Deaf People Research Paper

The history of educating deaf people dates back long before Thomas H. Gallaudet and Alexander G. Bell squared off at the end of the 19th Century. Each of these men believed that deaf people could and should be educated, but each differed in how to accomplish that feat. However, for most of recorded history, deaf people were treated as nothing more than animals. Aristotle believed that because deaf people did not speak the superior Greek language, they could not be civilized. Christianity perpetuated the inhumane treatment of deaf people because they were believed to be punished by God.

In the 1500's, Spanish monks, who used signs to communicate within their vows of silence, were employed to instruct the deaf sons of the Spanish nobility
Consequently, deaf people all over Europe began receiving educational instruction. Two noteworthy educational projects were those of Samuel Heinicke and Abbe Charles Michael de L'Épée. Heinicke opened a school in Germany. His method of instruction was through spoken language. Students learned to mimic his sounds if they had some residual hearing, or just to mimic his mouth movements. Épée opened a school in Paris that utilized manual gestures. He observed that the gestures made by deaf people had specific meanings and that by learning and using the same gestures, the gestures in fact became signs (Mead, 1931). Thus, Épée is credited as the Father of Sign Language. Although Heinicke's oral method and Épée's manual method are decisively conflicting, the action of each to establish a school for deaf education contributed to the creation of deaf
Educators who were deaf led efforts to establish a National Association of the Deaf (NAD) which advocated the use of sign language. Deaf students continued to use sign language in informal interactions (Cohen, 1994). Oralism continued to be the dominant instructional philosophy until the 1960's when Congress received a report that it was a "dismal failure"; for generations of deaf students Oralism was devastating (Baynton, 1996; Van Cleve & Crouch, 1989). The academic achievement of deaf students had not improved and the pressure not to use the manual language that came naturally was emotionally damaging. To further weaken the Oralist position, in 1960, William Stokoe published findings that defended the American Sign Language (ASL) as a true language. Thus, the gestures that were being used between deaf people were found to have meaning, syntax and sequence. ASL was a valid language, just as French or Spanish. It could be used to express feelings and ideas and to instruct deaf