Oralism Deaf Education

Even though sign language advanced and developed successfully in America under the guidance of Gallaudet, Clerc, and others, sometime later toward the end of the nineteenth century, the deaf community and sign language became confronted by an arising issue, oralism. Although schools had been were been opening rapidly, the quality of the education was diminishing. Not only did the people organizing the deaf education, but also many teachers themselves could not and did not know how to communicate proficiently with signs or knew no sign language at all. Also the growing view and stereotype, which was starting to be held by many hearing individuals of that day, was that the deaf should be classified as impaired and thus unable to communicate

Because of the growing stereotype and the new change implemented by these two enormous institutions, sign language began to lose its credibility and respectability as a language and culture in America and around the world, and at that time many schools began using oralism and teaching their students how to lip read and speak instead of sign language. The oralistic method spread very rapidly throughout the country. Instead of trying to understand and enacting what suited the deaf over all these years, people began compelling the deaf to conform to what they deemed normal standard to facilitate things for themselves. Instead of learning how to use and teach sign language and communicate with the culture, they tried to remove the language so that they wouldn’t have to learn it in order to teach the Deaf. Although the country as a whole agreed with and seemed content with these ideas and oralism, not everyone supported or agreed with this new movement, especially many in the deaf community. The National Association of the Deaf ( NAOTD) fought for the use of sign language, but unfortunately due to the many prejudices held in the day, the group wasn't heeded much at the time, especially when the oralistic movement was being backed up by highly respected individuals

He believed that the deaf community really needed to know how to lipread and speak instead. Later on, Bell also founded the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf which perpetuated and supported the method. The nineteenth century continued on with many disputes and debates over whether or not oralism should be permanently established, but with nothing being established or resolved since both sides had strong advocates and fighters. In fact, it wasn’t until sometime after in !880 that The International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICONDE) congregated in Milan, Italy to discuss the heated issue. Sadly, their ruling negatively impacted the deaf community and what Gallaudet had feared and despised most, became a reality. The supporters of oralism won the favor of the council, and the ICONDE enforced that speech and lip reading should be the established and preferred mode of education over the use of sign. Now, students had to learn to lip read, or they would not be taught. Many became disappointed and discouraged, so they dropped out of school altogether. By 1907, sign language was no longer taught at all as most schools now taught with the new “improved”