Hearing Parents of Deaf Children: A Typology

HEARING PARENTS OF DEAF CHILDREN: A TYPOLOGY JeffNash This paper presents a typology of hearing parents with deaf children.' The definitive considerations for identifying the types are (1) whether or not the parents use their hands according to some systematic language-like rules for conversing with their child and (2) the parents' evaluation of the deaf experience. The modes of communication employed by the parents vary from complete reliance on speech (lip reading and speech production) to signs only, i.e. signs without lip movements or other "speech based" paralinguistic phenomena (Ameslan, cf. Fant 1973). The evaluation of the deaf experience ranges from accepting it as a unique way ofliving but not necessarily one of low quality to complete rejection of the existence of a "deaf way of life." These dimensions define two basic types, the oralists who reject any form of manual communication and the signers who use some version of it. Within the two basic types, there are variations depending upon the parents' attitudes toward what it is like to be deaf. The oralist category contains three subtypes: the aloof parent, the recruiter and the searcher. Signers, likewise, may be subdivided into three: the parent who sees the deaf as handicapped and capable of only limited accomplishments (the "all they can do" type), the sign changers, and the friends of the deaf. There is also a residual category made up of parents who purport to be a composite of the other two. These persons refer to themselves as compromisers. However, subsequent analysis will reveal that they are appropriately classified as "hidden oralists." Characteristicsof the Oralist Types. Oralists bring to the situation of having a non-hearing child the same background knowledge and common sense assumptions that exist in the society in general. No knowledge of the special nature of not hearing is required. Oralists do not distinguish among arrays of human experience on distinctive continua. At least this is true with regard to the meaning of not hearing. They assert that if separate dimensions of knowledge and experience exist as in other cultures, they are irrelevant to "proper" communication within the present day world. Oralists are "one-dimensional" in the sense that their worldview has a unitary basis. That basis may be simply described: there is an acknowl- Sign Language Studies 7 Manual Evaluationsof the Communication DeafExperience Aloof 0 Oralists Recruiters Searchers + Allthey can do + + Signers Sign Changers + Friends of the Deaf + + Hidden Oralists +indicates acceptance; -indicates rejection; 0indicates indifference; -indicates acceptance with low esteem. Figure 1. A Typology of HearingParentsof DeafChildren edged, indisputable mode for interpreting the world in practical, everyday terms. That mode requires all five senses, and all participants are presumed to sense things in the same way.2 Any complete "social knowledge" must derive from a complete sensory base. With regard to communication this characteristic becomes a "maxim": no normal talking, no normal social interaction. Oralists believe that success is class-bound. Their interpretation of the status hierarchy of the society is that upward movement and accumulation of wealth are dependent in large measure upon conformity to the criteria of proper appearance.3 Given the prevailing standards, oralists judge success in terms of approximation to the ideal, always operating from the given criteria. Their children's language is judged by how closely it "sounds like" the speech of hearing people and whether or not the child can "talk to anyone." The goal of these parents is to integrate their children into a hearing world. Their child's behavior and general social performance are evaluated by the same criteria employed for a normal child. The deaf child must then approximate "normality" and hence, always, by definition, be inferior, second-class and incomplete. Full normality depends upon the restoration of hearing at some future time. To the oralists, sign language, which they rarely understand, is a primitive form of communication not appropriate as a mode of sophisticated or cultivated communication.4 Tacitly, they rank languages on a Nash continuum of development; they do not regard all languages as equally developed. They interpret signs as mere gestures, and fingerspelling as an awkward and embarrassingly slow imitation of spoken English. Sign language, they admonish, "has no grammar." Even...