Bilingualism in deaf ed.

[jillio]

For those who have been requesting that I back up my opinion for ASL in the education of deaf students, the following might be interesting. I have cited all sources, and these conclusions are based on education and linguistic research accepted as valid by the research community.


Since 1979, beginning with The Deaf Schoolchild (Conrad, 1979); research has continued to show that acquisition of sign language by deaf students is basic to the acquisition of English and to educational success (Branson & Miller, 1991).

Johnson, Liddell, & Erting (Unlocking the Curriculum, 1989) laid blame for poor achievement on TC programs utilizing SEE. Their claim is that students need instruction in the language of ASL in order to acquire conceptual knowledge, and foundations of language.

Opposition to bilingual ed often foccuses on "research claiming to show that children taught through the aurl/oral approaches achieve better results than to children taught through bi-bi or TC approaches. However, in a comprehensive review of the literature available, Powers, Gregory, & Thoutenhoofd, 1999) found that there has been no major study addressing thiese issues since Conrad's study in 1979. At that time, it was found that ASL was fundamental to success in education and language acquisition. After reviewing the available literature, CI "research included", it was concluded that there is no substantive evidence to demonstrate an overall improvement inthe education of deaf students, and that in measurement of language skills, spoken language was focuseed on almost exclcusively, thereby ignoring sign competence. Powers, et.al. oint also to the dependence of the studies on unrepresentative samples and the failure to account for relevant variables involved. (Branson & Miller, 2002).

 

[shel90]

I have seen that first hand over and over again. Kids who got referred from oral/mainstreamed programs or from hearing families that don't sign due to falling behind have trouble expressing their thoughts or learning new concepts than those kids who have been exposed to ASL sall their lives (both from deaf and hearing families..especially the hearing families who learned sign language) . It is amazing how huge the gap is on the expressive and receptive languages between those two groups.

It is sad that this continues to happen despite what research has shown...

 

[jillio]

I have seen that first hand over and over again. Kids who got referred from oral/mainstreamed programs or from hearing families that don't sign due to falling behind have trouble expressing their thoughts or learning new concepts than those kids who have been exposed to ASL sall their lives (both from deaf and hearing families..especially the hearing families who learned sign language) . It is amazing how huge the gap is on the expressive and receptive languages between those two groups.

It is sad that this continues to happen despite what research has shown...

I know, shel. They keep going back to the same methodology ever and over and over, despite the documented widespread failures. Denial is a very dangerous thing!

 

[shel90]

I know, shel. They keep going back to the same methodology ever and over and over, despite the documented widespread failures. Denial is a very dangerous thing!

I am gonna sound like a Valley girl here

"Yea, it is like so lame!"


LOL!

 

[R2D2]

Hi Jillio,

So it appears that another major review of the literature is overdue.

In a CI context (since this discussion originated from that forum) the children implanted when they were young and educated in different modes are only just leaving school now. Conrad's 1979 study was based on school leavers, right? So that is another area that has to be analysed, although the smaller studies refered to by Boult's link for both oralism and TC do seem promising.

I understand that it is notoriously difficult in the field of deaf education to be able to get large representative sample sizes and control groups due to the fact that we are such a heterogeneous group with so many different factors to control for in etiology, additional special needs, parenting inputs, cultural backgrounds, the range of different communication approaches and so on.

 

[flip]

Hi Jillio,

So it appears that another major review of the literature is overdue.

In a CI context (since this discussion originated from that forum) the children implanted when they were young and educated in different modes are only just leaving school now. Conrad's 1979 study was based on school leavers, right? So that is another area that has to be analysed, although the smaller studies refered to by Boult's link for both oralism and TC do seem promising.

I understand that it is notoriously difficult in the field of deaf education to be able to get large representative sample sizes and control groups due to the fact that we are such a heterogeneous group with so many different factors to control for in etiology, additional special needs, parenting inputs, cultural backgrounds, the range of different communication approaches and so on.

It's not notoriously difficult to do research on deaf people. Many findings continues to points in the same direction, both CI, speech and ASL research. If something changes, then we will probably see changes in most of the research done, too.

You are probably looking for something like this:

Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Oxford Press
J. Deaf Stud. Deaf Educ. -- Table of Contents (12 [2])

You have to pay for the content, but click on the abstracts for a short glance and some interesting conclusions. You can find a CI study there, from University of British Colombia, among others.

This journal have all kinds of valid scientific research, and I remember that the editor once said that from all the research done, it seems that ASL early as possible is the safest way to go for normal language development. He relyed on empirical evidence for that statement.

(Jillio should perhaps answer this one, but..; she cited research that is valid to until 2002, not 1979.)

 

[jillio]

I am gonna sound like a Valley girl here

"Yea, it is like so lame!"


LOL!

 

[jillio]

Hi Jillio,

So it appears that another major review of the literature is overdue.

In a CI context (since this discussion originated from that forum) the children implanted when they were young and educated in different modes are only just leaving school now. Conrad's 1979 study was based on school leavers, right? So that is another area that has to be analysed, although the smaller studies refered to by Boult's link for both oralism and TC do seem promising.

I understand that it is notoriously difficult in the field of deaf education to be able to get large representative sample sizes and control groups due to the fact that we are such a heterogeneous group with so many different factors to control for in etiology, additional special needs, parenting inputs, cultural backgrounds, the range of different communication approaches and so on.

Correct on Conrad's study, but the last major lit review that I cited was 1999. There has been research and studies conducted since Conrad, and these were included in the last lit review I cited. But I agree--another major study needs to be conducted, but I doubt seriously that we are going to see any improvement.

 

[jillio]

It's not notoriously difficult to do research on deaf people. Many findings continues to points in the same direction, both CI, speech and ASL research. If something changes, then we will probably see changes in most of the research done, too.

You are probably looking for something like this:

Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Oxford Press
J. Deaf Stud. Deaf Educ. -- Table of Contents (12 [2])

You have to pay for the content, but click on the abstracts for a short glance and some interesting conclusions. You can find a CI study there, from University of British Colombia, among others.

This journal have all kinds of valid scientific research, and I remember that the editor once said that from all the research done, it seems that ASL early as possible is the safest way to go for normal language development. He relyed on empirical evidence for that statement.

(Jillio should perhaps answer this one, but..; she cited research that is valid to until 2002, not 1979.)

And you ar correct, flip. My research cited is valid until 2002. Conrad's study was in 1979, and that was my starting point not my ending point. Thank you for noticing that.

 

[shel90]

Jillo..what do u think of Cued Speech? In one thread about a girl who was adopted stated that she had no language until she was 4 and started out with Cued speech and now is all caught up in language. I dont know much about Cued speech. I know a lot about oral and BiBi programs.

 

[Boult]

Jillo..what do u think of Cued Speech? In one thread about a girl who was adopted stated that she had no language until she was 4 and started out with Cued speech and now is all caught up in language. I dont know much about Cued speech. I know a lot about oral and BiBi programs.

You are referring to my thread at; Deaf Adoption: A Rhetorician's New Family


Jillio already stated her position; Breaking the Code

 

[Boult]

Shel,
You might want to read this;
Research and Theory Support Cued Speech--KidsWorld Deaf Net E-Doc--Gallaudet's Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center
and
Phonemic Awareness through Immersion in Cued American English--KidsWorld Deaf Net E-Doc--Gallaudet's Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center

 

[jillio]

Jillo..what do u think of Cued Speech? In one thread about a girl who was adopted stated that she had no language until she was 4 and started out with Cued speech and now is all caught up in language. I dont know much about Cued speech. I know a lot about oral and BiBi programs.

In my opinion, and Ihave done the research and investigation on which to form my opinion--I'm not simply pulling it out of my arse as some do--CS is nothing more than another manually coded English system that is not successful without a foundation in the English language. When the oralists finally began to back up and admit that even orally trained deaf children needed visual cues to understand language, they started to reinvent the wheel--the wheel being ASL. Thus, we end up with SEE1, SEE1, PSE, CS, and any other variation you can think of that attempts to incorporate the signs and handshapes of sign with English. While CS is useful in distinguishing separate morphemes, i.e. "peach" from "beach", it does nothing to convey concept. If a deaf child has not been provided a strong foundation in conceptual language, then they will be able to tell that those are two different words, but will have no idea what the difference between a peach and a beach are.

 

[shel90]

In my opinion, and Ihave done the research and investigation on which to form my opinion--I'm not simply pulling it out of my arse as some do--CS is nothing more than another manually coded English system that is not successful without a foundation in the English language. When the oralists finally began to back up and admit that even orally trained deaf children needed visual cues to understand language, they started to reinvent the wheel--the wheel being ASL. Thus, we end up with SEE1, SEE1, PSE, CS, and any other variation you can think of that attempts to incorporate the signs and handshapes of sign with English. While CS is useful in distinguishing separate morphemes, i.e. "peach" from "beach", it does nothing to convey concept. If a deaf child has not been provided a strong foundation in conceptual language, then they will be able to tell that those are two different words, but will have no idea what the difference between a peach and a beach are.

Yea, that's what I thought...hmmm.

I cant remember but didnt we have a discussion about cued speech in another thread? Something looks familiar.

 

[jillio]

Yea, that's what I thought...hmmm.

I cant remember but didnt we have a discussion about cued speech in another thread? Something looks familiar.

Yeah, awile back. I think either Boult or Nesmuth started it.

 

[shel90]

Yeah, awile back. I think either Boult or Nesmuth started it.

Really? Wow, I totally forgot. Probably too busy arguing about CI issues. LOL!

 

[jillio]

Really? Wow, I totally forgot. Probably too busy arguing about CI issues. LOL!

That does seem to be a big distraction around here! But then, sometimes it seems that no matter what the topic starts out as, someone has to jump in and make it a pro-CI/anti-CI issue!

 

[Boult]

Yea, that's what I thought...hmmm.

I cant remember but didnt we have a discussion about cued speech in another thread? Something looks familiar.

Jillio and Shel
nope.. it was loml's thread which I already provided the link in my previous post, "Breaking the Code" It was on last page of that thread...