Editorial

EDITORIAL This final Editorial concludes two decades during which I have been privileged to be Editor of the Annals. It will consist a look back on what has happened in deafness over this period. Onset of Deafness The major change during the last 20 years has ben in the nature of the deaf population. As late as the early 60s, the Gallaudet student body was 40 to 60 percent postlingually deafened, reflecting the distribution of deaf students in general . Today, more than 95 percent have hearing losses of congential onset. Whereas the education of a deaf person who acquired English prior to the loss of hearing is relatively simple, teaching a youth born deaf is an awesome task we have yet to master. It is this dramatic change in the onset of hearing loss that has masked much of the progress in educational approaches, methods, and technology. The Gallaudet Protest Advances over the last 20 years were in some respects culminated by the Gallaudet Protest of 1988. The protest was symbolic of a growing drive on the part of a core of leaders in the deaf community to achieve greater influence on what happens to deaf propel. In fact, it was the result of a gradually increasing number of deaf achievers who are obtaining the professional and academic credentials and knowledge which lead to power and influence. Changing Status of Sign Language It is hard to believe today, but for 200 years, professionals in deafness refused to believe that sign language was a language . Oralists, who did not even know the language, denounce it as nothing more than a series of gestures. Even worse, those who used American Sign Language (ASL) fluently , e.g., interpreters and deaf people, saw it as only a crude system of iconic movements and signals, or else "abbreviated English." Ironically, it was psycholinguists (first Stokoe, then Bellugi and others), not professionals directly in deafness, who established ASL as a language in the same sense that English, French, Russian, etc., are languages. Once ASL achieved this status it game impetus to the move toward Total Communication which was already in progress. Total Communication and Bilingualism The bitter struggle over the combined use of manual and oral communication over the last twenty years has resulted in a dramatic shift toward Total Communication. The shift has resulted in academic improvements and greater social maturity on the part of congenitally deaf youth, although educational levels are disturbingly low. While Total Communication provides more information to deaf people than oralism, it rarely presents the full English or ASL patterns intended. Consequently, an increasing number of professionals, many of whom are deaf, are considering a bilingual approach. The educational success of deaf children of deaf parents is cited as support for bilingualism. Improved Hearing Aids Over the past two decades hearing aid technology has enabled these instruments, which formerly were of meaningful value only to hard-of-hearing people, to help significantly some individuals with severe and profound sensorineural losses. Thus, there is an increasing percentage of deaf and hard-of-hearing people who can interact with the hearing population at work, in school, and socially. Assistive Devices and Interpreters Sign language interpreters, decoders, captioned films, TDDs, etc., have greatly reduced the cognitive deprivation that deaf people endured for centuries. This has enriched their lives. Ironically while making them more a part of "hearing culture," it has perhaps reduced aspects of "deaf culture." For example, deaf clubs no longer play the central socio-cultural role they did in the late 60s and early 70s. There are a number of other trends over the last twenty years, but space does not permit discussion of them. Those Responsible In concluding my two decades as Editor of the Annals, two persons deserve my deep-felt gratitude, that of all Annals readers, that of all those in the field of deafness. Without the efforts and competence of the late Dr. William McClure and current chairperson of the Joint Annals Committee, Dr. E. Ross Stuckless, the Annals would have folded long ago due to lack of financial resources. These two men saved the journal and made possible the key role it plays in disseminating new information...