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10: The Application of Bilingual-Education Law and Programs to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
- Gallaudet University Press
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10 ! THE APPLICATION OF BILINGUAL-EDUCATION LAW AND PROGRAMS TO DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING STUDENTS A language is a horizon. —Roland Barthes, “What Is Writing?” in Writing Degree Zero By the time Sharon was twelve months old, her parents sensed that something was amiss, but Sharon’s pediatrician assured her parents that Sharon had met all her developmental milestones and would be fine. By eighteen months, Sharon was still not responding to environmental sounds, so her parents took her back to the doctor, who suggested further testing but also suggested that Sharon might be retarded. Sharon’s parents then went to a specialist, who informed them that Sharon was profoundly and irreversibly deaf. She had just turned two and a half. Although Sharon’s parents were shocked and even depressed, they soon began to research the matter. They contacted local support groups and talked to other families with deaf children. At first, they hoped she could be taught to communicate like a hearing child. They worked with a speech therapist who gave them strategies to help Sharon learn to recognize and produce spoken language, to read lips. At age three, Sharon was placed in an oral program, but by five, she had developed few, if any, expressive or receptive language skills, had no pre-reading skills, and acted out constantly. When she wanted something, she would scream and hit the table, the walls, anything nearby, including herself. There were too many days when her mother or father stood nearby, asking Sharon, over and over, slowly and loudly, “What? Tell us what you want.” Finally, out of pure desperation, Sharon’s parents attended a conference of a national organization of families with deaf and hard of hear125 126 / A Constitutional Right ing children. Sharon’s parents were immediately struck by the constant movement of the children. They ran everywhere, but more importantly, they were signing to each other, to the adults, to anyone within eyeshot. Sharon’s parents went outside and cried. During the second day of the conference, Sharon’s parents attended a workshop on language development. The speaker, a deaf individual who taught at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.—the only liberal arts university for deaf people in the world—carefully explained how every child, hearing or deaf, needed a native language base, whether Spanish or English or ASL. She explained that studies increasingly showed that it did not matter whether a baby first developed sign language or oral language. The key was having a formal language base from which the child could then learn English and become literate. She explained that ASL was the natural and formal language of deaf people and that when they developed ASL skills, particularly at an early age, they generally did as well in school as their hearing peers, all other things being equal. When Sharon’s parents left the workshop, they saw Sharon on the playground standing with two other deaf children, who eagerly signed to her and at one point, even took her hand to form a sign. When Sharon was six, her parents took her to a language assessment center affiliated with the local medical school and university. The center’s findings were clear: Sharon needed to develop ASL as quickly as possible. Her parents took a deep breath and enrolled Sharon in a program associated with the center. She slowly but surely began to learn ASL. Sharon’s parents also began to learn ASL, not an easy task given its visual nature and different grammatical structure. But slowly they learned enough to communicate with their daughter. Her tantrums stopped, and more importantly, they saw her smile. At Sharon’s next IEP meeting, the school administrator reviewed all the reports, including those from the center. “I must be honest with you. I am usually fairly sure, even before the meeting, what every one of my children need. But not today. It is clear Sharon is not developing oralaural skills, and so it would be my recommendation that she not continue in our oral program.” Sharon’s mother responded, “We agree. Sharon has been without language for six years. It isn’t anyone’s fault. We hoped, we prayed, we struggled, to help her develop oral language because we want our daughter to function and be happy in a hearing world. We want her to [44.222.104.49] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:56 GMT) Bilingual-Education Law and Programs / 127 be at the family Thanksgiving and...