Deaf Education

I was crouching, playing with a wooden bead maze entranced with the different colours that it entailed. I was in this large regal office, the desk was made out of dark wood; certificates with glossy frames were hanging around the office. There stood a doctor behind the desk as he broke the news to my father that I was indeed hearing impaired. As they quietly discussed the best action of plan for me, I suddenly heard my father yell, “She is not going to deaf school!” and as the shouting got louder, the words started to sound muddled to me. Red with rage, my father grabbed me by the hand and slammed the door; I took a glance back and did not fully comprehend the life changing appointment that just took place in front of me. At the tender age of 5, I was diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss occurs with a combination of inner ear

The rich history of American Deaf culture in conjunction withlanguage displays the determination along with the brilliance of these people. Though the hearing world had called them sin, denounced them as dumb, these people rose up against their oppressors, making a new world for themselves.

Communication with the hearing impaired learner will help the teacher to access what support would be suitable for the learner. The learner can inform the teacher as to what issues they are having and how the environment can be made more suitable. Agreement between the learner and the teacher about methods of communication will be useful; and the teacher should also take the opportunity to inform other learners in the group about their disabled peer although it will require the input of the disabled learner. Any negative behaviour in the classroom should be dealt with appropriately. All learners are encouraged to feel confident around each other

In the past, many deaf or even hard-of-hearing students were sent away to special schools for the Deaf, and were not able to associate with the hearing at all. Now, many schools, both public and private, have programs to help these students and make sure that they can stay in a regular school that is close to home.

Mark Drolsbaugh’s Deaf Again book gives a detailed account of his experience with becoming deaf in both a hearing and deaf world. It includes the awkwardness and un-comfortability he felt in hearing environments, within is personal family dynamic and in deaf safe havens where he learned to adjust, and grow for the betterment of him learning ASL and in general, becoming emerged within Deaf culture. Drolsbaugh starts the book off by introducing how life for deaf people, even when giving birth, can be a struggle (due to society not being well informed on how to effectively communicate and treat Deaf individuals). Drolsbaugh’s mother, Sherry, wasn’t properly given epidural while giving birth to him, and as she made noises to best express that something was wrong, the nurse brushed it off. Once Mark was born, and Sherry got up the needle wasn’t in her back but on the bed. Looking at how communication issues can lead to negative results, throughout the rest of the book Drolsbaugh sheds light on this phenomenon, specifically focusing on the educational environment and the interactions between and among hearing and deaf communities.

Deaf is defined as partially or completely lacking the sense of hearing as to where Deaf culture refers to members of the Deaf community who share common values, traditions, norms, language and behaviors. According to the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, three out of every 1,000 American children are born deaf or with hearing loss and 9 out of 10 of those children are born to fully-hearing parents. Most of these children who are deaf will attend public schools. By all, means teaching children who are deaf is not easy an easy task and can seem challenging for both the students and the teacher alike but it is certainly accomplishable. Therefore, in order for children who are deaf to succeed in a mainstream classroom, the teacher must first understand the Deaf culture and counteract stereotypes so that he or she may better serve students who are deaf. The article Deaf Culture Tip Sheet by Professor Linda Siple (2003) and Deaf Myths by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (2013) elaborates on these exact issues and provides a better insight on the culture of the Deaf community.

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, an American minister and education reformer, played a very important role in the education of the deaf in the United States. When Thomas Gallaudet was only fifteen years old, he attended Yale College where he graduated at the top of his class before his eighteenth birthday. In the year 1814, he visited his family in Hartford, Connecticut. While there, he noticed young Alice Cogswell not playing with any of the children around her. He decided to find out why she was alone. When he met Alice, he discovered she was deaf. Gallaudet, taking an interest in the little girl, decided to try to communicate with her because he did not know any sign language. He pointed at his hat, and then he spelled

Lane’s perspective was to argue about the deaf segregation education in a hearing school and bilingual language minorities.

The National Deaf Education Project was founded in 1998 by Lawrence Siegel. Lawrence M. Siegel has been an advocate and attorney for special education cases beginning in 1979 (National Deaf Education Project). He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley (National Deaf Education Project). He has strong beliefs regarding the Deaf community and culture and the Deaf’s rights and liberties as Americans. Specifically, he believes that communication and language is a right for human beings and should become a necessity for learning. He established the NDEP to become the model and articulate a plan for communication in the educational setting for deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States (National Deaf Education Project). The board of the NDEP consists of representatives of Gallaudet University and collaborators of the project of the American Society for Deaf Children, the Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools for the Deaf, the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, Gallaudet University, and the National Association of the Deaf (Gallaudet). This organization continues to aid in reforming the communication systems for the deaf and hard of hearing in public educational systems.

In the following study researchers compared two instructional approaches; co-teaching inclusion and solo-taught special education for students with learning disabilities in regard to their overall academic achievement. Participants of the study included twelve inclusive/co-teaching classrooms, which were compared to thirteen special education classrooms. In the co-teaching contexts the emphasis was centered on the inclusion of students with learning disabilities into a general education classroom. Co-teachers were free to choose the instructional method they would embark. Special education teachers solely instructed students with learning disabilities in small group classrooms.

It is people like William J. Stokoe and many special educators that change the way deaf and hard of hearing has an impact on our life. We belong now. With the hard work of Stokoe, the deaf community can now rely on a successful education which includes a bilingual mode of communication that leads to a bright future. Hearing impaired students can practice self-advocacy in order to thrive. Educators can practice simple models and strategies and provide key accommodations to extend the education experience for those who are hard of hearing or

My experience working as a COTA at the MS School for the Deaf has been one of my favorite!. In this setting I have encountered many experiences where my knowledge and appreciation of various cultures and diversity factors, has impacted my therapeutic relationships with my students, their teachers and their families. When I started working at the school I had little experience in the school setting in general, and very little experience with the deaf culture. I knew two things after my first day. I was very intrigued with the deaf culture and also, that I had a lot to learn! I took time to enroll in a beginner community sign language course, bought a beginner sign language book and browsed the internet for proper communication etiquette within

After reading over this quote and the first chapter of the textbook a few times, I believe that that this quote as a whole is saying how evidence based practices are extremely important while teaching, but can be harmful to students if they aren't up to date and current. Particular with deaf students it is important also know about the medical aspect of being deaf since that will effect the way they are able to learn. So stay up to date with all of the different medicine or technology that is used for deaf students in prominent when teaching them. For example, as a teacher of a deaf student you should know what a cochlear implant is and know some effective ways to communicate with students. Since deaf students are becoming more main streamed

Auditory challenged individuals are comprised of nearly 10,000,000 hard-of-hearing and 1,000,000 functionally deaf Americans and a half a million were born or diagnosed deaf before turning eighteen years old in the United States (Mitchell 2006). A great percentage of this demographic primary language is American Sign Language (ASL). These individuals are considered a verbal minority. Within the deaf community “deaf” is defined as people who have been deaf or hard of hearing entirely or most of their lives. In addition to sign language, auditory challenged individuals use broken speech usually no higher than a fourth grade level (Hauser, O’Hearn, McKee, Steider, & Thew 2010). The basic deaf education curriculum does not build a solid

Collaboration in the world of education has become an increasingly popular method of addressing a variety of school issues, such as curriculum design, behavioral plans, professional development and management of resources. One of the areas in which collaboration is becoming more popular is co-teaching in special education, where special education teachers and general education teachers share the planning and instruction responsibilities for inclusion classrooms (Friend & Cook, 2010). As academic standards for the education of students with disabilities are held to the same standards as their typical peers due to the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the co-teaching model has been increasingly