Total communication in the education of deaf children.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
One of the most contentious and important issues in the education of deaf children concerns the nature of the medium that should be used. The argument is whether the language of the hearing society should be used (Oralism) or a visual manual language together with speech (Total Communication or bilingualism). Recently Conrad [6,7] has claimed that the exclusive use of Oral methods fails to provide the deaf child's brain with sufficient linguistic information at an early enough age and so runs the risk of obstructing neurological growth so that functional atrophy may occur. In this situation Conrad argues 'we should not ignore the possibility that the "functional atrophy" ...may come to involve structural atrophy as well.' He concludes that Oral schools "virtually are cognitively destroying deaf children." Conrad's case rests on his interpretation of 3 kinds of circumstantial evidence. These are animal studies of auditory deprivation, hemispheric lateralization studies of deaf and hearing subjects, and finally his own data. In the present paper each of these 3 kinds of evidence is reviewed and alternative interpretations are advanced against Conrad's hypothesis of functional atrophy. It is argued that the case that Oralism is responsible for brain atrophy is not proven. It is concluded that the main problem facing deaf children and their teachers is deafness itself, and not any particular educational philosophy and group of methods such as Oralism.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
This longitudinal study investigated the language acquisition strategies employed by an autistic child learning sign language. The child's core vocabulary and developing semantic-syntactic relationships were compared with language acquisition in normal children. There were specific deviations in language development noted, in spite of providing the child with appropriate sign language training.
It is widely accepted that gesture can serve a communicative function. The purpose of this study was to explore gesture use in congenitally blind individuals who have never seen gesture and have no experience with its communicative function. Four children blind from birth were tested in 3 discourse situations (narrative, reasoning, and spatial directions) and compared with groups of sighted and blindfolded sighted children. Blind children produced gestures, although not in all of the contexts in which sighted children gestured, and the gestures they produced resembled those of sighted children in both form and content. Results suggest that gesture may serve a function for the speaker that is independent of its impact on the listener.
This study examines the degree to which hearing-impaired children of hearing-impaired parents (HIP) demonstrate an advantage in their acquisition of signed and spoken English over hearing-impaired children of hearing parents (HP). A subset from the normative sample of the Grammatical Analysis of Elicited Language, 50 HIP children and 50 HP children, were matched in terms of their educational program, hearing level, and age. Results indicate that both groups had comparably poor expressive English language ability at 5 and 6 years of age. However, at age 7 and 8 HIP children demonstrated a significant linguistic advantage in both their spoken and signed English over HP children. Because the production of English by HIP children closely resembled that of orally educated hearing-impaired children of hearing parents, consistent language stimulation throughout the child's early years may be a critical factor in the development of English, regardless of the language or mode of expression.
Total communication provides an opportunity for very young children to receive training through both visual and auditory systems. Most children with severe hearing loss have auditory discrimination/perceptual problems in addition to a loss of hearing sensitivity. Because sophisticated assessment of auditory perceptual problems is not yet possible in hearing impaired infants, total communication provides immediate and consistent language input regardless of eventual determination of auditory perceptual skills. An illustration of a total communication program is provided.
A Midwest school district established a demonstration Total Communication Project. Its goal was for teachers to become consistent in their role modeling of English and American Sign Language (ASL). English was the primary language of the classroom and ASL was used as an intervention tool. There has been little research on the effectiveness of ASL in the classroom. By implementing an ASL intervention program this project is a first step in establishing an environment conducive to investigating the effectiveness of ASL intervention for teaching deaf students. This paper describes: (a) techniques used for identifying classroom situations that call for the use of ASL; (b) discourse situations that influence the use of different language codes in total communication classrooms; and (c) guidelines for code-switching between English and ASL.
This study investigated the identification of non-verbal expressions of emotions by 19 hearing and 24 hearing-impaired adolescents. The participants were presented with video recordings of six emotions: anger, fear, sadness, surprise, happiness and disgust. The emotions were expressed on the same neutral sentence. The expressions were presented in three modes: visual, auditory and combined auditory-visual. The relative contributions of each mode to the identification processes were evaluated for the two research samples. The accuracy in identification of emotions through each of the presentation modes among the hearing-impaired participants was significantly lower than that of the hearing participants. The hearing participants performed better in the auditory-visual mode than in the auditory or the visual modes alone. The hearing-impaired participants performed better in the visual mode than in the auditory mode, and no difference was found between the auditory-visual mode and the visual mode alone. The lower performance of the hearing-impaired group suggested that rehabilitation processes should include training in the area of non-verbal perception. The rank order of the identification of emotions in both research samples was similar. Fear and surprise were the most difficult to identify. Similar order was found for each of the presentation modes as well. Further examination of the stimulus material with different groups of hearing-impaired individuals was recommended.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Communicating to parents the diagnosis of an irreversible disease or disability in their child is a difficult task for medical practitioners. In order for the parents, as well as the physician, to cope constructively with the severe psychological consequences, disappointment, and grief, it is critical that there be a clear understanding of common reactions to such trauma. Beginning with mixed feelings about the pregnancy common to most parents, through birth, and up to the actual diagnosis, important events take place that are examined with regard to the parents' final coping dynamics. Common reactions include denial, isolation of affect, feelings of impotence, questioning the reasons for deafness, turning to religion, blaming the doctor, guilt, "doctor shopping," depression, and others. Constructive coping by parents can only begin after the irreversibility of the condition is acknowledged and the implications understood and accepted. Beyond this, an understanding of what lies ahead for their child is important. In this regard, habilitation and education, if not properly planned, often represent a greater liability to deaf children and their families than the deafness itself. This is due largely to a pervasive adherence to oralism and mainstreaming at the expense of more appropriate total communication specialized approach. Thus, parent counseling and the use of total communication together offer the best promise for the success of deaf children in reaching their potential.
Four multiply disabled, profoundly retarded young adults received two series of instructional activities designed to teach them to use handguiding to communicate basic needs and intents. All had failed in previous attempts to learn to communicate using augmentative devices and strategies. Caregivers and staff served as partners in communication. Three of the four subjects were successful in learning some basic communication skills using the strategy of having a partner and handguiding as a technique.
Results of a 9-mo longitudinal study designed to evaluate the efficacy of a vibrotactile aid, the SRA-10, with four profoundly deaf preschool children are reported. During the study the subjects were enrolled in 30-min triweekly language therapy sessions, and changes in communication skills in connected discourse (vocalization only, sign language only, and vocalization plus sign language) were measured using a computer-based observation system. Changes in structural and semantic aspects of language were also measured. The four subjects were evaluated during one 16-week phase in which the aid was used (aid-on condition) and another 8 weeks in duration in which the aid was not used (aid-off condition). Communication skills improved in the aid-on condition and decreased in the aid-off condition. The changes were found to be significant for the communication involving the vocalization plus sign language (Total Communication) measure, indicating that the vibrotactile stimulation was positively associated with the communicative act.
Total scores on the recently developed Screening Test from the Test of Syntactic Abilities for 382 hearing-impaired subjects between eight and 19 years and in various educational programs were found to be significantly related to hearing threshold level, number of multiple handicaps, age, educational setting, method of communication, and hearing aid usage. Multivariate analysis of variance on the effect of age controlled for hearing loss showed no significant increase in scores after eleven years of age, thus lending support to the thesis that the capacity to acquire language may cease to function at about puberty. The results of stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that, when personal variables were first forced to enter the equation, degree of hearing loss, multiple handicaps, and age accounted for 14%, nine %, an four % of the explained variability, respectively. Over and above these contributions, two manipulable variables--educational setting (a surrogate for integration) and method of communication--added significantly a further 12% and three % to the explained variability in syntactic ability.
Teachers' communication with deaf and hearing children was compared to identify differences in the teachers' use of two types of nonliteral language: idiomatic language and indirect requests. Two groups of teachers of the deaf were observed, one using oral language only and the other using Total Communication. A third group consisted of teachers of normally hearing children. No differences were found in teachers' use of nonliteral language when talking to hearing children as compared to teachers talking to oral deaf children. Reduced use of idiomatic language occurred, in both the oral and signed portions of communication, only when Total Communication was used. No differences were observed in the oral portion of the three groups' use of indirect requests. However, only 55% of these requests were encoded nonliterally in the signed portion of utterances.
Fourteen deaf children (eight from total communication and six from oral classes) and seven non-hearing-impaired peers were given a number of tasks designed to elicit spontaneous language. These tasks included retelling stories they had previously read aloud (read), retelling stories told to them with accompanying pictures (told), and responding to questions about pictures (pictures). Traditional language sampling indices of verbal output, syntactic structure, and communicativeness were derived, and differences among groups and methods of elicitation were ascertained. Results favored hearing children on all measures. When comparing the two deaf groups, few differences emerge on measures of verbal output and communicativeness. On syntactic measures, the oral group performed significantly better on a number of tasks. These differences were discussed in terms of the impact of communication mode on language instruction for deaf children.
Total Communication Therapy is based on the possibilities which aphasic patients have left to communicate. All aspects of language are trained. The environment stimulates the patient and uses all possible means of communication in order to achieve an optimal level of communication. An evaluation test is being prepared at the moment.