1BF it. Compare the uses of corn and peanuts. 6. Stasia of Plants. EBP B. Suggested activities 7. The Structure of Plants. EBF 1. Have children plant seeds of their own. Make bar graphs indicating 8. The Wonderful World of Plants. SVE rate of plant grovth. 2. Grow some plants without soil using only distilled water (to show that C. Transparencies plants do not require soil or minerals in order to carry out the 1. Plant Structure, fkrt 1. 3M Co. Vlsuccm process of photosynthesis). 2. Storv of Trees. 3M Co. Visucom 3. Grow some plants in total darkness to see what effect it will have. It, Use a microscope to discover different structures of a leaf, D. Suggested reading 5. a. Obtain one pan of sod and one pan of soil. 1. Textbooks a. Reauchamo. Mavftnld.and West. Everyday Problems in Science. b. Tilt both pans. Scott, Foresaan and Co., 1937. c. Pour water over them. b. Beauchaao. Mavfield. and Hurd. Science Is Explaining. Scott. d. Observe bov the roots absorb much of the water. Foresaan and Co., 1963. e. Blanc. Fischler. and Gardner. Modern 8clence 3. Holt. Rinehart 6. Make a chart vith several plants in the middle and various products and Winston, 1963. scattered around ttam. Have children attach string from the product to the plant* 2. Supplementary reading a. Dickinson. Alice. The First Book of Plants. Watts. 1953. rv. Resource Materials b. Fenton. Carroll lmne. Fruits We Eat. Bay. 196l. A. Films O. Hvde. Marcaret o. Plants Todav and Tomorrow. Whittlesey House. 19(0. 1. How Green Plants Make and Use Food. COR d. Schneider. Herman. Plants in the Citv. Day. 1951. 91 92 Pig. 35 249 The involvement of so many teachers in so many different ac tivities of MSCF has done more than bridge many geographical gaps. It has inspired many to pursue projects which they originally merely entertained in their more visionary moments. In contact with those from other schools, many teachers suddenly attained an identity as professional people which might never have occurred within the pro vinciality of a single school. Bette Fauth and John Olson, whose works are illustrated in Chapter III, are two of many such people. Involvement of school administrators and university teacher- training personnel in educational change is encouraged through sym posiums at the Media Center at the University of Nebraska (see p. 213). The sixth symposium, to be held in March of 1970, will be on the theme, "Communicative Television for the Deaf Student." Curriculum Planning The activities of MSCF required some sort of a curricular framework or guide. Therefore, the early major undertaking of MSCF (Captioned Films for the Deaf) was a series of five Curriculum Develop ment Workshops. These were held each summer from 1963 to 1967 at Ball State University. For each of these "Workshops for Improving Instruction for the Deaf," twenty educators were selected from across the United States to engage in studying the latest trends in national curriculum, develop an outline, and then write several units dealing with topics assigned for the summer's work. 250 Materials which might aid in children's learning were eval uated by the workshop participants. These evaluations served as guides to MSCF in deciding what educational films to caption for deaf children, what materials to purchase for loan to schools for the deaf, and to pift-point certain areas which lacked suitable teaching or learning aids for deaf children. The curricular areas covered for which reports are available are: Social Studies; Science; Mathematics; Vocational Education; and Personal and Social Relation ships, Consumer Economics, and Sex Education. (See Fig. 36 for a part of a sample unit.) The magnitude of the benefits of the Ball State Workshops, as they were called, may never be estimated since no study of dif fusion strategies and techniques in education of the deaf is being made. The writer's own involvement with the workshops over a period of three years and his close contact with the series for the full five years presented an opportunity for observation which few others have had. The handicaps under which the workshops operated should be enumerated to indicate just what the reports could contribute to the field. Misunderstandings have undoubtedly led some people to dismiss the value of the reports and may prevent certain revisions and wider distribution of the reports. In the first place, the magnitude of the undertaking was not fully realized at first by the University itself. The university 251 WHY NORTH AMERICA BECAME THE LEADER IN THE PRODUCTION WHY NORTH AMERICA BECAME THE LEADER IN THE PRODUCTION OF GOODS AND SERVICES - GRADE 7 OF GOODS AND SERVICES ■ GRADE 7 OUTLINE OF UNIT: A. North America's Natural Resources OBJECTIVES OF UNIT: 1. Climate suited to the growing of food and fibers 2. Fertile soils combined with Irrigation or ample rainfall To orient students to the vest netursl resources of America. 3. Mineral filled mountains covered by forests A. Rivers and lakes: our waterways which are a source of To point out the role thet freedom plays in e nation's growth food and power to power. 5. Oceans and seas: highways of commerce end untepped treasure houses of food and minerals To show that trade Is an Important factor In balancing abundance B. Freedom Her Heritage and necessities. 1. Native civilisation replaced by European cultures 2. Home rule achieved at great cost To compare America's economic and political similarities end C. The WOrld Shares Her Wealth differences with those of neighboring countries. 1. Produces and uses a large share of the world's goods 2. Surpluses traded 3. Riches shared with less fortunate countries D. Each Country Contributes 1. The United States a. location b. political divisions (states) e. natural resources d. products e. major cities 2. Canada a. location b. political divisions c. products and resources d. language 3. Mexico a. location b. products and natural resources c. language and religion A. Central America a. political divisions b. location c. the Panama Canal 5. The West Indies a. political divisions (countries) b. products and natural rssources c. location d. language SUGGESTIONS FOR INTRODUCING AND MOTIVATING UNIT: Discuss local and state natural resources. Discuss implications of these resources upon population and living. Visit a local industry. Compare and discuss graphical charts of natural resources for those countries involved in the unit.______ WHY NORTH AMERICA BECAME THE LEADER IN THE PRODUCTION WHY NORTH AMERICA BECAME THE LEADER IN THE PRODUCTION OF GOODS AND SERVICES - GRADE 7 OF GOODS AND SERVICES - GRADE 7 CONCEPTS AND SKILLS ACTIVITIES AND EXPERIENCES COMPREHENSION CHECK OR D. Each Country Contributes MATERIALS CORRELATION EVALUATION The United States contri Use charts, graphs and tables in Graph paper Arithmetic: Both Ginn books butes a large share of newspapers, texts, and World Outline maps of North America Make graphs of had good tests. products to world trade. Almanac to learn important products. Mexican food (tortillas, important products. tamales, frljoles) Canada* Mexico, Central Give library reports on natural Clay America and the West Indies resources of countries of North Cardboard also make important contri America. butions to trade. Show filmstrips. Textbook References: Geographical location plays Use outline meps to locate major Pupil: Library: an important part in how cities and political divisions of World Geosraohv. Ginn. Use encyclopedia much a country can contribute the various countries. pp. 519-5%)/ 1964. and world Almanac. to trade. Tnis la America's Storv. Houghton-Hlfflin. 1963. Natural resources are a basic Make a model of the Paname Canal pp. 650-674. Art and Arithmetic: reason for leadership in to emphasise importance of the Teacher: Make a model of trsde. cenal to world trade. Your Country and The World. Panama Canal. Ginn. 1901. pp. 343-386. Political divisions and Prepere Mexican food to encourage language barriers are interest in Spanish language. Films: critical factors in the (Use Spanish words for foods and Series, Canada: People at success of a natlonfa unity objects in the classroom.) Work. EBF. and power. Series, Mexico and Central America. EBF. Skills: Series. Some Islands and English: Countries of the Western Write letters to Learn the important Write letters to embassies of Hemisphere. EG. embassies of other products of North other North American countries Series, American People North American coun American countries. for material on those countries. at Work. EG. tries for materials Economic Geography Maps. RM. on those countries. Learn how to make product maps. Recognise the influence of geography upon contributions a country can make to trade by comparison of special purpose maps. 252 director for the workshops was not freed from university responsi bilities to the extent that he could give active assistance to the project coordinator. It took almost three years for this need to be brought home. The reports also improved in format and editorial quality right up until the last one on Vocational Education. Early editorial and production problems compounded the initial problems of establishing a working organization for the workshops. Although the participants at the workshops were usually high calibre people, a general misunderstanding about the nature of the workshops probably kept a number of desirable curriculum specialists from applying. National Curriculum was also new; even the public schools did not have many people who were familiar with modern mathematics, the chemical bond approach in science, and other recent innovations in curriculum. Although the participants brought much experience in teaching the deaf to the workshops, they had much to learn about recent trends. Consumer Economics, for example, on the primary school level was so new that textbooks and other related materials were not even off the press for general use. The product of the workshops could be called representative of curriculum in public schools, in schools for the deaf, and national curriculum. It was produced to provide help to schools across the country, to encourage investigation into newer trends, and generally to offer some guidance to people who wanted to up-date their own school curriculum plans, as well as to serve MSCF as a guide. Unfor tunately, too many people expected to be able to use the guides 253 (reports) as closely as they might have once used their school's own up-dated guide. Many people were disappointed when the Ball State guides did not meet this expectation. The guides were not intended to be specific for anyone, but to be broad suggestions. They were not com plete beyond suggested outlines. They included innovative suggestions of which even public school teachers were not specifically aware. Modern mathematics, for example, was just about to be inaugurated in the early-adopting schools. This adoption was with misgivings on the part of many teachers who did not realize that reasoning in mathematics could produce an advanced product over students who knew "how" but not so much "why." It was unfortunate that when interest in the reports was at its peak there were not enough copies to go around. Instead of be coming an incentive for schools to revise their curriculum, the re ports are only an aid to schools if and when they decide to revise their curriculum. Where this has happened, the value of the Ball State reports has been appreciated. As a result of the occasional but very positive evaluation of the guides, the writer believes they should be revised. A revision of the Ball State guides will not only provide better edited guides, it will also incorporate informa tion on more recently produced materials which relate to the topics included. In the five years of curriculum endeavor at Ball State, over 254 one hundred top supervisors and teachers in the field of education of the deaf were brought into educational dialogue with each other. To prove that these people would have continued to be outstanding leaders and as effective without the Ball State experience is diffi cult. Most of them will subjectively say that Ball State contrib uted much to what they are today— and most of them are, in fact, leaders in their own schools and nationally. A study of diffusion of innovative practices might reveal under what circumstances such curriculum efforts might be continued or at least revived every few years. Such study might reveal on the one hand that curriculum revision by a few specialists in Regional Media Centers for the Deaf might be more economical. It might also be more respected coming from "above" than if it were developed by colleagues at local levels. On the other hand, a study might reveal that creative innovations in curriculum often spring from the local levels and congregating select people from these levels to work with specialists in regional centers will produce more vitalized plans which can be further innovated at local levels. Certainly, curricu lum is a dynamic force and should not be relegated to the past. Another "workshop" endeavor was conducted by Project LIFE to develop language outlines upon which to base the language materials programs the project was to develop. As the Ball State guides have served MSCF in directing some of its activities, the language out lines developed under Project LIFE serve to direct their program 255 development. Project LIFE also had one summer workshop designed to evaluate commercial materials and relate them to certain parts in the language outline. Much like the Ball State guides, the report, "Instructional 3 Material for Primary Language" is only a sample of resource guides which can be developed if teachers in a school are organized to de vise such a guide. The usefulness of this workshop was also shown in its evaluation of materials then on the market. Again, the oppor tunity for outstanding people from different schools to congregate has no doubt resulted in the realization of identities and more re sponsible and highly motivated professional endeavor by those who experienced the workshop. Media Specialists and Librarians One group of educators which has had less opportunity for meeting in professional dialogue has been the media specialists. There are no curriculum plans which would serve to bring them to gether. Very few of those who serve the instructional media centers are yet recognized as "supervisors" and few are sent to the symposiums for university teacher training personnel, school administrators, and supervisors. Some are looked upon as teachers, with extra-curricular 3 Instructional Material for Primary Language (Washington, D. C. : N.E.A. Project LIFE (Language Improvement to Facilitate Education of Hearing Impaired Children, 1201 Sixteenth St., N.W., 1966). 256 duties, some as media custodians, building coordinators, library- media clerks, and some are full-time substitute teachers who keep busy between assignments by looking after media. Communication be tween them is established in ways which seldom bring the visual aids specialists together with the library specialists. The few IMC specialists who are accorded supervisory status do not meet with those who are not so recognized by their schools. Librarians have been brought together in the summer institutes held at Gallaudet College (see p. 221). They have had some communication through an organization they established at the time of the institutes called School Librarians of the Deaf and Associates. They have had three national meetings during the meetings of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf. Membership has been small and attendance at the last meeting in Berkeley in 1969 was too small to conduct business. The visual aids specialists are now trying to organize. This effort is also the outcome of a summer institute. Plans are being made to merge the two organizations if the second one is indeed es tablished. There has been sufficient dialogue to realize that objec tives are the same and that these can only be achieved by a larger group than either could separately organize. Generally, surveys of 4 library programs in schools for the deaf and the use of visual ^Jerome D. Schein and John J. Kubis, A Survey of Visual Aids in Schools and Classes for the Deaf in the United States (Washington, D. C . : Gallaudet College, 1962). 257 aids in the schools have not served to generate communication among media specialists. Both of the studies were made of facili ties and services. They did not involve any large number of li brarians, visual aids people, or media specialists beyond filling out a questionnaire. Both of these surveys were made when there were very few media centers or libraries in schools for the deaf. Few met the old minimum standards of the American Library Associa tion, and still fewer were administered by qualified librarians or media specialists. Even the publication of Standards^ has not seemed to have much influence on the development of media centers and libraries. Service centers cannot be developed in a short period of time. Even as they grow, teachers and pupils must learn to utilize them. If the Standards, which are presently very idealistic, can be interpreted into developmental stages which would serve as a series of goals toward which service centers could work, perhaps the Patricia Blair Cory, Phase I— School Library Programs in Schools for the Deaf (Washington, D. C., U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Captioned Films for the Deaf, 1966). ^Standards for Library-Media Centers in Schools for the Deaf; A Handbook for the Development of Library Media Programs. (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Captioned Films for the Deaf, n.d.) [The Standards were distributed among members of the profession at the meeting of the Con vention of American Instructors of the Deaf at Hartford in 1967, a few minutes before the meeting at which they were approved. Mrs. Patricia Blair Cory devoted two years to the survey and writing the standards, while working half-time for the Lexington School for the Deaf.] 258 Standards would have more immediate effect and be of more practical value. The School Librarians of the Deaf may initiate such steps. Houseparents No other group responsible for the development of deaf chil dren has been more neglected than those who supervise the out-of classroom activities of the children. Playground supervisors and houseparents have no professional organization or status outside of an acknowledgement of their existence by some of the parent-teacher organizations. On p. 122 we showed how houseparents have many oppor tunities to communicate with deaf children. With the constant reminder that parents shape the learning of children by behavior they exhibit with their children from early childhood through adolescence, residential schools have an opportun ity to employ the finest people available as houseparents. There is no reason for considering dialogue between houseparents in resi dential schools any less important than it is for teachers. Although the writer believes that the role of houseparents in the development of deaf children is as important as that of the teacher and that the status accorded houseparents and sometimes recreational supervisors is a national disgrace, the matter must be left to others to explore in depth. It is not just a dream that Media Services and Captioned Films will soon engage itself with out-of-classroom activities of deaf 259 children. MSCF is just beginning to concern itself with television media which can be adapted to profitable out-of-classroom learning experience. A few schools are even producing and telecasting special programs for their children during evening hours.^ When programmed instruction becomes more widely used, houseparents may be recognized as essential to the greater utilization of programmed instruction and educational television. The writer regretfully leaves these two subjects for exploration by others. To tap these resources for learning of deaf children will be an initially expensive undertaking and is still a relatively unexplored area. Other phases of MSCF services find it in contact with adult communities through its recreational and cultural films. For exam ple, a grant to the National Association of the Deaf provides MSCF with evaluations of films and recommendations for captioning the better ones. Although the writer has not learned of any formal efforts of MSCF to study the deaf adult population in an effort to assess some of its school programs, MSCF no doubt does pick up im pressions which make the staff more keenly aware of the needs of the adult deaf and to consider the ways these needs can be met through education of deaf children. Problems of adult deaf more often come to light when multiply- handicapped deaf adults experience difficulties. Generally, 70ne informative account appears in The New Mexico Progress, 59 ( March, 1967), pp. 8-9. (Published by the New Mexico School for the Deaf, 1060 Cerrilos Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87501.) 260 Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) deals with problems of the adult deaf. However, MSCF devotes some of its time to assisting with the educational aspects of rehabilitation. The first formal evidence of this co-operation exists in the report of the proceedings of a conference on utilization of new media in the vocational re habilitation process with multiply handicapped deaf people, Habili- Q tation Through Media, published in 1968. More about this particu lar conference will appear in Chapter VII. It is to the advantage of the deaf that MSCF and RSA can bring their respective "sys tems" into contact for a broader "systems" attack upon the problem. Co-operation could effect reforms in "industrial arts" programs, making them more responsive to the vocational needs of all students. Professional Organizations At this point, we are leaving Media Services and Captioned Films to describe professional organizations upon which the educa tional structure of the deaf has depended in its 150-year history in the United States. Repeated reference to MSCF throughout the rest of this chapter is perhaps unavoidable, because many research grants are received from MSCF and most, if not all, educational or ganizations for the deaf are doing some research or are performing some service for MSCF. In one way, MSCF can be regarded as an agency ®Glenn T. Lloyd, ed., Habilitation Through Media (Knoxville: College of Education, University of Tennessee, 1968). 261 which has breathed life into the only two purely educational organi zations of personnel in education of the deaf— namely, the Conference of Executives of American Instructors of the Deaf and the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf. Neither of these organizations has been financially endowed. By obtaining grants to perform certain services for MSCF, these two organizations have been able to finance the basic cost of an admin istrative secretary, Howard Quigley, thereby allowing their officers to search more freely for innovative solutions to problems of educa tional communication and, by so doing, further bridging the gap be tween schools and their educators. Among the many services Dr. Quigley performs are business matters involved in publishing the American Annals of the Deaf and the Proceedings of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf. His office is also responsible for dis tributing learning materials and equipment which MSCF lends to the schools (see pp. 212-213). It is doubtful that any single office has ever before been so closely associated with so many schools for the deaf. It may, therefore, be in a position to accumulate certain kinds of "feedback" information. Perhaps this information can be analyzed, thereby enabling the profession to adjust certain kinds of activities for greater benefits. The Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf (CAID), with a current membership of 3,940, was established in 1850 and has 262 had 44 national meetings over the years. These meetings have pro vided the principal opportunity for teachers of the deaf to meet for an exchange of professional experience. Professional papers pre- 9 sented at these meetings are published and known as the Proceedings. Through publication of its official organ, the American Annals of the Deaf, the CAID has preserved the experiences of research and class room teaching, enabling generations of teachers to re-examine prac tices as they go about their search for better ones. The Conference of Executives of American Schools for the Deaf (CEAD), with 105 regu lar members and 135 associate members, was established in 1858. It also employs the Annals as its official organ. One of the most important activities of the CEAD in conjunc tion with representatives from CAID and the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf (AGBAD) is the certification of teachers (since 1931) and accreditation of teacher training centers (since . 10 & 11 11 1951). In 1968, 45 centers had been approved by the CEAD. Other centers approved by the U. S. Office of Education (National 9 Proceedings of the . . . Meeting of the Convention of Ameri can Instructors of the Deaf . . ., date. ^Howard M. Quigley, "The Evaluation of Teacher Preparation," Proceedings of the International Congress on Education of the Deaf and Forty-first Meeting of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf. (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1964), pp. 986-990. ^Powrie Vaux Doctor, "The History of the Conference of Execu tives of American Schools for the Deaf, 1868-1968" (Unfinished mimeo graph manuscript) (Washington, D. C.: Gallaudet College, 1968), p. 9. 263 Council on the Accreditation of Teacher Education), which began offering scholarships for training teachers in these centers, brought 12 the total to 56 centers, as listed in the Directory of Services. Scholarships to training centers are allocated by a board composed of educators of the deaf from all over the United States. Although individual states reserve the certification of teachers to them selves, there is little doubt that they have been strongly influenced by the standards adopted by the CEAD. The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, founded in 1890, is an organization more generally devoted to promotion of teaching speech and lipreading to the deaf. Its listing of 7000 mem bers includes all subscribers to the Volta Review. Not until 1968 13 did it become a "parent" of an organization for teachers apart from the Association itself. AGBAD is linked to the Volta Bureau, which was founded and endowed by Alexander Graham Bell in 1887. The Bureau serves as an information center on deafness. The Volta Review, published by the Bureau, enjoys a wide circulation among teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as parents. Annual meetings of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and its publication, Volta Review, have served to link teachers who advocate exclusively oral methods of communication in teaching. The ■^"Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States," American Annals of the Deaf, 114 (May, 1969), pp. 264-275. 13 American Organization for the Education of the Hearing Im paired (AOEHI), with 132 members. 264 CAID has served teachers who advocate the "combined system." AGBAD meetings, which include non-professionals as well as teachers, pro vide interpreters for speakers— the interpreters congregate deaf persons about them and repeat the words of the speaker. At close range, the lips of the interpreter are more visible and any auditory reinforcement is clearer at close range. The CAID meetings provide interpreters who use manual ges tures to convey the speaker's message to any deaf people who may be in the audience. Deaf people who do not understand manual gestures must bring their own interpreters to CAID meetings. At AGBAD meet ings, deaf people who do not read the lips but who do understand manual gestures must likewise provide their own interpreters. Sig nificance of this observation is simply that, on the one hand, CAID people seem to believe that anyone interested enough in the deaf to attend their meetings ought to know manual gestures if they cannot hear the speakers. The AGBAD people, on the other hand, seem to believe that those who are interested enough in the deaf to attend their meetings ought to be able to read the lips. Several other organizations are listed under "Education of the Deaf" in the Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United 14 States. The Council on Education of the Deaf is called a confeder ation of the three organizations previously mentioned. The Council for Exceptional Children is affiliated with the National Education ^"Directory . . .," op. cit., pp. 362-363. 265 Association. It has nine sub-groups. Although teachers of the deaf might join the Division for Children with Communication Disorders (DCCD), they would find only an occasional article of interest in the Council's journal, Exceptional Children. These are not the only organizations which influence educa tion of the deaf. Other organizations which are made up principally of parents, other groups of citizens, and other professional groups such as speech therapists and vocational rehabilitation counselors are influential and have been responsible for active exchanges of information around the country. These will be mentioned in appro priate chapters to follow. Publications In the pages which follow, we will show by illustration that periodicals are responsible for extensive communication among schools. The Directory^ lists 60 school publications— most of which are monthly newspapers or magazines. The remaining 15 pages of periodi cal listings are association, alumni, commercial, medical, educational, and religious publications, ranging from bi-monthlies to quarterlies. The school publications and those of organizations often arrange ex changes so that most residential schools receive publications from most other schools and from some of the adult deaf organizations. Also in the pages that follow, we will comment on some research 15Ibid., pp. 501-518. 266 reports which are distributed to schools in monograph form, free of charge. Keeping in mind that we are confining our interest to educa tion of the profoundly deaf child with a severe language handicap due to early onset of deafness, the principal professional journals which provide communication among schools are the Volta Review and 16 the American Annals of the Deaf. The Volta Review is a monthly magazine which caters to a much wider clientele than just teachers and other professionals. The Annals is strictly a journal, published six times a year, catering to professionals. We have already mentioned that the Annals publishes in each November issue the papers of the annual Symposium on Research and Utilization of Educational Media for Teaching the Deaf. Each May issue is a Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States— totaling 738 pages in 1969. Other issues vary: the September issue in 1968, for example, contains papers read at the Interfaith Insti tute of Denominational Workers with the Deaf, held November 14-15, 1967. Choosing the February, 1968, issue of the Volta Review as a typical one, we find the following articles: "Expanding Language Through Patterning," by Sister Marie Suzanne Buckler; "Home Demon stration Teaching for Parents of Very Young Deaf Children," by ^Important articles in both publications are classified in George W. Fellendorf's (ed.) Bibliography on Deafness Washington, D. C.: A. G. Bell Association for the Deaf, Inc., 1965). 267 Kathryn Barth Horton; "Head Start Program— Implications for Deaf Children," by Winifred Nies Northcott; and "A Structured Program of Learning for Moderately Retarded Deaf Adults," by Annette Taylor and Barbara Pollock. Some regular features of the Volta Review in clude "Book Notes and Reviews," "International Parents' Organiza tion," and the "Oral Deaf Adults" section. November issues of the Volta Review contain papers delivered at biennial meetings of the A. G. Bell Association and interim sectional meetings. The January, 1966, issue and the September, 1968, issue of the Volta Review were special issues. "Language Acquisition," a collection of papers by leading researchers dealing with the theo retical aspects of language development in deaf children, was the subject of one issue. In it, David McNeill writes about the lan guage acquisition of hearing children— comparing older studies with new ones. Hans Furth presented his thesis regarding "thought with out language" which he has since expanded in his book (see p. 91). Robert L. Cooper, Joseph Rosenstein, and Stephen P. Quigley review language research with deaf children in this country and abroad. Phillip J. Schmitt presents a historical review of language instruc tion of the deaf. Frank B. Withrow discusses language acquisition by multiply handicapped deaf children. Dr. Quigley, in reviewing the issue, as guest editor, pointed out in the "Introduction" six major research emphases in the future. 268 Three of special relevance here are: Research people in the education of the deaf need a greater knowledge of the content and techniques of lin guistics and psycholinguistics in order to be able to apply these disciplines to research on the language prob lems and instruction of deaf children. By the same token, teachers need a greater knowledge of the possible application of the techniques of these disciplines. As McNeill points out, there is increasing agreement that a child's language acquisition ability is at a peak somewhere between the ages of two and four years. It is obvious that much research and training must be concen trated on these early years before the child enters school. This is probably the single most important area for language development and research with deaf children. It also is at present probably the most neglected. There is a need for greater involvement of the class room teacher in applied research and greater sophistica tion on the teacher’s part about the application of research. The other issue, "Curriculum: Cognition and Content," con sisted of a collection of articles by over 30 outstanding teachers and educators, edited by Harriet Green Kopp. Let us now examine some of the school papers to gain some idea of their content and estimate their potential in diffusing better practices in education of the deaf. To select a particular issue of any one school paper or magazine and say that it is typical of its other issues or of other papers is difficult. Sometimes an issue is resplendent with color, particularly the Christmas issue. Sometimes they are elaborate with pictures. Occasionally, they are especially valuable for original articles by the educational staffs or by 269 speakers who address their faculties at seminar meetings. Fre quently, they are worthy of filing in a collection of professional literature for the reprints from other sources which they contain. Usually, the papers contain news of the cottages and school. They contain short news items written by the children— every child seeing his writings in print several times a year. We have selected articles at random from a collection of school publications, more than half of which are magazines. The New Mexico Progress is published by the New Mexico School for the Deaf (NMSD), Santa Fe. The April, 1969, issue is directed towards parents who are to have a "Parents' Day at the School. It contains the following: "Suggestions for Parents of Deaf Children," a reprint from the national magazine of the deaf, The Deaf American, of which we will have more to say later. The article was written by a noted psy chologist, McCay Vernon, Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Institute, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, Chicago. Two short articles by the superintendent of the school, James Little, and the principal, Thomas Dillon, are entitled "Facilities and Programs at N.M.S.D." and "Acceptance and Motivation." "From a Parent's Point of View" is reprinted from The Deaf American's column for parents, written by Mary Jane Rhodes. "A Diagnosis of the Education of the Deaf," an address by Ben Hoffmeyer, Superintendent of the North Carolina School for the Deaf and President of the Conference of Executives of American Schools for the Deaf, is reprinted from 270 The Maryland Bulletin. Next come ten pages of excellent photographs showing activities of children or services offered to them at the New Mexico School. Three more articles for parents follow— two articles written by parents, containing hints to help other parents communi cate with their children and otherwise help the children grow to be useful citizens. These are reprints from the Kentucky Standard (Kentucky School for the Deaf, Danville), which in turn got the articles from The Nova Scotian; from The California News (California School for the Deaf, Berkeley); and from the Volta Review. Illustrating the reprint phenomenon, the article by McCay Vernon appears in at least two other school papers, the Kentucky Standard and the West Virginia Tablet (West Virginia School for the Deaf, Romney). A less pretentious, twelve-page issue of Oregon Outlook (Oregon State School for the Deaf, Salem) features "Educational Media and the Deaf" by George Propp, Administrative Assistant and Regional Coordinator for the Midwest Regional Media Center for the Deaf. This article was reprinted from the Nebraska Journal (Nebraska School for the Deaf, Omaha). As an example of how the Little Paper Family pro vides communication between all phases of the deaf minority group, community and schools, there is an "Alumni Corner," by Thomas Ulmer. It contains an item about a forthcoming convention of the Oregon Association of the Deaf (most states have such an organization with local chapters throughout the state). It also contains an item about 271 the officers of the Portland Division of the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf (a life insurance organization for the deaf, whose executives are deaf). There is also an announcement of the annual retreat of the Hope Lutheran Church for the Deaf, and an item about a meeting of the Phi Kappa Zeta, a local chapter of a Gallaudet College sorority. (Most residential schools have very active alumni associations and reunions serve to promote useful statewide com munity endeavor which benefits the school, as well as deaf citizens.) "Pupils’ Compositions" indicate a wide variety of interests: golf, fishing, building model cars, soap box derby, and a short piece by pupil Chester Nystron about how he developed his skill in repair ing small motors and small appliances. A column, "Items of Interest," by Jean Teets, informs the reader that the Oral Deaf Adults Section (ODAS) of the A. G. Bell Association for the Deaf (AGBAD) received a $30,000 grant to promote its services to deaf youngsters and their parents. Another item tells of the Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf (COSD), which established a legal section to help the deaf in legal matters. (We will have more to say about both of these national groups in Chapter VII.) Another item tells how the Penn sylvania School for the Deaf (Philadelphia) obtained a school bus by collecting 31,000,000 trading stamps. Other items inform the reader that Yugoslavia has a national lottery to get funds for the vocational training of deaf school drop outs; a Vocational Rehabilitation Clinic Unit is to be established 272 at the Missouri School for the Deaf (Fulton); Pope Paul VI has per mitted masses to be interpreted into the language of signs for the deaf; and the Russians have "developed artificial bone made of teflon that can correct deafness caused by deterioration of the stirrup." Considering that schools for the deaf exchange papers, it can be seen that numerous ideas are communicated by some of the better columnists or sections of the better papers. The Outlook offers another example in its column, "Around Our Campus," which has an item about hearing high school students serving as assistants to teachers as a part of a "vocational exploration program" at a local high school. Also, the deaf high school juniors promote a carnival to raise funds for a class prom and for a "senior sneak" the following year. Another item describes the plans of a chapter of the Junior National Association of the Deaf to attend a national convention in Washington in 1970. Students from the Oregon College of Education assist classroom teachers two or three hours a week. For Junior Varsity and Varsity teams, the cheerleaders are pleased to have earned enough money to have a Panther suit made. Some of the new ideas dis played by this group were learned at a "Rally Clinic." Some club activities reported include a knitting club, computer club, elec tronics club, Future Homemakers of America, primary girls' activities, primary boys' activities, and Boy Scouts. Examination of papers from other schools will show that clubs vary from one school to another. Some have many clubs, while others 273 have few. Our point here is that through school papers, ideas are diffused, making each school's program richer. Many ideas are con tained in brief two- or three-line items. It would be useful to cull school papers to select exemplary items. Longer articles of pro fessional value could also be culled and brought together under one cover. The nearest thing we have to such an effort is Irving S. Fusfeld's book, "A Handbook of Readings . . Another exemplary school paper might be The Maryland Bulletin. Its column, "Educationally Speaking," regularly carries original articles by the school staff which are often reprinted in other papers. The most frequent authors have been Margaret S. Kent, principal; Kenneth W. Kritz, supervising teacher; and Kenneth R. Lane, who has since become an editor for American Education Press publications. The Missouri Record (Missouri School for the Deaf, Fulton) usually carries articles by guest writers. Editor Dick Reed solicits articles, and his printers provide exemplary graphic settings for the articles. The North Dakota Banner (North Dakota School for the Deaf, Devil's Lake) is known for pithy observations on education of the deaf by the school's late superintendent, Carl F. Smith, and its editor, Dwight Rafferty. The writer feels that the quality and usefulness of these school papers has greatly improved over the last few years. The papers and magazines mentioned are by no means the only ones deserving ■^Irving S. Fusfeld, ed., A Handbook of Readings in Education of the Deaf and Post-School Implications (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1967). 274 of mention. However, the limits of this paper dictate that we move on to survey other types of printed materials. At this point, we mention two magazines published by national organizations of the deaf— Great Britain's Hearing, by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) , and the United States' The Deaf American, by the National Association of the Deaf. Hearing, Royal National Institute for the Deaf, 105 Gower St., London W.C.l, is somewhat outside our scope, but since it so fre quently reports innovative ideas from England and because it will readily agree to an exchange of publications and consequently is relatively well known in the United States, we should like to review some of its articles. The January, 1969, issue indicates that RNID annually pre sents a trophy to a television personality as "the best understood speaker on television." Professional articles may be found in every issue, "international Research Seminar on the Vocational Rehabili tation of Deaf Persons," by M. Rodda in the October, 1968, issue is a revealing example. Also in this issue is one part of a series of articles offering guidance to lipreaders: "A Word In Your Eye No. 10," by Rosemary McCall. A number of photographs in the issue show people and facilities at a home for aged deaf. A review of the Education of Deaf Children (see p. 87) gives references to other reviews in a previous issue. From these reviews, we learn what the British think of this report, known to them as "The Lewis Report." (M. M. Lewis 275 was the chairman of the investigating committee.) D. M. C. Dale has an article, "Deaf Education— A New Approach," in the June, 1968, issue. (See p. 83 for comments on Dr. Dale's book.) There is more by Rosemary McCall. Of special significance is an article on the production of a special television program, one of a series for the deaf called "News Review" which has been running since April of 1964. The program is distinguished by high pictorial content and captions. In the December, 1967, issue, we learn that "Vision On," a special television program for deaf children, is a long-running series and is popular with hearing children and adults, also. To enable deaf viewers to understand television plays, synopses es pecially written for the deaf are made available. Judging from the "Lewis Report" and what we read in Hearing, the British are sensi tive to the needs of deaf children and adults. The Deaf American, 905 Bonifant St., Silver Springs, Mary land, 20910, is a national magazine for the deaf. It serves as the organ of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), but only in addition to its function as a cultural record of the deaf. There are always professional articles of importance to the educator within its pages. Information about the school for children of deaf par ents (p. 304), for example, comes to us from The Deaf American. Sep tember issues of The Deaf American contain reports of proceedings of the biennial convention of the NAD. An answer to the question, "Who are the Deaf?" may be found within the pages of the November issue. We note with interest in the September, 1969, issue that 8000 copies 276 of the 432-page Proceedings of the First International Research Seminar on the Vocational Rehabilitation of Deaf Persons, reported by M. Rodda in Hearing, are available through the NAD. To give full justice to The Deaf American would require many pages and references. Besides reports of activities of the deaf, there are histories of schools^ and biographical sketches of lead- 18 ers of the deaf — many of them teachers. As individual identity is obtained from living models or exemplary individuals and groups de velop behavior from the heritage recorded by their groups in earlier years, the deaf can discover an identity within the pages of this magazine. In The Deaf American one may find articles aimed at establish ing an epistemology of deafness— ways of thinking and talking about the deaf that will enable researchers and students of the deaf to make certain determinations leading to improved education for deaf children and an increasingly contributive social group. An example of this type of article is "Deafness and Minority Group Dynamics," by McCay Vernon and Bernard Makowsky in the July-August issue of 1969. Professional dialogue beginning with this article could lead "^An example is "The Georgia School for the Deaf at Cave Springs," by Helen Muse, in the October, 1966, issue. 18 An example is "Tom L. Anderson: the Guiding Philosopy in the Life of a Conscientious Public Servant," by Bert Shaposka, in the November, 1966, issue. 277 to much clearer scientific agreements about the nature of the deaf minority group. "Greater Expectations for the Deaf," by Latham Breunig in the October, 1966, issue is another example. As the writer has suggested elsewhere, a better understanding of the possibilities and the limitations of social interaction of deaf people and the minority group(s) they form will allow education to perform much better service in helping deaf children learn. Turning from national publications, Language and Education 1 9 of the Deaf, Policy Study #1, by Herbert Kohl is an example of occasional monographs and reports which become available to educators when the reports are widely distributed without charge to schools and to individuals in the profession. Proceedings of the Conference, mentioned on p. 72 in footnote #12, is another example. To be of the greatest possible benefit, the Kohl monograph and articles such as the Vernon-Makowsky one must draw representatives from all positions on education of the deaf into dialogue; otherwise, the rift in edu cation of the deaf will only widen and hearing-handicapped children will suffer. As important as many of the monographs, research reports, and reports of workshops, institutes, and seminars are, we again must limit our observations. At the same time, we cannot with clear con science fail at least to identify some of these evidences of the 19 Herbert R. Kohl, Language and Education of the Deaf (New York: Center for Urban Education, 1966). 278 dynamic growth of endeavor in education of the deaf in the Sixties. Researchers who want a complete indexing of articles and reports on deafness should consult the following tools: 1* DHS Abstracts (Deaf, Hearing, and Speech), whose offices are located at Gallaudet College, Washington, D. C., "prints brief non-critical summaries of literature published in all major languages pertinent to deafness, speech, and hearing." 2. Bibliography on Deafness (see p. 266). 3. A Study of the Proceedings . . . (see p. 314). 4. Directory of Services . . . (see p. 263). 5. Deafness (see p. 285). 6. Indexes to Volta Review and American Annals of the Deaf and other professional journals, as well as Education Index and Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), U.S.O.E., a monthly abstract journal annotating recently completed research and research-related reports and current research projects in the field of education. The first annual report of the National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children (Washington, D. C. : Office of Education, Depart ment of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1968) represents one of the very general but trend-indicating reports which secure information for schools, thus enabling school staffs to take advantage of the knowledge of services to come or changes to be expected in present 279 services. Educators of the deaf were represented at this conference by Hugo F. Schunhoff, Superintendent of the California School for the Deaf, Berkeley. There is evidence of the growth of research activities for handicapped children. $1,000,000 was made available for this purpose by the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, U. S. Office of Education, in 1964, with the amount increasing until $11,100,000 was given for 1968 alone (p. 14 of the report). Two pages on the activities of the Captioned Films Program for the Deaf (Media Services and Captioned Films) tell us that 140 scripts have been written for the future production of films and filmstrips. It is also reported that "the media program for the deaf has been extended to include all other categories of handi capped children." (See p. 16 of the report.) So long as Media Serv ices and Captioned Films remains under the guidance of its present administrators, the extension of services beyond those to the deaf could be helpful to all groups provided funding is increased. How ever, the moment that MSCF slips from the direction of an educator of the deaf, the deaf may logically expect a reduction of directly applicable programs. Problems of the deaf are least understood, most difficult to understand, and draw the least attention. Of the committee's recommendations, emphasis on the need for early educa tion (ages 3 to 6) is perhaps the most significant. Suggestions and Guidelines for Developing of Television Facilities in Schools for the Deaf, prepared by E. Jack Goforth 280 (Knoxville, Tennessee: Southern Regional Media Center for the Deaf, College of Education, University of Tennessee, 1968), is representa tive of reports suggesting more definitive implementation of media in education of deaf children. The planner of such a system would find this guide an immense time-savei and a model for constructing specific plans for his own school. There are several monographs and reports which indirectly serve education of the deaf. Representative of these are the fol lowing : Interpreting for Deaf People, a report of a workshop on inter preting, edited by Stephen P. Quigley (Washington, D. C.: Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1965), is an invaluable report. Nowhere else, in the knowledge of the writer, are insights into manual communication with the deaf so comprehensively treated. It contains information that a lifetime of interpreting for the deaf might not accumulate. It in cludes accounts of many situations, individual types of deaf people, and personal idiosyncrasies of both the deaf and the interpreter which an interpreter should learn to anticipate if he expects to serve well. The Law and the Deaf, by Lowell J. Myers, edited by Max Fried- 20 man (Washington, D. C.: Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, 20 Now called "Rehabilitation Services Administration." 281 U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1964), covers a wide variety of legal situations in which deafness is a factor. The writer believes that this is an important source for identifying the status of the deaf in a hearing society and for identifying important areas of contact where principles of interaction apply. No deaf child should be without as full an understanding as possible of the insights which this monograph can reveal. Workshop for Baptists on Deafness and Rehabilitation (Wash ington, D. C.: Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, U. S. Depart ment of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1965), recognizes the impor tant service the church performs in socio-economic guidance of deaf citizens. Reports of special workshops serve to diffuse information gathered from participants, as well as information brought to partici pants from specialists, among a greater number of people than just those who were able to attend and contribute. The Deaf at Work, the joint effort of several organizations coordinated by Kenneth Norton and printed by students of the Califor nia School for the Deaf, Berkeley, represents a unique attempt to demonstrate through captioned pictures the versatility of the deaf in the world of work. While it is specifically a revelation of the success of many graduates of the California Schools for the Deaf (residential schools at Berkeley and Riverside), The Deaf at Work is representative of the deaf "products" of schools in other states, as well. It is a revelation of the success of education and the 282 magnitude of individual accomplishments. If teachers of the deaf would make occasional reference to this monograph and make sufficient copies available to their pupils, the monograph would surely inspire and motivate many of them. New Trends in Vocational and Technical Training for the Deaf is a report of a three-week summer institute in 1967, bringing voca tional teachers and supervisors and counselors into closer contact with the working world. The report was edited by F. Eugene Thomure and published by DePaul University, 25 East Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois. This report provides school administrators with views of specialists from which they can develop criteria for eval uating vocational programs in their own schools. In this report, one learns that further efforts are being made to bring teachers into contact with daily employment problems of the adult deaf in their efforts to acclimate themselves to the work-world. The first attempt was a meeting of 200 "top rehabilitation and educational people from every state in the union." (p. 5) This was the "LaCruces meeting" in New Mexico, on which we have yet to see a report (1969). Such meetings of teachers and vocational counselors should logically con tribute much to the understanding of the status of the deaf in em ployment and ways by which they can acquire interaction behaviors which will improve their socio-economic mobility. Interaction of Deaf and Hearing in Frederick County, Maryland, by Paul Hanley Furfey and Thomas J. Harte (Washington, D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1964), is a report on specific attitudes 283 affecting each other of deaf people (80) and hearing people in a small community (21,744 people) within a small county (71,930 people). This study uses careful case studies of the deaf and interviews with hear ing people in the community. Information from the study might point to changes which should be made in the school curriculum— both cog nitive and affective factors which influence behaviors of future deaf adults. From this report we learn of another study-in-progress of the deaf in Washington, D. C., which, along with other studies of similar nature, could more firmly establish criteria for improved educational curriculum in the area of human relationships. Research on Behavioral Aspects of Deafness, proceedings of a national research conference (Washington, D. C.: Vocational Rehabili tation Administration, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1965), introduces psychologists, sociologists, and educators concerned with identification of the deaf and the problems of edu cating them for social and economic benefit— their own and society's. Papers read and discussed at this meeting were grouped under language acquisition, personal adjustment, social and vocational adjustment, and learning problems. Psychological, sociological, and educational theory from such reports as this one generate studies and projects such as the ones we have mentioned in preceding paragraphs and, in turn, the studies and projects generate new theory. Hopefully, ways can be found to diffuse information and ideas reported to the level of curriculum development and implementation— or to a level where 284 teachers become more sensitive to particular needs of their children. As an example of sensitivity to needs, we hazard a guess that few teachers immediately sense the immense practical value of The Deaf at Work. However, as they develop specific discussions or class room activities, they will discover the intimate revelation this book can have for deaf children. I believe that The Deaf at Work is valuable although I have no tangible statistics to support my faith. For years, I have ob served deaf children from primary grades on through high school wear Gallaudet College's yearbook, The Tower Clock, into tattered volumes whose dirty and worn pages are still treasured and sought by youthful eyes. From poring over these pages, children have turned many times to ask me, "Are they all deaf?" One cannot observe the facial ex pressions and behaviors of some of these children as they turn back to The Tower Clock, look a bit more, and then gesticulate to another pupil to come and see, without drawing some conclusions. Each time the group increases by one, the information is passed on, "They are deaf!" If this is the evidence of purely spontaneous interest, what evidence of greater and more influential interest might teachers pro duce if they cultivated thought about such books by explaining more about them? The Relationship Between Early Manual Communication and Later Achievement of the Deaf, by Jack W. Birch and E. Ross Stuckless, a re search report from the School of Education, University of Pittsburgh, 285 Pennsylvania, 1964, is of a statistical nature. A summary of the report suggests that research into the use of early manual communi cation should be made and that there is much to support the idea that early manual communication will lead to better communication in all other avenues. Birch and Stuckless say: A group of deaf children who had learned to communi cate manually from infancy was compared on several de pendent variables with a group of deaf children who had not learned a system of manual communication before entering school. A matched pairs design was used to control such relevant variables as chronological and mental age, sex, and age at admission to school. The two groups were compared with regard to speech intelligibility, speechreading, reading, written lan guage, and psycho-social adjustment. Deaf children who had learned to communicate man ually from infancy were found significantly superior to the group without such an early communication sys tem in speechreading, reading, and written language. There was a tendency toward higher scores for the early manual communication group on scale of psycho social adjustment, significant at the 6 per cent level of confidence. No significant difference was found between the two groups in the intelligibility of their speech. It was concluded that when the influence of early manual communication on the language of deaf children is present, this influence is in the direction of facilitating the development of conventional lan guage skills. Deafness, a description of research and professional training programs on deafness sponsored by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, edited by Edna P. Adler, is a historical record of 286 research, an invaluable reference to the many studies done under grants from the department. This is a Journal of Rehabilitation of the Deaf Monograph, Number One, published in March, 1969. The subscription office is: Mr. Albert Pimentel, Professional Rehab ilitation Workers with the Adult Deaf, P. 0. Box 125, Knoxville, Tennessee. Other evidence that communication, as a systematizing force, between schools is being strengthened through increased professional and lay activity will appear in the next three chapters dealing with parent organizations, educational programs for pre-school age chil dren, and programs for the rehabilitation of adult deaf. Geographi cal distance and theoretical isolation are losing their strength as forces which keep schools apart and weaken efforts to effect better learning for deaf children. Communication Model In this chapter we mentioned that it might be profitable to the students of diffusion of innovations in education to study this phenomenon in the field of education of the deaf. Education of the deaf is a relatively small and closed system in which diffusion practices could be applied and their effects observed fairly easily. One way of observing diffusion in education of the deaf is to analyze it as a communications model. Communicationa among schools for the deaf through professional organizations and their journals and through the publication of residential school magazines and papers 287 and their wide exchange among the schools are a part of the model. Another part of the model reveals that the free distribution of reports of certain symposiums, forums, and other professional gatherings are important. The activities of Media Services and Captioned Films, U. S. Office of Education, described in Chapter IV, and the activities of parents and adult deaf organizations described in Chapters V and VI are also descriptive of education of the deaf as closed communications models. 21 22 Rogers and Miles describe diffusion of innovations in 23 education. However, it is to Wright we wish to turn in pointing out the implications of our description of communication channels in education of the deaf. Dr. Wright talks about a "sociology of communication." In this dissertation we are implicitly describing a "sociology of edu cation of the deaf." This suggests that there is a relevance between our descriptions and Wright's treatment of "mass communication." "Is there a mass audience?" asks Wright, as he opens Chapter 3— headed "Sociology of Audience." (This chapter is so filled with implications for study of the deaf and studies the deaf should make that we would Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York: The Free Press, 1962). 22 Matthew B. Miles, ed., Innovation in Education (New York: Teacher's College, Columbia University, 1964). 23 Charles R. Wright, Mass Communication (New York: Random House, 1959). 288 make it required reading for every educator in the field.) In response to the question, "Is there a mass audience?" Wright says, . . the social connections of the individual pro vide him with a communication network, on a personal face-to-face basis. This informal network often gives him indirect access to 24 mass communication material which does not reach him directly." Some of the concepts named by Wright are concretized in our descriptions of communication in education of the deaf. A few parallels are the following: 1. It could be said that school papers, for instance, are messages designed to influence masses, particularly, a mass associated with a state residential school for the deaf. The writer believes that a study of the actual influence of these papers might reveal that they fall far short of their mark. Many influential people in local communities do not receive the publications. Accordingly, in any process whereby the community-at- large is influenced by its "opinion leaders" or "in- fluentials," the school papers do not serve as the schools might hope. 2. School papers are probably relatively more effective in reaching the total population of people concerned 24Ibid., p. 49. 289 with education of the deaf when, through their exchange of papers, articles in one paper are reprinted in an other. In other words, the editors of each school paper are the "school community's opinion leader" and their selection of articles from other papers for re print can guide the thinking of subscribers of their own paper. 3. In every case where Media Services and Captioned Films chose to employ small groups of people to develop cur riculum guides, film guides, write captions for films, develop educational programs, and evaluate materials for their possible use in the learning of deaf chil dren, they were: a. Influencing people who would probably "vote in ..25 groups to support the further diffusion of materials, guides, or the continuation of de velopment or investigation of the activity. In effect, this is part of the diffusion of inno vations throughout the "system of education of the deaf." 26 b. Marshalling "opinion leaders" and influentials," 25Ibid., p. 53. 26Ibid., p. 52. 290 to back, perhaps, the diffusion of innovations in their own communities. 27 c. Creating "cosmopolitan influentials" as well as educating "local influentials" who might promote diffusion. 4. Symposiums designed for top school administrators and teacher training personnel were influencing people who have administrative power which can be used both as a direct force for compliance ("conformity to the expecta tions of . . . authority . . . in order to gain expected 28 awards") and as a reinforcement of the activities of supervisors and media personnel who are usually "in- fluentials." 5. The technique of face-to-face communication or personal relationships made possible by the influx of federal funds and the judicious planning of leaders across the country suggest that education of the deaf is probably reaping the rewards of such activity. The rewards are suggested in the following quote from Wright, who 29 credits Lazarsfeld and his colleagues for them: 27Ibid., p. 57. 28 John T. Doby, Introduction to Social Psychology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966), p. 310. ^P. Lazarsfeld, B. Berelson and H. Gaudet, The People's Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948). 291 First, personal contacts are more casual, apparently less purposive, and more difficult to avoid than mass com munications. Many people are highly selective of mass com munications, avoiding materials that go against their per sonal opinions or in which they are not interested. But people are less likely to anticipate the content of the personal communication or to take steps to avoid it. Sec ond, face-to-face communication permits greater flexibility in content. If the communicator meets resistance from his audience, he can change his line of argument to meet their reactions. Third, the direct personal relationships in volved in face-to-face communication can enhance the re wards for accepting the message or argument and the "pun ishment" for not. Fourth, some people are more likely to put their trust in the judgment and viewpoint of persons whom they know and respect than in the impersonal mass communicator. Fifth, by personal contacts the communi cator can sometimes achieve his purpose without actually persuading the audience to accept his point of view. In voting, for example, a forceful party worker or a friend may get individuals to go to the polls and vote without actually altering or activating their interest in the campaign or in their position on the issues.^® In short, I believe that education of the deaf would serve researchers as a model for study in diffusion of innovations both from the viewpoint of diffusion of practices and of communication network. "^Wright, op. cit., p. 62. 292 SUMMARY This chapter reviews several features of communication in education of the deaf which contribute to a "systematizing" of the schools for the deaf. Many activities of Media Services and Cap tioned Films are related to personal communication which strengthens program development, curriculum planning, and a general diffusion of innovative ideas throughout education of the deaf. Workshops, symposiums, summer institutes, and planning sessions brought many professional people face-to-face for the first time. Professional organizations and their journals, as well as lay organizations and their activities, are described as also con tributing to the network of communication and systematizing of learning. Professional monographs and reports of various research and special meetings of professionals further complete the picture of a communications network. The school papers and magazines of residential schools for the deaf are described in some detail. This shows how information of various kinds and levels of importance affecting the socializa tion of deaf children flows between the schools. CHAPTER VI PARENTS OF DEAF CHILDREN - STATUS AND ROLE Review In Chapter I, pages 53 to 55, we presented a general identi fication of the difficulties parents of deaf children face in effect ing educational change because of their small numbers, geographical separation, and the peculiar nature of a state school which is not subject to the control or influence of any local group of parents. Some of the psychological trauma experienced by parents is discussed. The need for parents to understand the complex problems of learning to communicate facing their child is emphasized. The need to learn about different means of educational guidance for their child is pointed out, including the difficulties of determin ing truth in contrasting claims of educators who are divided in the support of two main theories concerning the development of communi cation and thought in deaf children. This chapter elaborates upon a few aspects of the controversy, but mainly describes the optimistic efforts of educators to find bet ter ways to improve the acquisition of communication skills. Several programs are described, both for education of school children and 293 294 the training of parents of preschool age children. Parent organiza tions are described briefly. Problems of Decision The threat of handicap caused by the disability of deafness is not a simple matter to understand. Parents normally are expected to have a difficult time in deciding how they want their deaf children to be educated. The decision is made even more difficult by educators who disagree about how deaf children should be taught. But parents do not seem to be having much difficulty. One reason why parents do not seem to have much difficulty in deciding how they want their deaf children taught is that parents are more likely to be exposed to "oral theory" than "combined theory." Lee Meyerson^ says, The normally hearing student is often quick to judge that aural-oral communication is better than visual-manual communication and that the deaf person should seek the former whatever the cost, resulting proficiency, or proba bility of failure. This is not surprising. There are many good, or at least plausible, reasons for such a judgment, although not everyone will agree. It is not possible to reach a sound conclusion in this matter unless one is acquainted with the issues and the arguments that are advanced on both sides. Unfortunately, the student is more likely to be exposed to personal documents written by orally-trained individuals such as Molly Sifton, author of "Fulfilment," and less likely to see her sequel, written eleven years later, which she titled, "I Changed My Mind." He is more likely to see such articles about the deaf as ^"Meyerson, oj>. cit., p. 182. 295 appear in the Volta Review than equally eloquent but op posing articles by deaf persons such as are published in the Silent Worker^ and the Silent World.^ It is a measure of the power of the oralist movement in the United States that every child in a school for the deaf is exposed to instruction in speech and lip reading, and no such child receives formal instruction in the lan guage of signs. For many psychologists, however, the issue is by no means foreclosed. Just as it seems a wise procedure to bring amplified sound to the ears of infants who appear unresponsive to ordinary auditory stimuli, so it also appears reasonable to encourage the use of other modalities which may serve as a means of communication and facilitate a child's knowledge of the external en vironment. It is not surprising that oral methods of communication for the deaf are popular. Aside from being a normal way to communicate, many parents are familiar with speech correction work done in pub lic schools by therapists. They suppose that teaching a deaf child would present a similar problem to speech correction, but more diffi cult. Even some university professors who teach speech therapy entertain this opinion. It is not too difficult to staff special classes for the deaf and maintain outward appearances of professional integrity when teach ers have had some training in speech correction. Even when schools are fortunate enough to have teachers who have had special training to teach the deaf, they may have been exposed only to oral theory and 2 Now called The Deaf American, published by the National Associ ation of the Deaf, 2025 Eye Street, N.W., Suite 321, Washington, D. C. 3 Now called Hearing, published by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, 105 Gower Street, London, W.C.l. 296 practices. Teachers on such staffs who might advocate manual methods for some of the children in their schools are a minority and cannot go against school policy for fear of losing their jobs. Besides manual gestures being relatively foreign to teachers in training and to parents, practices under combined methodology are more difficult to understand and to master. Experiment in Teaching Research and experiments in oral methodology enjoy a relative freedom from criticism. Parents and other educators do not object to experimental work with children such as, for instance, that pro posed by Petar Guberina of the University of Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Dr. Guberina's method, the Verbotonal Method, emphasizes a combina tion of body rhythm exercises and employment of low frequency tones to improve the deaf child's reception of speech. The method departs from traditional teaching in that attention to oral gestures is not emphasized, among other things. The method is sufficiently different to be exemplary of "radical experimentation." Still, it is "within bounds" and accepted without too much opposition by parents and teachers. The employment of manual gestures is relatively still "out of bounds." For more information on the Verbotonal Method, George Fellendorf's interview with Dr. Guberina, published in the April, 1969, issue of the Volta Review is helpful. As experiments appear to relate more with the use of gestures 297 or fingerspelling, experiments become more difficult to "sell'' to parents and they are more heavily criticized by other educators of the deaf. Perhaps more acceptable to parents would be R. Orin Cornett's system of hand signals called "Cued Speech."^ This system offers hand signals to let the lipreader know what sounds are being made when oral gestures do not clearly indicate the sounds. Fig. 37 gives some samples of cued speech. In contrast to the use of fingerspelling simultaneously with cp/: speech (Rochester Method), Cued Speech is not related to manual gestures used by the deaf, so it ought to be more acceptable to oral methodology. Moreover, Cued Speech is a phonetic cueing, not a parallel mode of communication, as is the revived and extended Roches- 7 8 ter Method reported by Marshall Hester and Boris Morkovin. The extended Rochester Method, as favorable as the reports ^R. Orin Cornett, "Cued Speech," American Annals of the Deaf, 112 (January, 1967), pp. 3-13. ^Zenas Freeman Westervelt, "The Rochester Method," Proceed ings of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, 16 (1901), pp. 117-130. fL F. C. Forrester, "The Rochester Method," Proceedings of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, 22 (1920), pp. 93-95. ^Marshall S. Hester, "Manual Communication," Proceedings of the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf and of the 41st Meeting of American Instructors of the Deaf (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1964), pp. 211-221. ®Boris V. Morkovin, "Experiment in Teaching Deaf Pre-school Children in the Soviet Union," Volta Review, 62 (June, 1960), pp. 260- 263. ual and either some instructional films or the assistance of a person al Some who teach speech to small deaf children may wish to cue the ready proficient in the medium. The hand-position cues for the eleven diphthongs in such a way that the final component is more clearly basic English vowels are shown in Chart I. An additional position next positioned. In this case the long e vowel [i:] (mouth position) should to the cheekbone, is needed for additional vowels (not shown) used in be cued instead of i, and [u:] instead of [u], in the four diphthongs French, German, Spanish, and Italian. above. After speech habits are established the more accurate diphthong patterns should be used. C H A R T 1 ai (might) as a: plus i, ei (pay) as e plus i, oi (boy) as o: plus i, and au (cow) as a: plus u. Cues for English Vowels The hand configuration cues for the twenty-five English consonants Group I Group 11 Group 111 Group IV are shown in Chart III. (bate poeltion) (larynx) (chin) (aouth) C H A R T III open [a:] (father) la] (th*t) [o:1 (f«r) (g«t) (ought) Cues for English Consonants flattened- [A) (but) U1 (la) [e] (g£t) [i: 1 (f«t> T H D ng L K N G relaxed [»] (the) (neat) Group* Group Group Group Group Group Group Group rounded (ou] (note) [u] (gSod) [u: 1 (blue) U:] (5rn) t h d (ng) 1 k n g (fdod) (her) (boat) (put) ra s P y (you) sh V •> j * r zh ch w th (the) hw** th (thin) •Note: The T group cue is also used with an isolated vowel—that is, The symbols outside the parentheses approximate the International an initial vowel not run in with a final consonant from the Phonetic Alphabet: those inside are diacritical markings from the Mer- preceding syllable. riam-Webster Pronunciation Key. Three lip configurations: open, flattened-relaxed and rounded, must be distinguished. The four posi tions of the left hand (base, larynx, chin, mouth) place each vowel in All consonant cues are made with the palm of the hand toward the one of four groups, each group consisting of one open, one flattened and speaker, so that the speechreader sees the back of the hand. The T one rounded vowel. With this cue, each vowel can be identified group consonants carry the normal hand configuration, flat, with all uniquely from its lip configuration. four fingers and thumb extended naturally, the fingers together. The Diphthongs are treated as pairs of vowels cued in synchronization fingers and wrist are positioned so that the hand forms a natural exten with the lip movements, as shown in Chart II. sion of the arm, with the wrist bent slightly. In assuming each of the four vowel positions the hand is bent toward the horizontal enough to minimize arm motion. Generally, in the mouth position the hand will C H A R T II be bent least, forming an almost exact extension of the arm, which is Diphthongs nearly vertical. Clarity is increased by a normal relaxation of the hand at a pause, as at the end of a sentence or an important word, and by [ai] (might) [ei] (pay) [au] (cow) [oi] (boy) the identification of stressed syllables through emphasis given to the [a:] plus [i] [e] plus [i] [a:] plus [u] [o:] plus [i] hand motions or configurations. The second finger is used as the vowel pointer for all the consonant cues except those of the D, L and ng groups, which use the index finger, with one exception. For the ng group, the second finger is used as the pointer for the mouth position; the index finger for the chin, larynx and base positions. •• Some teachers of speech may prefer to cue hw as h plus w. F ig . 37 299 seem to be and as persuasive as its chief proponent, Edward L. Scouten Q is in his writings, is not likely to become popular in oral schools because it does not exclusively aid in lipreading as Cued Speech does. It is more a means whereby deaf children can fully see "English." It is one step before learning to read— instead of recorded graphic letters and words, fingerspelling presents positions of the fingers which represent the letters used to spell out a word. These finger positions are' fleeting images and are no more associated to written words than gestures, either oral or manual, and offer poor ideographic clues to the topic of conversation. The writer believes that for young deaf children, who have not yet learned to read, fingerspelling is little more than gestures and not nearly as serviceable as manual gestures can be for the young deaf child. The writer's belief that fingerspelling is little more than a gesture to young deaf children who have not yet learned to read is based on his interpretation of a biographical account of Howard T. Hofsteater, a deaf person whose parents communicated with him only through fingerspelling when he was a child (and perhaps some oral gestures were used)."^ Stories from books were read to him by finger spelling, the hand held close to the pages of the book. He says that ^Edward L. Scouten," Education and the Prelingually Deaf Child," The Deaf American, 21 (February, 1969), pp. 6-8. (This is one of his more recent articles.) ^Howard T. Hofsteater, "An Experiment in Preschool Education," Gallaudet College Bulletin #3, 8 (February, 1959). 300 his early communication developed: "w, w-t, w-t-r, water; . . . s-g-r, sugar; b-n, banana ..." The writer theorizes that Mr. Hof steater saw only configurations of letters which were made, and that any association of these configurations with the written word in his mind were remote. The configurations were associated with the printed word in a similar fashion to the association of sound to the printed word. Manual gestures could just as easily be associated with written words. The particular success attributed to learning through finger spelling may be more due to the unusual attention Mr. Hofsteater's parents gave to him as a child— both were teachers of the deaf— and probably to his own inherent precocity. The early beginning of com munication in this account offers considerable support for a pro posal made by Sir Richard A. S. Paget, mentioned on p. 167. Sir Richard's interest in devising a sign language to be used by nursemaids of very young born-deaf children grew out of his studies of the origins of the English language. In a letter to me, he said, "My own belief is that signs are so fundamental to mankind that they may be found very useful in the education of 'backward' hearing children." No doubt Sir Richard would be interested in the recent reports of experiments using gestures to communicate with chimpanzees.^ Sir Richard's work has been continued by Lady Paget ^Scientific American, 220 (January, 1969) p. 50. 301 and Dr. Pierre Gorman. It is reported that "a pilot study is in progress in the Glasgow School for the Deaf where the new Paget Systematic sign language has been used experimentally since Janu- 12 ary 1967 ..." Unfortunately, the experiment seems to be with older children, which is not what Sir Richard was talking about when he said: My purpose was to plead for the experimental use of a systematic sign language, in which every sign should be the equivalent of a spoken word, and that suitable parents or nurses should be trained to use the new signs, and to talk to the young deaf children iri signs, just as a hearing mother talks to her young hearing children in words. In this experiment nc> effort should be required on either side. At first the deaf child would understand nothing; then gradually the meaning of the various signs would be gin to dawn on them. Mr. Greenaway had made the interest ing suggestion that parents or nurses using the new sign language should speak as they signed. In this way the deaf children would get to realize that the mouth-gestures of speech and the pantomimic hand-gestures of the new sign language meant the same things. It seems not unlikely that at the age of four, totally deaf children might ac quire a vocabulary of as many signs as a hearing child of equal intelligence would know words. A born deaf child of four with a vocabulary approaching 2,000 'words' would obviously be immensely more teachable than even the best of the pure oral successes. It is also obvious that signs which are completely visible should be much easier for the deaf child to imitate than spoken words are for the hear ing child; for the method of manufacture of speech sounds is largely a secret process. . . . I plead for the carry ing out of an experiment which seems to offer valuable knowledge and material help to the young born d e a f . 13 ^Great Britain: Department of Education and Science, The Edu cation of Deaf Children: The Possible Place of Finger Spelling and Signing (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1968), p. 51. "^Sir Richard A. S. Paget, "Letter to the Editor," Nature 170 (1952), p. 672. 302 Santa Ana's "Total Approach" Two other experiments in which manual gestures are being used in unusual public school and preschool situations have been reported. They indicate that new freedom may have arrived for experimenting with the controlled use of manual gestures as a means of communication in teaching deaf children. The Santa Ana Unified School District, Orange County, California, has a program for deaf children. A re port on this program states that it is entirely new and is called "The Total Approach." In this approach the deaf are always exposed to speech, speechreading, and auditory training. However, since many deaf children are poor speechreaders and also because the percentage of speech or language which can be speechread is very limited, other vehicles of communication including fingerspelling and the language of signs are also employed. Communication-is thought of as a means to an end and not an end in itself. It is realized that when communication is limited, opportunities for learning are also limited. Fur thermore, it is known that if the deaf child gets behind in the early years of his life, he seldom, if ever, catches up. Therefore, the use of all methods of communication is the basis of "the Total Approach" as used in the Santa Ana Program for the Deaf. In brief, this means providing the deaf child with communication which he can use here and now and not dealing in theories as to what might be better for him later in life. . . . To make real communication with the deaf child every worker in the program took a 16-week course in com municating with the deaf. Many of the parents took the same course. At this writing the same course is being offered again. After taking the course, many of the parents and teachers stated that for the first time there was genuine two-way communication with the children. Not to be overlooked in "the Total Approach" were the hearing children as well as the deaf children themselves. 303 At the beginning of the school year both groups of chil dren did not know the language of signs or fingerspelling. While the hearing children had their speech, the deaf, with few exceptions, had no means of communication. In other words, the latter were forbidden to use the language of signs and very few of the deaf children could carry on a conversation orally. Realizing that communication is basic to learning, this was quickly changed at the be ginning of the school year in 1968. Not only were the deaf taught fingerspelling and the language of signs to supplement their speech but hearing children had the op portunity to learn these methods, too. This resulted in real integration between the deaf and hearing students in a number of ways. This integration starts at the be ginning of school each day when the deaf and the hearing children greet each other. The integration continues throughout the day. At recesses the children from both groups come together and play with their particular friends. At lunch a number of hearing children always rush to join the deaf at their tables. At the Christmas program this year the deaf children did some songs orally while the hearing children did them in the language of signs. Some songs were also sung together. Some noticeable observations of the integration plan are: 1. Deaf students with limited oral abilities as well as those with proficient oral skills can be integrated into regular classes with hearing students. 2. Deaf students can communicate with hearing students more freely and vice versa. There is more speech among the deaf students because the latter are not afraid to talk with their hearing friends who have shown by their use of all means of communication that they really want to communicate with the deaf and to be their friends. 3. A big step toward genuine integration between the deaf and the hearing worlds takes place because the inte gration spills over to many activities outside of the classroom.^ ^"Santa Ana Unified School Program for the Deaf," The Deaf American, 21 (April, 1969), pp. 9-11. 304 Other details of the program reported are promising; cer tainly, the program is unique. Austin Preschool The second report is about a program in the Austin (Texas) Preschool for Children of Deaf Parents. Mrs. Gladys Holland, the founder and director of this school, states: The simultaneous method of communication is employed in the instruction of pre-school-age deaf children. Also, for the first time, hearing children of deaf parents are being taught via the same method of communication in the same grouping with their deaf peers. All instruction and all communication with the children is given simultane ously, i.e., using speech, the language of signs, speech- reading, pantomime and fingerspelling. Drawings are also used along with pictures, filmstrips and writing. The children enter at age three and continue until they reach their sixth year. The Austin Preschool for Children of Deaf Parents places great emphasis on communication and language development of both the deaf and hearing children. Hearing children of deaf parents often have serious difficulties with language acquisition because spoken language is not used much in the home. Hearing children learn to talk by imitating the words they hear. Hearing children of deaf parents first learn to communicate through the medium of the language of signs used by their parents. In the beginning, these chil dren do not realize that the language of signs used by their parents is the same as that spoken on the lips of hearing people. They need help to grasp the connection of the two languages. The Austin Preschool seeks to en able the hearing children of deaf parents to learn the language of signs simultaneously with spoken language and to see the relation between the two. When the children begin to understand, many of their frustrations are re duced and they begin to enjoy communicating via two sensory modalities. Communication between the parents and their children improves tremendously and they begin to appreciate 305 and enjoy each other. By the time the hearing child reaches age six, he is "at home" in the language of signs or spoken language and can interpret for the deaf or reversely for the hearing. Deaf children of deaf parents have few, if any, of the many frustrations with which most deaf children of hearing parents suffer. They live in a home that is normal for them. They are deaf and their parents are deaf. They can communicate in the language of signs. They feel secure, loved and understood. The writer believes that these children should not be placed in a "pure oral" environment where the language of signs is forbidden. She contends that these chil dren should be educated via the simultaneous method of communication. The Austin Preschool for Children of Deaf Parents seeks to help deaf children acquire syntax at the earliest possible moment. Incorrect signs are correc ted and speech is used simultaneously with the signs to enable the deaf child to grasp the idea that the words being signed are identical to those words formed on the lips. Thus the deaf child begins speechreading very early. He begins to appreciate language. He enjoys communicating his thoughts, feelings and needs. He soon begins to try to say some of the words as he signs them. Efforts are then made to help him say the words correctly with the aid of phonics.-*-5 Mrs. Holland offers a rationale and briefly cites investi gators whose work supports her theory. She describes her facili ties and some of the school's activities. Although Mrs. Holland's project is a small operation, her pioneering efforts cannot fail to draw recognition in the near future. The establishment and growth of parent organizations in the sixties is leading to an in-depth understanding of the problems of ■^Gladys Holland, "A School for Children of Deaf Parents," The Deaf American, 21 (March, 1969), pp. 9-12. 306 helping deaf children learn. A case in point is the experiment Roy Holcomb is directing in the Santa Ana School District. This could not possibly have been arranged without the support of a strong parent organization. Indeed, the solution to many of the problems in helping deaf children learn resides within the understanding and co-operation of parents who will learn to communicate with their deaf children in a manner appropriate to their needs for learning. In some instances, the needs may be only oral; in others, the needs may be of a simultaneous mode nature. Parents, regardless of their indoctrination, should promote investigation into better ways of helping their children learn. Clearly, they are beginning to do so through newly established organizations. Parent Organizations and Publications The most reliable reports that can be obtained regarding or ganizations of parents in schools for the deaf identify 200 local groups. To varying degrees, these groups are successful in raising funds from local sources for expenses which the school's funds will not cover, judging from reports in the school papers. However, re ports of endeavors which have won funds from local, state, or national governments for better schools are not widely documented or readily available. One example of several parent organizations in a state which organized to promote legislation for better schools and classes for 307 the deaf comes in a report, "The Virginia Story," sent to me by Mrs. Virginia Gilmer, staff coordinator of International Parents' Organization (IPO) , a section of the Alexander Graham Bell Associa tion (see p. 263). This is an account of how the Virginia Organiza tion for Improvement of Communication and Education of Deaf Chil dren (VOICE) was organized. The IPO and VOICE are the only two parent organizations listed in the Directory of Services (see p. 331). There is, however, a newly established national organiza tion of parents which held its first official meeting during the meeting of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf in Berkeley in 1969. It claims to have over 6000 members. Mr. Roy Holcomb has been instrumental in the establishment of this organi zation. In the past, he has been one of the mainstays of the par ents' group at the Indiana School for the Deaf. This group pub lished an oft-quoted mimeographed paper called The Communicator. The Communicator's success was due partly to the writings of Mary Jane Rhodes, who is now the editor of the new national organization's Endeavor (3631 East 42nd Street, Indianapolis, Indiana). The International Parents' Organization section of the A. G. Bell Association is an organization of affiliates (local groups) throughout the country. Although the IPO is not yet a financially strong organization, through its affiliates it has a membership of 4500 parents. Headed by Tom McMullen, 301 Sand Run Road, Akron, Ohio, this organization plans a far-reaching program. The April, 308 1969, issue of the Volta Review reports on a board meeting of the IPO at which plans were discussed for getting information to doctors on . . what to do with a deaf child." (page 224D) It also pro vides guidance to parents when they first suspect their child is deaf. It arranges for a regional educational consultant for each IPO group. It assists in finding additional personnel for the headquarters, to allow for greater service to the affiliates, and assists with the recruitment of teachers for the deaf and additional university personnel for training teachers. The following are two exemplary individual school parent organizations. The Association of Parents, Teachers , and Counselors of the American School for the Deaf, West Hartford, Connecticut, publishes a four-page off-set paper, APTC Amplifier. The Vol. 1, No. 11, issue for April-May carries news of a summer program for children; summer camp on the school's own island, Isola Bella; a fashion show and card party by the parents which raised $800 for the APTC treasure; and two pages of help to parents— items from the school psychologist and reprinted items from the Volta Review. The Lexington School for the Deaf has been publishing the Parent's Newsletter for 24 years. The February, 1969, issue, along with news items, carries a long list of warning and signalling de vices (doorbell calls and baby cry alarms), wake-up alarms (vibrators and light alarms), television and radio attachments, telephone amp lifiers, and telephone devices for transmitting phone messages by 309 light or buzzers. More aids were to be listed in the March, 1969, issue! It is evident that while the national organizations of par ents may just be growing out of infancy, some local chapters are well established and active. Objectives of parent-teacher organizations are sometimes also entertained by organizations of adults— citizens who may not be parents or teachers, but simply interested in better education of the deaf. The Oral Deaf Adults Section (ODAS) of the A. G. Bell Association of the Deaf is one such group. This is a small group of 225 members who actively promote the oral modes of communication in schools for the deaf and among deaf people in the community. In a letter to the ODAS members in January, 1969, issue of the Volta Review (p. 33), National Chairman James C. Marsters wrote: We need new challenges on how ODAS may serve, either as individuals or groups. Teachers of the deaf have suggested that ODASers in vite teachers from one school at a time to an ODASer's home for a leisurely visit and chat. Too frequently teachers are unable to ask the questions they want to ask of an ODASer at the often too-busy meetings at schools, etc. In the relaxed environment of an ODAS member's home, the teacher can see an example of an oral adult's family life and be able to talk with a variety of ODAS members as well. Thus, you can give teachers a tremendous boost in morale and motivation to do a better teaching job. Do share your interests, sports, and hobbies with deaf children, by inviting deaf children to your home for a short visit, or to stay over night with you. They've heard so much about you, but they've never met you! Is it for real? Go visit a family where there is a deaf child, pro viding they invite you. Most of the people who need 310 help the most, seldom ask for help or go to meetings. Shall we reach out to help them? Parents, teachers, ODASers, and interested persons are most welcome to suggest the various ways ODAS can help. Do send your suggestions directly to me at the Volta Bureau. The February, 1969, issue of the Volta Review announces that the ODAS's Teen Correspondence Exchange has grown and that a periodic newsletter has been established for its 125 correspondents. ODAS also has a scholarship award program (p. 97E). A full account of the activities of the ODAS in promoting oral education of the deaf is not possible here. Another national organization of adult deaf, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) has a long history of coming to the aid of various schools when they face legislative problems in their in dividual states. It does not have a separate organization of par ents. The NAD itself is an organization of people who have, for the most part, attended a school for the deaf. Most members are also active members in state school alumni associations. They may even be parents of deaf children. For the most part, they support the combined methodology in education of the deaf. The NAD is an organi zation o£ deaf people willing to go to the aid of their brethren in any place, and dedicated to the principle that they are not only for the deaf but of_ the deaf. The NAD promotes a Junior National Association, with chapters in residential schools across the country. The NAD is giving some 311 financial support to the new Parents Organization of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, and regularly runs a column for parents, edited by Mary Jane Rhodes, in the Deaf American (see p. 275). Through affiliations (see pp. 326-327 in the Directory of Services . . .), the NAD claims 14,000 members. More will be said about both the A. G. Bell Association of the Deaf and the National Association of the Deaf in Chapter VII. Both organizations, particularly the A. G. Bell Association which is a combined professional, lay, and endowed-research organization, help parent organizations. The two groups are usually at odds with each other— the NAD supporting the Convention of American Instruc tors of the Deaf in its maintenance of the combined system of com munication in the schools. Beyond the interest of strong parent organizations, there is a need for better informed organizations. There is also a need for understanding the "sociology" of parent organizations. There is a need for greater co-operation among parents, regardless of what means of communication fit their children. One interesting account of an effort to provide a parent or ganization with more information about the deaf is that of a joint meeting in 1965 of the California Association of the Deaf (CAD), which is affiliated with the NAD, the California Association of Par ents of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CAP), and the California Association of Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CAT). The meeting sounded 312 promising as a concerted attack upon the problems in education of the deaf. In a letter to the writer, a teacher who was active in in itiating the meeting states that there were 175 members of the CAD, 305 members from CAT, and 475 members from CAP in attendance. There was hope that this would be the beginning of annual meetings which would introduce the foremost educators in an effort to examine the issues in education of the deaf and determine the needs of the chil dren. Annual meetings did not become a reality. It is reported that the CAP officers did not want to back another joint meeting be cause they feared parents would not continue to support the many oral programs in the state. Subjective observations maintain that the single meeting held did influence many parents who had never before had contact with deaf people or with advocates of manual communication. It caused them to question the pure oral methods used. It is at least partly attributed to this joint meeting that the membership of the CAP has dropped from 34 chapters with a mem bership of approximately 3500 in 1965 to 16 chapters with a member ship of around 1000 in 1969. Observers report that parents are now more amenable to programs which employ non-oral means of communication than they once were. Professional schism is unfortunate because it is logically certain that the best means of communication is not a strictly oral one or a manual one for every deaf child. Parents who honestly search for an appropriate program for their child should know as much as they 313 possibly can about both methods in order to make a conscientious decision. Parent associations are perhaps the best places to obtain basic information since no school can demonstrate both methods. Few of the schools, especially if the school is small to begin with, would benefit by a reduction in the school's population. They can hardly be blamed if in the interests of a better school they come to believe that they can satisfactorily teach all deaf children and want to try. Regardless of eventual school placement parents may decide upon, they should not delay in obtaining the early services of a clinic in diagnosing their child's disability. Most educators would agree that hearing disabled children should have careful diagnosis and early instruction in communication. Currently, nearly all early instruction in communication is through oral means. There is little reason to believe that such early communication should not be oral; however, neither is there conclusive evidence that it should not be manual. Nevertheless, few will deny that some kind of early com munication is essential. Preschool Programs Preschool programs to help meet this need have been evident for some time. A historical overview and listing of resources for an in-depth review of preschool education of the deaf prior to the 314 16 1940's is readily available in A Study of the Proceedings . . . Historically, there have been variations in what a preschool pro gram is designated to be and for what age group of children it is intended. Whatever the concept of a program and the age of admission, preschools are not unique to the Sixties. The "Wright Correspondence Course," designed to help children between the ages of sixteen months 16 and four to five years, is mentioned in the Study. The course had 27 installments and 306 lessons. Dora I. Gay describes "The Sarah Fuller Home Work in the Homes of Preschool Deaf Children In and Around Boston,a program which sends teachers into the homes to teach children and to help parents reinforce the work. This pro- 18 gram was first organized in 1888. Virginia S. Gunthrie credits the McCowan Oral School for Young Deaf Children, established in Chicago in 1883, as being the first real preschool for deaf children. IQ In the Proceedings for 1965, Virginia B. Thielman described l%etty LaVerne and Warren Wesley Fauth, "A Study of the Pro ceedings of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, 1850- 1949," American Annals of the Deaf, Bulletin #2 (Washington, D. C. : Gallaudet College, 1967), pp. 135-144. •^Dora I. Gay, "The Sarah Fuller Home Work in the Homes of Preschool Deaf Children In and Around Boston," The Proceedings of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, 28 (1933), pp. 61-64. l®Virginia S. Gunthrie, "History of Preschool Education for the Deaf," The Volta Review, 37 (1945). (Begins with January issue, p. 5, and is continued, ending on p. 188.) ^Virginia Thielman, "Twenty Thousand Deaf Preschoolers— and 1000 Deaf Babies," The Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the Ameri can Instructors of the Deaf (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1966), pp. 368-371. 315 the John Tracy Clinic, Los Angeles, California, established in 1943. Although the clinic has many services including a demonstration home, a demonstration nursery school, and a research program, the clinic is known best for its international correspondence course (revised in 1968). Figs. 37 and 38 show a few sample pages of the course. By 1965, the Tracy Clinic was corresponding with 2,000 families and had already served close to 20,000 families. This particular course is for children under two years of age. The correspondence course covers a year's work, more or less, to give the parents understanding of their child and his special needs and to provide a home program in be ginning lipreading, auditory training, sense training, be ginning language, and speech preparation. We provide many games and exercises with built-in opportunities for success for young children as well as activities with built-in op portunities for the parents to talk, talk, TALK. We en courage a conversational way of life, since many parents have quite literally stopped talking, as it has seemed pointless to attempt to talk to a child who cannot hear or respond. We, in a manner of speaking, provide a bridge between home and school, as we help parents open avenues of communication and prepare their child for his first school experience. The printed lessons are only one part of our corres pondence course; the parents' letters and reports to us along with our personal replies, adapting our lessons to each child, are just as vital— lessons, parent reports, and our letters all to to make up the correspondence course.20 The C. S. Mott Foundation has recently begun to offer eight graduate internships in a training program called "Language for Deaf 20Ibid., p. 369. F HOU BABbl 6R0US EMERSWU LANGUAGE LESSON I BUILDING A C T IV IT IE S ^ HOMI STUDY PLAN FOR INFANT LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT LESSON I (A p w k P *J«) THE EARLY MONTHS OF LIFE 1. Newborn babies sleep "ON THE HOOF" in his hlghchalr in the kitchen most of the time. or near the iable wherp you eat, Talk as vou work. .. around the turn to him and when he looks house. You can find many at you say, "HERE'S A SPOON" chances everyday to talk tc (or "A CUP", or "A DISH"). Trying is their only your baby. Som* cf your time Hold the spoon, or the cup or way of telling us each day is taken up with house th e d ish so ho can se*. it. Sh-iw they are hungry or work or meal preparation. Talk him what yon are talking nhoui. uncomfortable. It's to your baby as ycu do your their way of expressing work about the house--cleaning, themselves. wasiiing clothes, making beds, A deep knee bend. .. is often cooking or doing dishes. the answer. When your baby is on the floor or is In his They react to only a few things; things they can see, hear, or feel: You don’t need to sit down... playpen, get down to his and talk for a long timel Stop level and talk for a minute A bright light working for just a minute, look or two. Don't t end from the at your little boy i ■r .girl, arid w a is t; b*uid at y o u r k n e e s ! say something. M. uybe you will just say, "HI. " or "HELLO!" A loud sound Often you will want : to nay your baby's name. "HI, , JO H N N IE ." NOT THIS WAY. "HELLO, LINDA.1" Call your Being too hot or too cold child by his name and he will ffl soon get to know I1 A sudden loud sound or being put down or. a hard surface toe abruptly may cause baby to "start" or jerk in a startled way. Remember you're bigger man baby. .. so always t ry to talk with him face to face. Many m others find that whet: the '1. During the- first few months baby is in his hlghcliair it in a baby will begin to lift his easy to talk to him because head, and he begins seeing his face is on the same level more. He learr.s by looking, as theirs. As your taby sits and feeling... and hearing. W i y & / GADES CHILD’S OUN PLAy (Agrten paye) FA M ILY FUN and exercise, play with other family members will build warm family feeling. As DESCRIPTION: QUIET TALK Baby's plav is much mere fun... anyone in the family plays when Mother, Daddy, or some with the baby, rolling a ball, one else enters into it. Babies PURPOSE OF THE GAME: love being played with, but they can entertain themselves for WHEE! To have a special time each brief periods. Your baby's day to enjoy your baby and to play, as he pulls or tugs at have him enjoy being with you things, pokes with his littlo and listening tc you talk. fingers, bangs, and chews will give you countless chances WHAT YOU NEED: for conversation. You can call your baby’s atten'ion to the toy A comfortable place to sit and he is playing with ty Naming it. hold your baby. A rocking chair is especially good. Talk about: A ro llin g b all, building with blocks, pushing A squeaky rubber o.y, a "eh' n-rhuo", there will I..' WHAT T O DO many g-'ud chancer? in talk A t"y ti«- th-.Iding, al.nilt the tnys. When your child is contented An excellent tlnn* for "Quid and relaxed, hold him in Talk" is before bedtime or A block he In banging or "HKRK’S YOUR MALI,." ynur arm s close to you. n ap tim e . chew ing. "I'LL ROLL THE HAL'..' "GET ’I HE HALL! " Talk and sing softly as you One mother suggested that "1 HAVE A D U M I K ." hold him and rock him. He the best time for this Active play. .. with Mother, "T H E DOGGIE DAYS will feel warm and secure activity is when baby first D addy, o r o ld e r c h ild re n i.: HOW-HOW." and will enjoy being talked gets up in the morning or now becoming gr*-ai fu>, N r or sung to. when he is getting up from a your child, so h r .1 i* in Families have favorites... nap. At this time he will not over excltlnj. H will when It comes to a lm o s t usually enjoy being cuddled help him develop a strong everything, and no doubt they and won't tend to wiggle. body. B e s id e s t i'll j fun have their favorite ways of rt*. 38 V E V E R M I LAWGUflGE TO B u y ^ BUILDING ACTIVITIES OR BORROU LESSON * (pfnk) LESSON XI The publications listed in this lesson are of interest DAILY DO'S AND and he brings Daddy's slippers, to parents of children who may have special needs. DIRECTIONS remember that many words are still confusing to him. Thank W asn't It a wonderful day... him and tell him, "THESE ARE FREE.. .OR VERY INEXPENSIVE when you told your child to DADDY'S SUPPERS. " Then get do something and he actually his shoes and tell him, "HERE John Tracy Clinic Correspondent:-; Order from: DID itV Baby's ability to ARE YOUR S HOES." Try not Course for Parents of Little D>»af John Tracy Clinic understand and follow direc to expect too much too fast. C h ild ren 806 West Adams Boulevard tions not only saves you steps, (Free to parents of d«af or hard L or Angeles, California 90007 but It is a sure sign that he Endless opportunities... do pre of hearing children, age five or is growing able to hold his sent themselves for you to help u n d e r .) own in the world of words. your child understand simple Now he has discovered meaning commands. Now that he is able Children's Bureau publications: and purpose in all that talk — to understand some of what you See Lesson III, To Buy or Borrow those seemingly endless sound3 say, he will proudly want to and combination of sounds -- that show off his new ability. When come from those around him. you ask him to "GET YOUR MORE EXPENSIVE COAT," and he understands, his A word of w arning... is In order, eyes will sparkle as he scampers The Young Handicapped Child. though, as your baby progresses. Order Iron;: by A g ath a H. Bc»wl»-y We are all proud of him and his W illiams and Wilkins Co. ($3. 50) new accomplishments, and the 'GO GET YOUR 428 East Preston Street more he does the more we expect Baltimore, Maryland 21201' him to do. But we must remem COAT." Slow to Talk, by ber he's just beginning to tackle ' — l‘-r frorn: Jane Beasley the talking world. Perhaps he B ur'-ni of (Write publisher fur price.) does understand a good number '['<■>'! ' h ° r ' ■ ' 'db-'j. of words, but he has many, many < V ilum hi» 1 in i ty more to learn in the years ahead. N*-w Y o rk . 1 lev: V.,rr. IV V Because he understands SOME of the things you say to him, don't The Child Who Never Grew, by Order from: Pearl Buck become impatient when he doesn't Jo h n Day ($ 1 .9 5 ) do so well with OTHER things you 62 Went 45th Street (The story of the mentally say. When you ask for his shoes New York, N. Y. 1003b retarded child whom Pearl Buck and her husband adopted) GADES I CHILD’S OUN PLAd LESSON XI LESSON XI (Qreen) DESCRIPTION: STORY TIME "DQ-AS-I-SAY" PLAY the common phrases you hav»> said over and over again. "ITT PURPOSE OF THE GAME: It's a trium ph... to your child ON." "IT'S OFF." "UP YOU when he can show you he under GO." "PUT IT DOWN." "PUSH 1. To introduce your baby stands what you tell him. He IT." "PULL IT." "PUT IT IN." to the enjoyable world of " W H E R E 5 will be delighted to make a game " TAKE IT OUT. " If he's playln j picture stories. out of following the directions w ith b a lls and box**s, te ll him t- T H E BABY: you give. It is up to you to supply "PUT THE BALL IN THE BOX, " 2. To help build his language the needed commands for his or "TAKE THE BALL OUT. " s k ills . p lay . He Just might understand youl Many of his playthings may 5*- 3. To enlarge his word The "Bring Me" 21 Children Through Parent Education." It is evident from the pro spectus that early childhood education of deaf children is the focus. Field experience is gained by assigning teachers in the program for two visits per week to two or three families with deaf children under three years of age. The program appears to be very rigorous and com prehensive. Its graduates should be well qualified to conduct and administer a program of home training of young deaf children. In such a program, parents are given professional help in promoting com munication and learning in their deaf child. The Sixties have seen a growth in the number of children ad mitted to preschool programs. Although the figures include children up to the age of six years, they are impressive. The American Annals of the D e a f ^ reported for 1960 a total of 3058 (11%) children in preschool classes. This represents 11 percent of a total school popu lation of 27,398 in 1960. In 1 9 6 8 ^ a total of 3,220 (19%) preschool class children were reported out of a total population of 44,020. The work of many speech and hearing clinics in the United States O 1 Teachers of the deaf with a minimum of three years' exper ience may apply by writing to Language for Deaf Children Through Par ent Education, 925 Avon Street, Flint," Michigan. Dr. Thomas Mayes is the director of this program. ^ American Annals of the Deaf, 106 (January, 1961), p. 162. ^"Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States," American Annals of the Deaf, 114 (May, 1969), p. 623. 319 must be classified as having objectives similar to preschool pro grams in developing communication skills of deaf children. While there are no figures on the number of children who might be served, there are 381 clinics in the United States and Canada. Except for the preschool at Austin, Texas (see p. 304), there are no reports that these preschools employ anything other than oral communication. Parents' Responsibility for Communication Early education of deaf children has the ultimate goal of en abling the deaf child to take his place in society. This may be achieved through good communication— and good communication must take place in the home as well as school. How does one define good com munication between parents and their deaf child? The writer feels that the answer to this question is contained in the answer to an other question, "To what extent are parents going to assume responsi bility for educating their children to assume social obligations in their own community?" This is a much more difficult question than, "To what extent are parents going to assume the responsibility for their children's becoming economically independent, taxpaying citi zens?" The second question might be more powerful if it is rephrased, "How are parents going to help their child learn how to go about get ting a satisfying job and keeping it?" Both of these questions have deep implications in the educat or's planning of school programs. But, can school programs do all of 320 the things that are contained in education of children? The answer lies in a better understanding of what is meant by "social obliga tions to their community" and what is entailed in "getting a satis factory job and keeping it." Much responsibility for training in job satisfaction must remain with the school. The personal atti tudes and interests which are included in this are also contained in the former question about community responsibilities. We will direct our discussion to personal attitude and interests related to com munity responsibilities. What does community responsibility entail for the deaf? As far as the writer knows, this has not been determined, but it was a 24 topic of discussion among four groups of educators who were moti- 25 vated into discussion by a paper read to them by Henry Redkey. Mr. Redkey raised a host of questions to which the educators addressed themselves in various ways. For our purposes, we will mention only one of the educator's points to the effect that parents must help in teaching children social responsibility. To what extent must par ents be able to communicate with their deaf children to teach them social responsibility? Much depends upon what parents may consider social responsibility to be. Mr. Redkey described what might be considered one phase of ^ Proceedings of the 34th Meeting of the Conference of Execu tives of American Schools for the Deaf (Morgantown, North Carolina: School for the Deaf, 1962). ^Henry Redkey, "My Neighbor Is Deaf," ibid., pp. 98-102. 321 ideal social responsibility. He described himself as an active per son in a relatively small community where political rallies are attended, a "Citizen for Good Government" organization is active, and church attendance is common. He said that he would like to swap garden talk with the new next-door neighbor, who is deaf, swap plants, perhaps, and generally make him feel welcome to the community. Mr. Redkey wonders how he might go about involving this new neighbor in various social activities the neighborhood enjoys. He wonders if the school his deaf neighbors attended prepared his deaf neighbors for such things as those which involve Mr. Redkey in close and enjoy able intercourse with people of the community. Assuming that parents are engaged in various community affairs, somewhat like Mr. Redkey is, do they feel that it would be to the ad vantage of their children to be active in a similar fashion to theirs? Are they able, or will they soon be able, to communicate enough with their child to explain these matters as they go about doing them? Can they communicate well enough to convey the feeling that the deaf child should expect to contribute his time and services in some manner when he grows up? Can they communicate well enough to help the child engage in these activities in a small way, as hearing children of other parents may do? In short, to what extent do parents of deaf children feel they should and can communicate with their deaf children? Do they think about this matter beyond the essential needs of daily schedule— meal 322 time, bed time, and perhaps play time? What is good communication, when does it take place, where, and why? 323 SUMMARY The status and role of parents of deaf children is extended beyond the definition presented in Chapter I. Difficulties parents have in understanding the relatively foreign experience of trying to communicate with a deaf child and arranging for his early training, as well as his school education, are outlined. The need to under stand some general theories of teaching deaf children to communicate in order to make intelligent decisions in encouraging research into better ways for deaf children to learn and to support school pro grams is discussed. The existence of parent organizations and their growing num bers suggests that they may become a far more influential means for systematizing education of the deaf through increased communication among parents and between parents and schools. A brief account of preschool education programs and training of people to assist with them is given. It is emphasized that few people discount the importance of early training for the deaf child because his disability threatens the development of early acquisi tion of communication skills and related socialization. Finally, a brief discussion of communication of parents with children suggests that the child's motivation may depend upon the nature of this communication. CHAPTER VII RESOURCES FOR EDUCATIONAL FAILURES Introduction Sometimes it seems as though little will really motivate children to learn until they come face to face with the reality of needing to earn a living. In short, educators fail to help chil dren to know "the score" and the relationship between "scoring" and academic skills. These are some of the children we call educational failures. Educational failures are not uncommon in education of children with normal hearing. Sociological and psychological forces which contribute to failures of hearing children also contribute to failures of deaf children. The writer presents his hypothetical view of some social trends as they relate to communication. In instances where there is reason for hearing children to have less communication with their parents, there is even less communication for deaf children in similar circumstances. The writer will follow his generalization with a "case his tory" which will serve to bind various phases of socialization of the deaf child into a social phenomenon of deafness, or a "system." The 324 325 system is viewed as an operation to insure the psychological and social, as well as the economic, security of deaf individuals. The writer will purposely ignore descriptions of the multiply handicapped deaf children and youth whose presence is usually found in schools for the deaf, for the sake of brevity. He will not dis cuss late school admission or all the possible detriments to learn ing such as broken homes, emotional instability, and the like. Also, the writer will not be able to include all the agencies which assist deaf children who have special problems and which serve deaf youth in bridging the gap between school and the world of inde pendent living. Reference to resource directories must suffice. A discussion of educational failure does not begin with the youth who shows evidence of failure, but with the infant who is the beginning of the failure. It is possible, for this reason, for the educator of the deaf to say that, "Failure of so many people to meet the demands of modern technology is probably a blessing for us." It has pointed out that the early life of the child foretells of the man or woman that is to come. This focus permits education of the deaf to attend to preschool training— long acclaimed so vital to the deaf child. Technological Juggernaut The early education of deaf children is becoming more and more the logical thing for which to plan. However, the weight of this logic 326 did not come from the wisdom of researchers so much as it has grown out of confusion caused by the technological juggernaut. Rural families coming to urban cities left behind them a way of life in which there was much communication. As mother ruled house and kitchen and daughters learned from her, as father ruled field and barn and sons learned from Kim, the family achieved common goals within a framework of direct, meaningful, and purposeful com munication. Plans, actions, and results were evaluated through talk as new plans were made and new actions took place. The urban way of life for great numbers of farm folk, whose rural domain lost lustre, sent mother off to one factory and father off to another. Parents were both away from home for long hours. By day, children were simply kept by babysitters, often without pur pose other than undirected play. By night, they were fondled by tired and uninspired parents. They were not involved in the same amount or vital kind of communication once important in rural life. Older children were sent to schools where "manure" and "slop" were dirty words. As city parents, these farmers— especially if they were poor— did not even own the basic tools with which to teach many of the basic "pre-vocational” skills children should have. They had no saw, no hammer, and no shovel or reason to use them. However, migration of rural folk to urban areas was not the only migration which affected our social balance. Cities were also fed by migrants to whom the Torch of Liberty beckoned. The huddled masses of foreign lands, yearning to breathe free, exchanged political 327 castigation for ghetto bondage. Head Start programs did not arise from sudden human sympathy for the plight of the poor, but from the overwhelming threat of rebellion and destruction at the hands of a mushrooming but already gigantic mass of miserable human beings. Technology was pushing on ahead, leaving in its wake men and women who lacked the skills to keep ahead of it. Children who knew nothing but poverty, misery, and the neg lect of human care or, at best, the love and language of a disadvan taged caste could hardly be expected to learn the culture of tech nology easily. Schools geared to middle-class American culture could not be changed overnight to accommodate these children. Changing the children seemed easier and the earlier the change was begun, the bet ter chance early training had to provide the children with the neces sary communication skills to progress in ossified American Schools. It was out of misery and threat that the realization that language was born of infant experiences turned attention to early training. The public's growing awareness of problems which any child may have when he is deprived of much communication and a variety of experiences about which to communicate has helped people understand needs in education of the deaf child. The importance of sufficient early communication has been firmly established. Deaf Youth Who Do Not Communicate— A Biographical Sketch Some of the reasons why deaf children are deprived of suffic ient early communication opportunities also explain why some of the 328 educational failures are not so easily identified, thereby making it difficult to rehabilitate them. Many of these failures are shel tered by families who believe their deaf relatives are not capable of looking after themselves. There are many deaf people who have become wards of the state. They are admitted to custodial care in stitutions for the mentally deficient. The writer intimately knows of one such instance. This one had a happier sequel than many others. This instance concerns a 20-year-old who left after the eighth grade at a residential school for the deaf. He returned home to live with his parents, but was unable to find employment. After two years at home, his parents had him committed to a state school for the mentally deficient. Considering that his parents were middle-class people (the father was a manager of a chain store), that this young man had reached the eighth grade in school and was not a disciplinary problem, it is difficult to believe that he could be committed to custodial care. Further investigation revealed that the young man had first been enrolled in a school for deaf children at the age of six. By the age of twenty, he had been transferred from one school to another a total of eight times. Six of these transfers were to different schools, two admissions were to schools he had previously attended. Probably due to the frequent moving of his parents and their failure to find peer companions for him at home, especially in summer, he never 329 learned to make friends easily. Much of his training was in oral schools and in oral programs in residential schools. His manual com munication at his present age of 35 is still not fluent. He has no useful oral skills. He does not give the appearance of being a vigorous or active person. He walks slowly, works slowly, and has slightly deformed features which include a mastoid opening behind one ear. Two facts may be realized from this account. First, the lack of a positive personality and a mediocre ability to communicate can be very damaging to a deaf person. Second, few specialists in charge of custodial care programs understand the deaf well enough to give them proper guidance. Society is still damned by a plethora of ig norant specialists, but the horizon is brighter than it was ten years ago, as we will presently realize. The above-mentioned young man would not have had such a traumatic experience if he were leaving school today. Most residential schools for the deaf now have work- study programs (see p. 338). Even without a work-study experience, special vocational rehabilitation and placement services have become available almost everywhere for the deaf in the past few years. After a short time in the custodial care institution, the young man above was allowed to leave the campus on weekends. He soon found himself a job as a "come-on man" for a car-washing establishment near the institution. After a few bitterly cold months of clowning to lure drivers into the car-wash, he got a job in a greenhouse. He 330 had had some training in this line of work at the last residential school he had attended. Eventually, he was boarded in a home outside the institution. He was then responsible for himself except for board and medical payments which he could not meet when seasonal lay offs occurred. Ten years after he left school, he obtained employ ment as a dishwasher at considerably higher wages than he earned in the greenhouse. Shortly thereafter, he was released from custody of the state. He has since been able to indulge in a wide variety of hobbies, has traveled alone across the United States and Canada, and has shown himself to be an independent and reasonably resourceful taxpaying citizen. Several factors were not operating for this young man. If he had been known by the deaf in a city where there was an active organization of the deaf, the leaders might have interceded for him and probably could have found him a place to live and helped him find a job. Today, of course, it would be a minor matter to refer him to the proper rehabilitation agency for guidance. If he had had social experiences with deaf peers outside of school and had not been such a "loner" in school, he might not have suffered from the stigma which deafness added to his lack of person ality and ability to "mix" with people. Not the least of his troubles was rejection by his mother. From her efforts to prevent him from becoming acquainted with many relatives, whom he later discovered he had, it appears that she is ashamed of having had a deaf child and that she had concealed his 331 deafness from her relatives. It can be seen from this history that common misfortunes which may happen to any child become calamities when coupled with the disability of deafness. Under such circum stances, deafness becomes a handicap— sometimes a nearly insurmount able one. Role of Organizations of and for the Deaf We mentioned that if our young deaf man had been fortunate enough to be known by members of a club of the deaf, its members would probably have helped him. There are local clubs in the larger cities. Some are affiliated with state organizations. Both local and state organizations may be affiliated with national ones. Most of these organizations are social, cultural, or sports clubs. There are also residential school alumni organizations and chapters of Gallaudet College Alumni Association, as well as a few sorority chapters. There is the National Fraternal Society for the Deaf. Some deaf congrega tions have their own churches and deaf ministers. The Catholics, the Jews, and the Episcopalians have active national associations. Information about these organizations, except for the local clubs, may be found in the Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States.^" It reveals, for example, a complete listing of state organizations with names and addresses of their presiding officers. ^■"Directory of Services for the Deaf in the United States," American Annals of the Deaf, 114 (May, 1969). 332 There are 46 state organizations, 38 of which are affiliated with the National Association of the Deaf. The total membership in these or- 2 ganizations is estimated at 14,000. There are 121 local chapters 3 of the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf, an insurance organi zation with assets of over five million dollars and with eight million 4 dollars of certificates in force. A recently organized Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf (COSD) has eighteen co-operating or ganizations : 1. The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf 2. The American Athletic Association of the Deaf 3. Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod 4. United Methodist Church 5. Canadian Association of the Deaf 6. Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf 7. Conference of Church Workers Among the Deaf 8. Conference of Executives of American Schools for the Deaf 9. The Deafness Research Foundation 10. American Lutheran Church 11. Gallaudet College Alumni Association information in letter from Council of Organizations Serving the deaf. ^"Directory of Services . . .," loc. cit. 4 Advertisement in The Deaf American. 333 12. International Catholic Deaf Association 13. National Association of the Deaf 14. National Association of Hearing and Speech Agencies 15. National Congress of Jewish Deaf 16. National Fraternal Society of the Deaf 17. Professional Rehabilitation Workers with the Adult Deaf 18. Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf^ The COSD, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, and the Professional Rehabilitation Workers with the Adult Deaf are all new organizations. The three were originally financed through government grants. The objectives of the COSD are stated as follows:** . . . to promote the best interests of deaf persons through the cooperative efforts of its autonomous organi zations, by a) Striving to eliminate social and economic barriers which handicap deaf persons. b) Supporting activity directed to the preven tion of deafness. c) Coordinating and strengthening the services of its member organizations. d) Providing liaison between organizations for ^"Report of C.O.S.D.," Proceedings of the Conference of Church Workers Among the Deaf (Columbus, Ohio: Box 8545 State Street Station, 43215, 1969), p. 25. ^From a brochure, Council of Organizations of the Deaf, 4201 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D. C., 20008. 334 the deaf and other organizations interested in the deaf and their problems. e) Facilitating the sharing of information about deafness and the welfare of the deaf, and pro viding general information about deafness. f) Enlisting the support of organizations and of the general public in developing economic, so cial, cultural, and other opportunities for deaf persons. g) Seeking funds for the accomplishment of these purposes. Annual forums by COSD have covered the following topics: 7 8 "Horizons on Deafness," "The Deaf Man and the World," and on February 26-27, 1970, at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago, the third forum will be held on "Legal Rights of the Deaf." At the first forum, seven panelists spoke on communication horizons, one spoke on social horizons, and one on economic horizons. The confrontation of supporters of the oral modes with those who sup port the manual modes is the kind of dialogue which may resolve the problems of getting research on all modes into grant stage. Whatever conflict was expressed in dialogue, it seems to have been resolved in the summary report as follows: "Several groups urged that research be supported in the improvement of methods for communication with and Harriet Green Kopp, ed., Horizons on Deafness: Proceedings of National Forum I (Washington, D. C.: Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf, 4201 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., 1968). O The Deaf Man and the World: Proceedings of National Forum II, (Washington, D. C.: Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf, 1969). 335 for teaching severely multiply handicapped individuals." However, 9 Boyce Williams, in listing some of the "Directions for Tomorrow" in his closing remarks, says:^ Many directions for tomorrow are apparent in the fore going pages. In these closing sentences, I shall highlight only a few. First, bend every effort to early detection of deaf children and immediate language training in the family setting. Second, establish priorities in teaching social mores. Third, stimulate as vigorously as you can among deaf people social interaction and integration. Fourth, stress at every opportunity the image develop ment of deaf people, including self-image. Fifth, expand adult opportunities for broader communi cation via telephone, TV captioning, and so on. Sixth, promote speech conservation and development services while removing the stigma on sign communication stemming from the Milan Conference of 1880. Seventh, recruit vigorously new professional and lay workers for the deaf. Eighth, eliminate paternalism. Ninth, improve and broaden deaf teacher training so that what a deaf person says rather than how he says it becomes more important. . . The summary of the latest research in communication of the deaf by ^Dr. Boyce R. Williams, Chief of Communication Disorders Branch, Social and Rehabilitation Service, Department of Health, Edu cation, and Welfare. *®Kopp, o£. cit., p . 85. 336 Kathryn Meadow and testimonials by Robert Panara, David Peikoff, and David Hayes must have made an impression upon others at the forum as a strong plea for exploration of manual communication. Some of the activities of the COSD are: Topics which are presently being considered under the context of section study include: Insurance problems of the deaf Legal rights of the deaf (counsel and interpreter) Adult education programs for the deaf Vocational training in the computer age Image-development Welfare and counseling services Driver safety problems Employment practices (discrimination) Mental health services The mentally-retarded deaf person Recruitment of personnel working with the deaf Community and communication centers Medical research Social and economic research Parent counseling Development of telephone— use by the deaf 337 Adult Education and Deaf Teachers The subject of adult education in the foregoing list is one in which "oralists" and "manualists" continue to battle. At least in some programs, the manualists seem to gain the upper hand. Deaf adults have been known to withdraw from programs where the oral mode of instruction leaves too much of a burden of communication on them. The public schools which conduct these adult education pro grams have had to employ hearing teachers who were proficient in the use of manual gestures in order to attract adults back into the programs. In some instances, manual interpreters are used. One public school continues to refuse to use deaf teachers to teach the deaf. Perhaps this is because to do so would be tantamount to admitting that adult deaf, regardless of their childhood education and pro fessional achievements, learn manual gestures and frequently come to prefer them as an expressive mode of communication as well as a receptive mode. As long as hearing teachers are employed, the facade of oralism can probably be maintained— that is, the adult students use spoken language, not gestures, in expressing themselves to the teacher. Deaf Students in Colleges and Universities'*-1 suggests that ^Stephen P. Quigley, William C. Jenne, and Sondra B. Phillips, Deaf Students in Colleges and Universities (Washington, D. C.: A. G. Bell Association for the Deaf, Inc., 1968). 338 special services for deaf students, such as classroom interpreters, should be instituted. This topic, which relates to training deaf teachers, deserves attention in any discussion of training of mul tiply handicapped deaf persons or those who have somehow missed the educative processes as children. History has shown that deaf teach ers of the deaf have contributed considerably to productive learning of deaf children and adults. They have often been acknowledged as models after which hearing teachers of the deaf have patterned their behaviors. Subjective observations have even suggested that the superiority of the deaf as a group in the United States, in contrast to deaf groups in foreign countries, may be attributed partly to the employment of deaf teachers for the deaf. "Drop-outs" Among the areas of education which have received special con sideration in the Sixties is the concern for students who are not academically inclined. Residential schools for the deaf have always had relatively strong vocational programs which account for the fact that the deaf have been able to compete with hearing youths in ob taining employment. However, with the shrinking number of jobs for unskilled laborers, school "drop-outs" (those who leave school before graduation from high school) are becoming a social problem. As in public schools for normal children, schools for the deaf have been instituting work-study programs where students in their terminal years of school are given supervision, counseling, and training related to 339 their employment as part-time workers while attending school. The transition from school to the world of work becomes a gradual process with help being given as needed. However, those who dropped out of school before work-study programs were instituted need help. Sometimes less adaptive deaf employees who suddenly find their job operations taken over by machines need to learn other skills. Sometimes adults are faced with a need to take care of themselves after having been sheltered by a family long past school age. These people are usually lacking in reading and writing skills, as well as vocational skills. Some of them may need long and "sheltered" employment before they can hold regular jobs. Special evaluation and training programs are in the pilot stage to provide for deaf persons who fall into this class. Evaluation and Training for Drop-outs Ernest Hairston, who heads one such evaluation and training center, says that most clients have poor communication skills. They are not even conversant with manual communication. Mr. Hairston's Project D.E.A.F. (Diagnostic Evaluation Adjustment Facility), at Goodwill Industries, 1331 Edgehill Road, Columbus, Ohio, offers a program of work evaluation lasting for three weeks. It also offers a program of work adjustment ranging from a month to a year, "de signed to assist clients in accepting and adjusting to a realistic working environment and to provide remedial education." To deaf persons sixteen years or older, it also offers guidance in social 340 adjustment, group therapy, social hygiene, communication skills, general counseling, interpreting services, medical services, psybho- logical testing, and placement. At the end of the first year of operation (4/6/69), the center had seen 70 clients. Of the 70 clients referred during this report period, 24 are employed, 12 are in training, 3 are housewives, 8 are institutionalized, and 7 are in our work adjustment program. The other 16 individuals are not involved in the project for one or more of the following reasons: (1) awaiting follow-up by counselor, (2) being held back by over-protective parents or guardians, (3) needed at home, (4) incapable of independent living due to the severity of the clients' handicaps, i.e., one client is severely cerebral palsied and mentally retarded as well as deaf, and (5) lack of motivation for work. Some of these individuals should be referred back to Project DEAF for further work adjustment, especially those whose parents resist outside help.12 In a private conversation, Mr. Hairston said that he was just beginning to persuade some of the state's custodial care institutions that some of their inmates were deserving of at least diagnostic services. The writer's own limited experience has been that there are a surprising number of deaf persons committed to such institutions who seem capable of learning to take care of themselves as taxpaying citizens, as in the case cited earlier. They may need only the special attention in diagnosis and training that Mr. Hairston's project can give to develop their potential and make the break from institution to the world of independence and self-support. This statement points 12 Project Progress Report received from Mr. Hairston. 341 out the Inadequacy of institutions which will not employ qualified training personnel who are able to communicate with deaf people. The writer is ashamed to admit, for example, that for 25 years his inter mittent efforts have failed to persuade the superintendent of a state school for the mentally retarded that his classes in speech therapy were not what the deaf inmates in his institution need. Publications 13 Family and Mental Health Problems in a Deaf Population pro vides some case studies and insights into the problem of socially maladjusted and untrained deaf. Among other writings, more generally applicable to an understanding of the reasons why some children do not receive sufficient or proper education, are a few outstanding analytical and descriptive addresses prepared for meetings of pro fessional workers and parents. One of them is Current Problems and 14 Trends in Education of the Deaf. Dr. McClure addressed the joint meeting of parents, educators, and adult deaf in California mentioned on p. 311. Addressing this same meeting in California, Edmund Boatner presented a paper entitled, "The Need for a Realistic Approach to the John D. Ranier, ed., Family and Mental Health Problems in a Deaf Population (New York: Columbia University, 1963). 14 William J. McClure, Current Problems and Trends in Education of the Deaf, (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio School for the Deaf, 500 Morse Road, 1965). Filmed as received , x 31+2 without page(s) UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. Education of the Deaf.""^ Dr. Boatner's paper is limited in scope, but it has an unusual, homespun flavor in which hypocrisy in edu cation of the deaf is partially unveiled. Dr. Boatner reports on a survey of 93% of all pupils enrolled in schools for the deaf in the United States. Of the pupils who left school at 16 years old or over in the year ending in June, 1964, 40% received academic diplomas. Of that 40%, those leaving public, residential schools had an average grade level score on a Stanford Achievement Test, or equivalent, of 8.2. Those leaving a private or denominational school had an average of 7.4. Those leaving day schools had an average of 7.3. The remaining 60 percent of the students received vocational diplomas and certificates of attendance. The students who received vocational diplomas had an average of 5.3. In short, 60% of the pupils who left school had an average of 5.3 or less. "Special Education Needs of the Deaf"^ is a clear exposition of the services a residential school for the deaf can offer to deaf children. The insights presented in Dr. Abernathy's address to the Conference of the Iowa Welfare Association in 1964 imply reasons why some children do not get sufficient education to enable them to be come independent and self-supporting citizens. ■^Edmund B. Boatner, "The Need for a Realistic Approach to the Education of the Deaf," The North Dakota Banner (January, 1967) (North Dakota School for the Deaf, Devil's Lake). ■^Edward R. Abernathy, "Special Education Needs of the Deaf," The Ohio Chronicle, 97 (December 5, 1964) (Ohio School for the Deaf, Columbus). 344 "The Failure of Education of the Deaf,"^ is a pointed sum mary of the status of the deaf and a brief survey of the latest re search related to communication and learning of deaf children. The writer believes that this paper should be carefully studied by any one interested in the deaf. As a paper addressed to parents of deaf children, it may have far-reaching effects in encouraging parents to re-evaluate the educational program in which they place their children. It further clarifies why some school drop-outs are still unfit for social independence. 18 "A Diagnosis of the Education of the Deaf" is primarily directed at the foibles of school administrators (Mr. Hoffmeyer is an administrator himself) in submitting to parental and public pressures even though they know that the educational practice being advocated is not always in the best interests of the children. He includes the A. G. Bell Association of the Deaf in his critique by saying that the Association should consider using its "... mission ary zeal in promoting speech improvement in all educational settings." Mr. Hoffmeyer1s almost scathing remarks covering the spectrum of edu cation in the schools might be inferred from the following paragraph: The time has come when society should be asked, ^McCay Vernon, "The Failure of the Education of the Deaf," The Kentucky Standard, 96 (January, 1969) (The Kentucky School for the Deaf, Danville). 1 Q Ben E. Hoffmeyer, "A Diagnosis of the Education of the Deaf." Centennial Teachers Institute, March, 1968 (Maryland School for the Deaf, Frederick). 345 parents should be asked, and educators should be asked to walk partway down the path of life and meet the deaf, instead of demanding the deaf to climb the total distance to compete in the hearing world. Expecting the deaf to use tools of communication of the hearing on the same basis as the hearing, is unjust. Each of the foregoing papers adds a dimension to the failure of society to provide all deaf children with the necessary skills of independent living. Remedial measures are being taken in rehabili tation to salvage the schools' products who prove themselves unable to get out and hold a job. Work-study programs in many schools are making an effort to make last-minute adjustments to enable the school product to pass inspection— that is, to obtain jobs and maintain themselves as citizens. In spite of admonishments to schools that programs must be more closely developed to meet the needs of chil dren, change will probably be slow in coming and there will be a need for rehabilitation, diagnostic, and training centers for some years to come. Assessment of a Workshop There is obviously a need to introduce vocational rehabilita tion personnel to innovative teaching techniques, and to introduce the school people to a better understanding of the role and problems of the rehabilitation people. Toward meeting this need, a workshop was sponsored jointly by Rehabilitation Services Administration and 19 Captioned Films for the Deaf. The report of this workshop, held at the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville, on March 4-7, 1968, 20 is entitled "Habilitation Through Media." The workshop was a "first," which probably signals a broadening of the concerns of Media Services and Captioned Films. As the writer was a partici pant, he will examine this conference as an example of how other similar meetings might be evaluated to insure increasing effective ness in diffusion of innovations. Neither the workshop report not communiques with partici pants prior to the workshop explained why the workshop was needed. The preceding explanation is the writer's own. However, information sent to the participants prior to the workshop did state that the objectives were: General Objective Orienting professional workers with the deaf in the use of new visual media and materials. Specific Objectives Identification of behavioral objectives for the habilita tion of Multiply Handicapped Deaf People Development of strategies for implementation and evalua tion of new media Propose guidelines for selection and use of appropriate media Recommendation of ways and means of distributing media to vocational rehabilitation personnel. 19 Now Media Services and Captioned Films. 20 <> 347 On the first day, general sessions were held at the begin ning and at the end— orientation and summarization. The intervening part of the day was taken up with concurrent and repeating demon strations on video technology, programmed instruction, projected materials and equipment, the production and utilization of overhead transparencies, and special devices and materials for five groups of participants, each group rotating in order to see all five dem onstrations. On the second day, participants became involved in the actual use and production of significant materials and techniques they ob served the first day— with one additional group attending to the concerns of evaluation of materials. The production of each group was presented at the close of the day at a "show and tell" session. The third day was taken up with the formulation of "guide lines and recommendations for the acquisition and distribution, utilization, training, research, and design of media." A total of seventeen specific recommendations were made and a number of gener alities submitted. The summary recommendation suggested that Re habilitation Services Administration and Captioned Films for the Deaf be "encouraged to work cooperatively wherever practicable in implementing the recommendations of this workshop." The workshop was a profitable one and well organized, consid ering its objectives. The general objective of orientation to the use of visual media was achieved, judging from the ability of the participants to identify various innovations, discuss their applications, 348 and speculate upon possible future use. However, achievement of specific objectives ("Guidelines and Recommendations") was a matter much more relative to the particular role of the rehabilitation personnel present. As an introduction to media, this workshop was an excursion into a relatively new realm of overlapping interests of education and rehabilitation which perhaps could not be struc tured at the time to obtain definition in the specific objectives; however, this experience should point out how such definition can be obtained dji the future. It is to this concern that we will direct ourselves. Regarding the first specific objective, identification of behavioral objectives. it was difficult for people with different functions in the rehabilitation process to make one single list of objectives. There were in attendance state rehabilitation directors whose broad concerns included other handicapped besides the deaf. Most participants, however, were specialists working with the deaf. There were also directors, coordinators, counselors, teachers, project directors, university professors, academic and vocational school principals, psychologists, federal administrators, evaluators, and research people. The teacher*s objectives, for instance, would be very specific as to the behavior of adults who have completed a training period. A counselor, concerned with placement, has at least three types of ob jectives: one, to communicate the deaf client's problem to the 349 instructor or to the training staff; another, to orient the employer to problems of integrating the client into his working team; another, to orient the client to work by helping the client to relate his training to his job. At higher levels of administration, the concerns of the re habilitation people may deal with recruitment and training of coun selors, orientation of state officials to a need for such services, and diffusion of information about the work of the agency to prospec tive clients, the general public, and industry, to mention a few probabilities. It would seem advisable for future workshops to group partici pants more closely according to their function-needs. Let us ex plore some phases of such planning within a framework which begins with the identification of techniques for diffusion of information as related to, but differentiated from, strategies suggested by Egon 21 Guba. It should become apparent that only certain strategies are appropriate to specific functions; only certain functions to the province of specific personnel. Often, only certain techniques can be used with given strategies. Finally, it will be seen that criteria for determining the selection of useful tools in any technique vary according to the situation in which different personnel are expected 21 Egon G. Guba, The Basis for Educational Improvement. An address delivered at the Kettering Foundation - U. S. Office of Educa tion National Seminar on Innovation, Honolulu. (Bloomington, Indiana: July, 1967) National Institute for the Study of Educational Change. 350 to function. We conclude that any in-depth experiences In the creation of programs and the use of certain tools are not of uni versal or equal importance to all people whose interest is rehab ilitation of the deaf. Accordingly, when rehabilitation people are brought together with or without "school people" the program should include sections in which the innovations to be diffused are tailored to the particular needs of personnel whose function is distinct from that of others in the rehabilitation "system." In this way, all who attend will receive relatively equal attention and will leave, feeling that they definitely contributed to the meeting or gained something from it. In short, a clear distinction between groups of participants at a workshop may lead to better planning to provide everyone with experiences which they can closely relate to their responsibilities. Dr. Guba's rationale for the following design is much more detailed than we will Immediately try to demonstrate, and its appli cation may be far more reaching than we will explore— it is our pur pose here only to introduce the reader to the concepts Dr. Guba presents, hoping that each reader will explore them with an eye to utilizing them in whatever endeavor he is engaged in. (See Fig. 40.) Dr. Guba explains each term in the design: 1. Telling. Telling is a form of communication which in volves the word. The word may be written, as in news letters, papers, monographs, books, articles, and the like; or it may be spoken, as in conferences, speeches, conversations, etc. . . . 351 STRATEGIES <■ TECHNIQUES Telling Showing Helping Involving Training Intervening Fig. 40 2. Showing. Showing is a form of communication which in volves a direct confrontation with the phenomena of interest, as in a planned or casual observation, or in actual participation. It may involve structured ex periences such as demonstrations or simulations; or it may involve looking at materials or displays such as pictures, slides, films, dioramas, realia, and the like. . . . 3. Helping. Helping consists of a direct involvement of the diffuser in the affairs of the adopter on the 352 adopter's terms. It may take the form of consulta tion, service, trouble-shooting, and the like. Involving. Involving takes the form of an inclusion or co-optation of the adopter. It may enlist the adopter in assisting with the development, testing, or packaging of an innovation; in acting as a "satel lite" or agent to cause others to adopt; in contribut ing the problems to which innovative solutions are to be sought; and the like. 5. Training. Training takes the form of familiarizing adopters with features of a proposed innovation, or of assisting them to increase their skills and com petencies or to alter their attitudes. It may be accomplished through formal university credit courses, institutes, workshops, internships, apprenticeships, extension courses, local in-service training, "T-ses- sions," and similar experiences. . . . 6. Intervening. Intervening consists in the direct in volvement of the diffusion agent on his own terms, not those of the adopter. It may take the form of mandating certain actions (e.g., adopting a statewide textbook), inserting certain control mechanisms (e.g., instituting a statewide testing program), or of in truding certain economic or political factors (e.g., arranging the purchase of language laboratory equip ment or causing board dismissal of an uncooperative teacher). The following explain the strategy terms used in Dr. Guba's design: 1. A value strategy. The adopter is viewed as a profes sionally oriented entity that can be obligated to adopt through an appeal to his values. So, for instance, appeals can be made on behalf of "what is best for the children." . . . 2. A rational strategy. The adopter is viewed as a rational entity who can be convinced, on the basis of hard data and logical argument, of the utility (i.e., the feasibility, effectiveness, and efficiency) of the innovation. The term rational is used in a restricted 353 sense here to denote behavior mediated by scientific evidence. It is obvious that a person whose behavior is mediated by political or economic considerations, for example, may also be acting rationally, but this meaning is excluded. . . . 3. A didactic strategy. The adopter is viewed as a will ing but untrained entity, that is, as having the ap propriate values, motivations, and the necessary economic resources, but as not knowing how to perform. He can therefore be taught what is needed to achieve adoption. . . . 4. A psychological strategy. The adopter is viewed as a psychological entity whose needs for acceptance, in volvement, and inclusion can be employed to persuade him to adopt. Care should be taken not to interpret the psychological strategy as one of manipulation; this latter strategy may be more properly subsumed under the political strategy (below) or the value strategy. Psychological strategies are more typic ally used to persuade the adopter that he has prob lems to which he must attend, to involve the poten tial adopter in the development of the innovation, and the like. . . . 5. An economic strategy. The adopter is viewed as an economic entity who can be compensated for agreeing to adopt or deprived of resources for refusing to adopt.. . . 6. A political strategy. The adopter is viewed as a political entity who can be influenced to adopt. . . . 7. An authority strategy. The adopter is viewed as an entity in a bureaucratic system who can be compelled to adopt by virtue of his relationship to an author ity hierarchy. . . . We now have a list of personnel in rehabilitation whose func tions vary in the system and we have a design which, for any one of these personnel, indicates an array of strategies and techniques he can employ to diffuse innovations related to his function. The concept 354 of diffusion of innovations applies in such situations, for example, as the teacher in rehabilitation training who attempts to get his students to adopt good working habits and acquire certain skills; the counselor who does something of the same but who is additionally involved in persuading employers to integrate the deaf into his plant or perhaps to up-grade the ones he has through in-plant train ing; and the state rehabilitation director who does something of the same but is concerned more heavily with persuading promising pros pects to join the ranks of counselors and teachers, the state authorities to fund his program upon recognition of need, and so on. Let us now choose one of the personnel to see how the design de lineates his diffusion behaviors. The function of a teacher in the rehabilitation training cen ter has been chosen because the writer understands this function best. In fitting the role of the teacher to the design of diffusion strategies and techniques, one immediately becomes aware of a need to identify the interests of the teacher. Although it was not pub lished, the Committee on Materials Evaluation accepted for report a design suggested by the writer, to help identify all the concerns of participants at the workshop. The design could serve many planning purposes, some of which we will illustrate in this paper; however, the committee was interested in its use in helping to identify several sets of criteria which would help rehabilitation people, who have different functions, to select suitable material to help them in their diffusion of innovative ideas or in their instruction. Let 355 us examine the design (Fig. 41). We can see that teachers might be used in a number of situations to deal with categories of people, unemployed or employed, either in a one-to-one tutorial realtion- ship or a group instruction relationship. Layers of cells identi fied as T-2, T-6, T-8, and T-ll indicate the teacher might be em ployed in a center, which we define as a place for training special groups of people who are handicapped by some physical disability. Layers of cells identified as T-4 and T-9 indicate that a person might be employed by industry to teach within a plant. Vocational school teachers are identified in layers T-5 and T-10. For purposes of our discussion at this moment, let us lim it our attention to the teacher in a special center for handicapped deaf people. Let us agree that there is no goal lim it. In addition to limiting our concern to handicapped deaf people and leaving goals open to skill, attitude, or knowledge, let us agree that the teacher will have a "long term" within which to teach. By long term, we think of any comfortable length of time needed to expose a learner and obtain behaviors which indicate a reasonable mastery of a skill, a good attitude, or adequate knowledge. One now recognizes that we have defined a situation that has relatively few restrictions. The targets are defined, located in a center that could contain all tools and programs (facilities) needed, and given as much time as needed to accomplish the training goals. With some idea of a teacher's situation, we can now consider what 356 A UNIVERSE OF CONCERNS OF PARTICIPANTS AT THE WORKSHOP "HABILITATION THROUGH MEDIA" Long Term DT-1 Short Term DT-2 One Shot Type of Instruction CLIENT Counselor Tutoring Center Tutoring EMPLOYEE2 Counselor Tutoring In-plant Tutoring Out-plant Tutoring Center Tutoring n u 3 H CLIENTS Counselor Instruction W m Center Instruction O □ Pi 4 EMPLOYEES In-plant Instruction < Eh Out-plant Instruction T-10 Center Instruction T-ll 2 STUDENTS Tutoring in School'' T-12 Instructing in School T-13 PROSPECTIVE COUNSELOR EMPLOYERS GENERAL PUBLIC DEAF PUBLIC SPONSORS FOR PROGRAM Specific Topic General Topic G -l G-2 G-3 G-4 G-5 G-6 "Unemployed person ^Employed person * * 3Unemployed group G 0 A L ^Employed group ^Counselor invited to speak or teach Fig. 41 357 diffusion strategies the teacher might be expected to employ to aid him in helping his "charge" to adopt some desired behavior. Since he has a reasonable amount of time to work with the learner, he can probably have all strategies at his command except the authority strategy. He will also be able to employ all of the techniques offered. Being in an equipped center will enable him to employ tools and programs to help the learner with almost no limita tions. Let us now compare this unrestricted situation to one with restrictions. If we were to think about the work of the rehabilitation counselor, we would probably find him performing many acts of train ing, whether or not they are directly his responsibility. A client threatened with the loss of his job because he takes an occasional day off from work without letting his boss know of his intended ab sence needs a short course in problems the employer faces as a result of employee absenteeism. Considering Fig. 42, we can see for this situation that the counselor has a "one shot" time limitation, and the goal is limited to attainment of knowledge and attitude in a specific subject for one person in a counseling situation. Thus, for the counselor, all cells except those identified by T-3, DT-3, G-2; and T-3, DT-3, G-3 intersections are empty. Considering Fig. 40, all strategies but the authority strategy could be tried. Possible tech niques would probably not include involving and training. Suppose a teacher in a center was faced with the problem of 358 A UNIVERSE OF CONCERNS OF PARTICIPANTS AT THE WORKSHOP "HABILITATION THROUGH MEDIA" Long Term DT-1 Short Term DT-2 One Shot DT- Type o f In s tru c tio n CLIENT1 Counselor Tutoring T -l Center Tutoring T-2 EMPLOYEE2 Counselor Tutoring In-plant Tutoring T-4 Out-plant Tutoring T-5 Center Tutoring T-6 C/3 CLIENTS3 Counselor Instruction H T-7 W O Center Instruction T-8 OS EMPLOYEES In-plant Instruction < T-9 H, Out-plant Instruction T-10 Center Instruction T-ll STUDENTS Tutoring in School‘d T-12 Instructing in School T-13 PROSPECTIVE COUNSELOR T-14 EMPLOYERS T-15 GENERAL PUBLIC T-16 DEAF PUBLIC T-17 SPONSORS FOR PROGRAM T-18 Specific Topic| General Topic G-l G-2 G-3 | g -4 G-5 G-6 “Unemployed person ^Employed person 3Unempioyed group ^Employed group ^Counselor invited to speak or teach Fig. 42 359 getting a student to realize the same things and adopt the same atti tude as the counselor we have mentioned. What differences would we find in the possible strategies and techniques available to both the counselor and the teacher? The strategies and techniques available to the teacher and the counselor are the same except that, additionally, the teacher could use training and involving techniques. Of more interest to us at the moment is the consideration of the effect that time and central facili ties have upon any effort to cause adoption of some behavior. The teacher has plenty of time and central facilities, while the coun selor probably has neither. The counselor, who has only from a few minutes to an hour to put across an idea in a meeting place perhaps dictated by chance, has limited media for communicating with and influencing his client. He can tell by speaking, fingerspelling, signing, or writing. He can show by using printed pictj i .j . He can help by perhaps agreeing to telephone for the client when he cannot show up for work, at least until some other arrangements can be made for communication between client and employer. He might intervene by refusing assistance to the client if he persists in irresponsible behavior. In such a coun seling situation, the utility of projected materials such as slides, filmstrips, motion pictures, and transparencies whether they are single presentations or a series, are of questionable value unless the content can be converted to the printed medium and reduced to 360 something that can be presented in just one meeting. Sophisticated media, such as the portable video recording systems, could be of great help to the teacher in many situations, but would be of dubious utility to the mobile counselor whose instruction is "out of his briefcase" rather than in a training center. It is beyond the scope of this paper to pursue this train of definition of interests of rehabilitation personnel for the purpose of relating strategies and techniques to the interests and media of situations in which certain techniques are being applied. These relationships have been demonstrated mainly for the purpose of show ing how such factors in the diffusion process need to be held in focus to aid in the planning of any workshop. The Tennessee work shop was used as an example. The Tennessee workshop employed several strategies for dif fusing innovative ideas with emphasis on the didactic strategy. Besides assessing a workshop for its tailoring of activities to the specific needs of a wide variety of interests of its participants, it should be profitable to consider how well various activities were utilized for service to all possible strategies, some of which possibilities might have been totally overlooked within the workshop endeavor. Finally, we want to consider the Guba design as an aid in identifying other projects than workshops which might be classified under other than didactic strategies. A workshop of short duration can hardly expect to carry most 361 22 of its participants much beyond the interest stage. The organiza tion and execution of the Tennessee workshop as an initial effort in introducing media to rehabilitation people deserves high praise; however, planners of future diffusion activities can benefit from further critical examination of this workshop. We should concede that to achieve the stage of interest for some of the participants, a closer relevance of media to the function of upper echelon administrators needs to be demonstrated. One of the functions of upper echelon administrators, for example, is to get the funds with which to purchase various media for training centers. Pre sumably, some of the administrators must go to legislators for funds, while others must go to department heads to request allocation of budgeted funds. Let us focus on the need to influence legislators. In trying to influence legislators, rational, didactic, and political strategies are the most likely to be employed. The tech niques employable would be telling, showing, involving, and helping. Although a didactic strategy is suggested, the training technique could not be employed because of limited time. Since it is for the sake of funds for innovative media that the rehabilitation person is approaching the legislators, he will need ^Everett M. Rogers in Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press, 1962, p. 81, identifies five stages in the adoption process: (1) awareness, (2) interest, (3) evaluation [mentally weigh ing the advantages of an innovation against disadvantages], (4) trial, and (5) adoption. 362 to show how media could facilitate learning. He could use a portable overhead projector and a transparency with overlays to present a design illustrating how learning sometimes takes place through group instruction and activities and sometimes through individual instruc- 23 tion and activities. In this way, the petitioner could show how group instruction can be facilitated by the use of the overhead pro jector, even as he is informing the legislators about the needs of a special training center. By showing some 8mm motion picture loops, the legislators could see examples of individual instruction in orienting a learner to some special process in which others in a group might not be interested. To insure a strong rational strategy, the petitioner should compare various media for achieving a goal showing how or why one medium might have certain advantages over another one. Two by two slides, for example, have some advantages over transparencies, such as easy storage, easy color, and sometimes lower cost; but, slides cannot be written on as a class develops refinements of the projected material nor can they be used to develop a concept in the fashion transparency overlays can be used. The Tennessee Workshop, as a way to persuade rehabilitation administrators to make an effort to get funds with which to purchase innovative media for training centers, was a didactic strategy, but ^Dr. Ray Wyman's design in "The Instructional Materials Cen ter: Whose Empire?" is a good model. Audiovisual Instruction, (February, 1967), p. 114. 363 it internally employed other strategies— value, rational, and psycho logical— which we would like to illustrate and perhaps discuss. In choosing examples of. value strategy employed at the work shop, the writer feels tfiat the Guba design in its present stage of art is sometimes subject to interpretation perhaps contrary to the meaning which should be attached to it. The writer views the value strategy as one of dubious integrity in that it seeks to persuade without offering objective evidence. Along with the authority stra tegy, the writer feels that it is not a very sound strategy in legitimate diffusion tactics. Value strategy might be identified with such statements as: P. 84 "It would be ideal (referring to more workshops like the Tennessee workshop). It is a wonder ful place to exchange information." P. 90 "I would like to comment briefly on Mr. Galloway's comments about services from cradle to the grave. We are hoping that this is not too far off in the future. But right now, unfortunately, we still must identify this vocational component." The rational strategy was imbedded in the demonstrations and show-and-tell sessions. If it were more consciously employed, it seems to the writer that more comparisons of one medium for a par ticular purpose with other media would have been demonstrated. The workshop report itself, as a telling technique for extending the influence of experience at the workshop, might have capitalized more strongly upon the rational strategy if it had emphasized innovations as alternatives to what was common practice in the past. Arthur G. 364 Norris, in the Keynote Address, made a special plea for critical ac ceptance of innovations in contrast to trance-like approval of admit tedly fascinating new ways of presenting information and developing concepts. The writer believes that entranced people are prone to antagonistic reactions when they come out of the trance and fail to see why an innovation is really superior or more useful than some thing they have been using throughout the years. The writer also feels that the rational strategy would have been greater served if it had been emphasized that Mr. William Williams' experiences in in-plant training were outstanding examples but not necessarily unique. Likewise, Mr. James A. Bitter's account of various types of useful media might have been backed up by accounts by other people summarizing successful efforts in training where innovative media were a deciding factor in success. The psychological strategy might have been easier to employ if there had been more homogenous grouping within the workshop. If, for example, people can closely relate some innovation to their own use, they can see more clearly how their own way of doing something in the past might not have been nearly as good as it would have been if they had had the advantage of the innovation. Involving members of the workshop in a Committee on Materials Evaluation was obviously a psychological strategy because participants would be committed to explore innovations, especially after they had been involved in establishing criteria for their evaluation. This 365 committee experienced several difficulties. Regardless of their function in rehabilitation and their past experience with innovative media, each member of the committee had to satisfy himself that he was in some way qualified to help establish criteria for evaluating materials and then to feel that he had contributed something of value to the committee's effort. Unfortunately, materials useful to members of this committee, who were "traveling" counselors, were often not the same as those needed by training center teachers. This general lack of homogeneity, which we have discussed previously, in terfered with achieving an early empathetic depth of understanding which would allow efficient identification of criteria for evaluat ing different materials for different purposes. Considering an economic strategy suggests other activities than a workshop. Administrators might be moved to set up training institutes in the use of new media for their field personnel if the Federal Government offered grants for this purpose. To turn down such an opportunity would be a denial of factors that comprise values, didactic virtues, psychological reinforcement, and political support. The authority strategy is another way of influencing the rehabilitation administrator. We do not believe that a hard applica tion of this strategy can achieve success in the long run. For ex ample, an administrator could be required by his superiors to obtain funds for installation of innovations in the rehabilitation center. But, unless he can also sell these innovations to his training center 366 personnel, the innovations might never be used or might be used only to the extent of display, rather than achieving a high degree of utility or effectiveness in their use. Obviously, unless the ad ministrator is also forced to take training in the use of media and can be persuaded that media have a place in the learning process, he can hardly be expected to infuse his field people to a degree where they will be inspired to employ media for better learning. As it relates to the Tennessee workshop, it is possible that some administrators were required to attend by their superiors in the state. It is possible that an authority strategy is the last re sort in an attempt to move a stone that is gathering moss. Once used to get the stone in motion, other strategies may then be utilized to keep the stone rolling. In closing this discussion, may we emphasize again that our purpose has not been so much to criticize the Tennessee endeavor as it is to show how any endeavor may be better directed if strategies and techniques are clearly identified in the plans for the endeavor. Strategies and techniques should be closely related to the reason some endeavor needs to take place, as well as the goals it ought to achieve. The pioneering work done by Dr. Guba and his associates, with due respect to others such as Elihu Katz, Everett M. Rogers, and Paul R. Mort, offers a way to begin to test plans and later evaluate behavior after activities have taken place. The Tennessee workshop was a pioneering effort to extend in novations from education of children and youth into the field of 367 rehabilitation and continuing education. It served to call attention to services available to anyone who has work problems after leaving 2 4 school. The Directory of Services shows there are a large number of centers and counselors serving the deaf. Most of the personnel have had special training in working with the deaf. Since the scope of this dissertation does not encompass rehabilitation, nothing more will be said here about it. It should be recognized that many clients of rehabilitation workers, and of evaluation centers such as Project D.E.A.F., are people whom residential schools have failed to inspire. Even more of them, according to several accounts, are young people who have been sidelined in other schools with or without programs for deaf children. The latter eventually live out their term of school con finement without acquiring skills needed for independent living. Obviously, more realistic consideration of curricula for all deaf children is needed. Schools must be large enough to accommodate the learning skills of a wide variety of abilities from many dif ferent experiential backgrounds. General programs, or special group ing, must be provided. Counseling of teachers, children, and ad ministrative curriculum planners is needed to obtain a more closely tailored learning environment for deaf children. 24 Directory of Services . . ., loc. cit. 368 SUMMARY Failure of deaf children after years of schooling is related to the general problems of communication in instances of social and economic deprivation of normal children. A case history of a deaf person is presented to show how a lack of self-identification and relationship to a group might result in failure of a deaf individual to achieve social and economic independence. Brief reference is made to a number of national organizations of the deaf which serve to identify the deaf and represent them in various social and economic capacities. A number of articles are listed which describe some of the general weaknesses of education of the deaf which may account for educational failures. An evaluation of a workshop held to diffuse information about special media which might be used in the rehabilitation of educational failures is offered. The evaluation includes a design which might aid in planning and evaluating other types of workshops as well as rehabilitation types. In conclusion, it is suggested that better ways of obtaining realistic evaluation as children progress through school are needed, as well as counseling for student, teacher, and administrative cur riculum planners. CHAPTER VIII IMPLICATIONS Since each chapter in this dissertation has a short summary, our review here will take the form of a number of "summarizing" hypotheses which our survey of education of the deaf suggests. We have stated that our objective was to attain a "logic of discovery" which deals with "reasons for entertaining a hypothesis" rather than following a "logic of proof" that relates to "reasons for accepting a hypothesis." It therefore seems logical that we ask what main hypotheses might be entertained, as suggested by our exploration. We cannot claim that we have discovered any new hypotheses, but we hope that our mapping of education of the deaf has clarified reasons for bringing certain hypotheanss. into sharper focus and that it will aid in more precise definitions of the hypotheses. In Chapter II, considerable evidence is presented to show that not all educators of the deaf are fully aware of the phenomenon of deafness. By this, I mean they do not seem to realize that there are many "cuts" or patterns in the "life style" that a deaf person may adopt. Also, most of these patterns can be scientifically de scribed, often predicted, and can be defended as nearly ideal 369 370 adjustment patterns to the disability of deafness. In short, it seems almost as though they do not recognize circumstances of life such as deafness, which are not amenable to immediate change, as having a deep and lasting effect upon individuals and groups. Some times it seems as though basic human needs within a variety of highly individualized patterns for living are disregarded in determining the educational program for deaf children. Educators who might be thought of as fully aware of the phenomenon of deafness do not seem to agree upon its varied aspects. This disagreement has led to a sharp difference in communication modes used in guiding the learning of deaf children. Professional antagonism bordering upon interfer ence with each other's efforts to help deaf children learn further injures the professional image of educators of the deaf. Accordingly, the first hypothesis which should be entertained, and one of the most important, is that INCOMPLETE AWARENESS OF OR DISAGREEMENT CONCERNING THE PHENOMENON OF DEAFNESS AMONG EDUCATORS OF THE DEAF IS DEPRIVING DEAF CHILDREN OF QUALITY EDUCATION. It seems to the writer that until this hypothesis can be accepted, there is little promise that education of the deaf will achieve any major breakthrough. This dissertation does not present a historical or biograph ical review of the field of education of the deaf which might provide evidence for entertaining the hypothesis that educators can perhaps reach agreements regarding the phenomenon of deafness. Instead, the writer has tentatively suggested some ways in which educators can 371 classify phenomena to help in closer Inspection. Through closer in spection, educators may perhaps reach agreements in identifying phenomena. By way of an explanation, the writer believes that educators are often like the blind men who reported upon the appearance of an elephant— one describing it in accordance with his experience in feeling its leg, another in feeling its tail, and the third in feel ing its trunk. How accurate a description the men could have reached by combining their experiences was not tested. How accurately edu cators of the deaf, with varied experience, can describe the phen omenon of deafness is a matter also relatively untested. The writer's designs for classifying factors which help identify the phenomenon of deafness are offered as reasons for entertaining the hypothesis that WAYS CAN BE FOUND TO AID EDUCATORS OF THE DEAF TO REACH AGREE MENTS CONCERNING THE PHENOMENON OF DEAFNESS. We have presented evidence that deafness, to be better under stood, might be examined by scholars outside the generally accepted field of deafness— the cultural anthropologists and the biologists, as well as the sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. There are some reasons for entertaining the hypothesis that SCHOLARS FROM AREAS OTHER THAN EDUCATION OF THE DEAF MAY CONTRIBUTE TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE VIABILITY OF MAN, HOWEVER DISABLED BY DEAFNESS. The writer has become keenly aware that his views of the phenomenon of deafness cannot be considered functionally useful until 372 they are tempered by those of other observers and writers, much as he has tried to temper their views in his assessments of their works. As Hubert Bonner says in discussing "Scientific Humanism," "It is sheer conceit in the scientist to believe that there is only one way of interpreting natural events." Dr. Bonner explains, "He [the scientist] selects and interprets them [facts] in the light of „1 his own motives and purposes. Our motives and purposes in this dissertation are to shed more light on the phenomenon of education of the deaf. The question arises, "Where wi 1 it be most fruitful to shed the light?" Some defense for examining details in education of the deaf which might bo considered mundtne or insignificant, even at the risk at times of losing sight of the whole, rests in the following statement from Dubos: In order to understand the mechanisms through which natural systems function in an integrated manner, the study of parts must be complemented by ecological studies of systems functioning as integrated wholes. . . .that problems of human life cannot be studied scientifically until more has bean learned of the submicroscopic par ticles and enzymatic processes involved in cellular func tions . . . is not only intellectual nonsense, it is a form of escape from social responsibility.^ One danger of examining smaller, but possibly very important, aspects of any system is that one begins to identify aspects with the ^"Hubert Bonner, On Being Mindful of Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), p. 20. 2 Dubos, op. cit., p. 218. 373 schools, universities and individuals associated with them. In doing this, one opens the door to the criticism, "It looks as though you are trying to punish your enemies and reward your friends!" It is difficult to defend oneself against such general criticism, es pecially when one begins to assess the reasons and objectivity of often subjective and affective human concerns for other humans. Cer tainly, when one considers the devotion of teachers of the deaf to their work, regardless of the theory guiding their practice, one begins probing the phenomenon of human concern for humans. The very best of friends, or those who have high professional regard for each other, are in danger of punishing one another. The danger of punishing enemies and rewarding friends is men tioned because it illustrates the most threatening variable affect ing the entertainment of the three hypotheses we have mentioned so far. To entertain the hypotheses, let alone explore them to deter mine their validity, educators must assume the attitude that no one is on trial for his past behavior. A defensive attitude will nullify any efforts to reach valid conclusions relating to the hypotheses. The focus must be on the future, to which the past is valuable only for whatever agreements educators can reach concerning the impersonal truth of what existed or happened then. An open attitude will permit the examination of all aspects of what has occurred. The most common and expected "can't-be-helped" difficulties and remedies practiced must be critically examined. Less 374 common and more sensitive practices must also be examined with frank assessment. As closely as educators can come, they must search for agreements which will identify "reality." "Science will remain an effective method for acquiring knowl edge meaningful to man only if its orthodox techniques can be sup plemented by others which come closer to the human experience of reality."^ "Human experience of reality" identifies the goal toward which our three hypotheses are directed. If these hypotheses should be accepted and prove to have validity, then it is logical to assume that educators will be more willing to entertain the fourth hypothesis we offer for consideration: THE EARLY AND CONTROLLED USE OF MANUAL GESTURES IN CONJUNCTION WITH ORAL MODES OF COMMUNICATION WITH PRE- LINGUALLY, SEVERELY DEAFENED CHILDREN WILL ENHANCE THEIR LATER SOCIAL, PERSONAL, AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENTS. To test such hypotheses as these, educators of the deaf must engage in what Guba called aexperimental design for which he says no 4 designs analogous to experimental designs have been developed. Briefly, aexperimental inquiry involves observations of what normally happens in the real world. For a clear explanation of the relevance of experimental and aexperimental designs, Guba cites Barker in the 3 Dubos, op. cit., p. 220. ^Egon G. Guba, "The Expanding Concept of Research," Theory Into Practice, VI (April, 1967), p. 60. 375 American Psychologist.^ Guba says, . .experimentalism and aexperi- mentalism are complementary— representing two sides of the same coin. There are times when each is appropriate, depending upon the inves tigator's intent, the degree of pre-existing knowledge about the phenomenon being studied, and the relative degree of control or flexi bility that may be desired."*’ In reference to aexperimentalism, the writer feels that O'Keefe's "Methodology for Educational Field Studies"^ should be carefully considered. The preceding hypotheses have to do with educational practices as they directly relate to communication development in the deaf child. At this point, we turn our attention to communication which serves to identify schools for the deaf as a system. The extent to which com munication between educators and schools for the deaf can be identi fied may indicate the extent to which "system" may contribute to the learning of deaf children, thus bettering their communication skills. This dissertation has identified improved communication be tween the schools, with the influx of federal funds— particularly those which have been channeled through Media Services and Captioned Films, formerly known as Captioned Films for the Deaf, U. S. Office of Education. ^Roger G. Barker, "Exploration in Ecological Psychology," American Psychologist, 20 (January, 1965), pp. 1-14. ^Guba, loc. cit. ^Kathleen Gnifkowski O'Keefe, Methodology for Educational Field Studies (Columbus, Ohio: Evaluation Center, Ohio State University, 1968). 376 The unique geographical separation of schools for the deaf, as well as the sharp differences among educators as to how deaf chil dren should be taught, was cited as detrimental to marshalling out standing educators to apply their combined skills toward solving knotty problems in the field. Specifically, educators of the deaf from all over the United States, in 109 schools, total only 4,156 g persons. This is a smaller number of professionals than the average large school system has from which to draw insights on various edu cational problems. Observation of education of the deaf suggests that we may entertain the hypothesis that THE GEOGRAPHICAL ISOLATION OF SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF AND IDEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES OF EDUCATORS INTERFERE WITH CO-OPERATIVE ACTIVITIES WHICH WOULD BENEFIT EDUCATION OF THE DEAF IN A SYSTEM-LIKE WAY. Furthermore, the problem of communication for deaf children suggests this hypothesis related to materials of instruction: SUCCESSFUL LEARNING BY DEAF CHILDREN REQUIRES SPECIAL MATERIALS, WITH EMPHASIS ON VISUAL QUALITY AND SPECIAL LANGUAGE TAILORING WHICH CAN BE ACHIEVED ONLY THROUGH THE COMBINED EFFORTS OF EDUCATORS OF THE DEAF IN CLOSE COMMUNICATION WITH EACH OTHER. Further, there seems reason to entertain the hypothesis that THE DIFFUSION OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS REQUIRES A SYSTEMATIC PRO CEDURE OF DISTRIBUTION OF MATERIALS AND PROGRAMS. ALSO, A FULL ^"Directory of Services . . .," op.cit., p. 622. 377 UTILIZATION OF SPECIAL MATERIALS REQUIRES IN-SERVICE TRAINING, AS WELL AS PRE-SERVICE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS. Observation of the activities of Media Services and Cap tioned Filins toward reducing effects of geographical isolation of schools, providing many materials, and offering special training in stitutes, encourages the entertainment of the hypothesis that MANY OF THE NEEDS FOR CO-OPERATIVE PLANNING AND CENTRALIZED COORDINATION OF SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF CAN BE MET BY A FUNDED AGENCY SUCH AS MEDIA SERVICES AND CAPTIONED FILMS. When the problems of overcoming the disability of deafness are so perplexing and professionals in the field of education of the deaf are so few and far apart from each other, it seems necessary that some means of bringing them together and consolidating their professional knowledge is necessary. Fre quent face-to-face dialogue is one means of generating creative ideas. It also aids good planning for activities which grow out of the ideas. Observation indicates that school systems for all children have accepted the hypothesis that the successful diffusion of inno vations in education requires an enlightened school administration, trained supervisors, and media service centers administered by trained specialists. There is reason to believe that schools for the deaf are rapidly becoming aware of the need for instructional mater ials centers and are trying to meet the need as quickly as funds be come available and trained personnel can be found. 378 The flow of Information between schools and among the deaf in general has been facilitated over the years by professional and lay organizations for the deaf through their varied activities and the publication of journals. Included in the network of published materials are newspapers and magazines of the schools for the deaf (the Little Paper Family). There is evidence to suggest the hy pothesis that A CAREFUL STUDY OF VARIOUS CATEGORIES OF ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REPORTS FROM THE LITTLE PAPER FAMILY MIGHT REVEAL CONSIDERABLE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PHENOMENON OF SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF, LEADING TO ASSESSMENT OF MORE POPULAR AND APPARENTLY SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES. This hypothesis may prove to be one of relatively lower order than the others, but I believe that to test it may be highly rewarding. There are many people who are not professionally trained but who work closely with deaf children— people such as dormitory counselors, houseparents, playground supervisors, and the like. The work these people do, and reports of their observations, frequently appear in school papers. Various activities that are carried on during and after school hours are also reported. Together, these reports re flect what I like to think of as a "school culture" which, if analyzed, may reveal certain practices which may encourage desirable behaviors in deaf children. Moreover, as we stated earlier, the school papers are a source of early reports of research activities being conducted in the schools, as well as innovative in-service training programs and experimental 379 efforts toward better education for deaf children. Some reports, no matter how significant, do not reach professional journals of wide circulation and often those which do reach such journals do so slowly. Finally, the successes of teachers in the classroom often seem small to them and their modesty, if not timidity, hinders bold dissemination of what may actually be important contributions to learning. The Little Paper Family is often the only means employed for reporting such activities. The parents of deaf children, as a small group of people with very special problems and needs, were considered— suggesting the hypothesis that PARENTS, BETTER INFORMED ABOUT THE NEEDS OF DEAF CHILDREN AND TRAINED TO MEET THESE NEEDS VERY EARLY IN THEIR CHILD'S LIFE, CAN CONTRIBUTE IMMENSELY TO THE CHILD'S ALL-AROUND DEVELOPMENT AND MAKE BETTER DECISIONS REGARDING THE CHILD'S SCHOOL PLACEMENT. In placing a child in a school, parents must ask in what likely ways a particular child can be helped to discover adjustment to his hearing disability. There are reasons to suppose that such determination could be helped by learning something about the his tories of other deaf people. To make successful determinations from the histories of other deaf people, several assumptions must be ac cepted. First, the psychological needs of a deaf child, or adult, are probably the same as they are for any human being. Second, the social needs of the deaf are the same as for other people. Third, the disability of deafness interferes with the chief means of human contact— 380 speech and hearing. In the way of explanation of the third assump tion, by the time the child reaches school age, the effects of hear ing disability are probably beyond reversing. By this, we mean that the language handicapped, profoundly deaf child will always display the consequences of early disability in his speech and per haps in his writing and reading ability. The extent of what we are implying here might be clarified by saying that even if physical deafness could be reversed later in life, the profoundly deaf per son would not likely benefit because he could not acquire ability to use the hearing he has suddenly gained, and he has already made social adjustments and established relationships with other people which might be traumatic to break. Mary Jane Rhodes, a mother of a deaf boy, extends the impli cation of hearing disability with these words: The most important thing that I have to say to you is that I hope and pray that you are willing to let your child be deaf. You must accept the fact that your boy or girl is never going to hear— that their world will be a silent one— and that it is up to [you] to adjust yourself to their world. I have come in contact with many parents of children and have seen boys and girls whose lives are ruined because their parents don't want a deaf child. They don't want a deaf child, because having a deaf child means that they would have to adjust their lives to their child's handicap. They would rather pretend that the deafness doesn't exist— and that if they wait long enough all of the problems will go away. But deafness doesn't go away. I have yet to hear of a mir acle happening to make a deaf child into a hearing one. If you really love and want to help your child, you will get your feet down on the ground and get busy learning how to cope with the handicap of deafness. If you have been look ing forward to the day when your deaf child will learn to 381 live In a hearing world— you had better forget It— because your children are never going to live In a hearing world. They can't hear, and, therefore, it Is impossible for them to live in a hearing world. Now if you would like to help your deaf children learn to live with a hearing world, there is much that you can do. The fourth assumption is: regardless of how patterns of ad justment may be difficult to change once they are determined, there are a variety of ways the deaf may achieve various satisfying social arrangements. As Lee Meyerson's description of adjustment patterns’^ indicates, certain patterns may be more suitable for certain deaf individuals for various reasons. Unfortunately, the histories of deaf individuals which might be helpful, available to us in hard-bound covers, are few. Further, these few books reveal the very personal adjustment of people who are not representative of the larger numbers of deaf people— indeed, the people who wrote were not profoundly deaf, either. As an al ternate to personal histories, would accounts of larger groups of deaf people in society be more useful in guiding parents of deaf children? Would they help in determining better educational prac tices? The writer believes they would. He believes that a descrip tion of the social organizations of the adult deaf in the preceding ^Mary Jane Rhodes, "A Parent Speaks Out . . .," The Mississi- ppian 65 (November, 1969), pp. 1-5. (This is a residential school for the deaf paper which acknowledges the Tennessee Observer as its source. The Observer is the publication of the Tennessee School for the Deaf, Knoxville.) ^®Lee Meyerson, loc. cit., pp. 148-165. 382 chapter suggests that A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE STATUS AND ROLE OF THE ADULT DEAF IN SOCIETY SHOULD CONTRIBUTE TO MORE DISCERNING AND REALISTIC EDUCATIONAL GOALS FOR DEAF CHILDREN. An understanding and assessment of the achievements of the deaf may reveal that certain educational practices and social ar rangements of adult deaf have been more effective in their achiev ing more satisfying personal roles, higher social status, and better economic levels than certain other practices or social arrangements. This assessment is important to educators to the degree that it shows them how they might do better in the future. Although it does not matter so much today what they did yesterday, understanding and assessment do matter in what they will do tomorrow. Clearly, schism has no place in education of deaf children, for schism is founded on old beliefs that have evidently not served deaf children well in the past one hundred and fifty years. Fur thermore, to paraphrase Edgar Dale, we live in a revolutionary age. If we ignore this, we do so at peril to ourselves and to the society we serve. Our real choice is whether we want to help all deaf men and women gain access to excellence or whether we shall huddle a while longer around our educational prerogatives, to teach as we were taught, in fear that someone will take them from us.^ ^Edgar Dale, "Journalism: A New Dimension," Newsletter, 30 (February, 1965), p. 4. LIST OF REFERENCES Abernathy, Edward R. "Special Education Needs of the Draf," The Ohio Chronicle, 97 (December 5, 1964). (Ohio School for the Deaf, Columbus.) Adler, Edna P., ed. "Deafness," (A monograph) Journal of Rehabili tation of the Deaf, March, 1968. American Annals of the Deaf, 106 (January, 1961). Avery, Charlotte B. 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