I agree, there are those educators out there who are really trying to make a difference. And the methods have been compared and contrasted in numerous studies. And what the preponderance of the evidence shows is that deafa children exposed to both sign and speech in an academic environment consistently perform at a higher level than those exposed to oral only.
I was speaking from an historical perspective, rd. Deaf education was revolutionized witht he advent of oralism, and that definately was amove toward professionalized hearing teachersof the deaf. The influx of hearing becoming responsible for deaf student's educational needs is what caused the push toward both oralism, and when strict oralism proved ineffective, the move to MCEs to compensate. All of these were the hearing perspective of what deaf students needed, and as a result, literacy rates have continued to plummet.
