Residential Schools For The Deaf Case Study

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History unfolds the advantages of residential schools for students who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). While some DHH students are placed in other educational settings depending on their circumstances, majority of those who have experienced residential schools cannot help but express how glad they are of the experience. Because of the low incidence of deafness, we seldom see residential schools for DHH students. Texas has one residential school for the deaf that services the whole state, the Texas School for the Deaf (TSD) located in Austin. Discussed below is the role that residential schools play in the following aspects of deaf individuals: education, lives, culture, communication, and development. Residential schools play an important …show more content…

Scheetz (2012) stressed that through their daily interactions with other deaf students and deaf adult role models in the residential schools, DHH students will “begin to acknowledge their identity as a deaf person, feelings of belonging are awakened or strengthened, and a sense of community is formed” (p. 212). This helps the DHH students understand more who they are and what they are capable of doing, which surges their feeling of self-esteem. Those who have not fully understood who they are and who have not seen their worth may develop emotional issues. Scheetz (2012) confirmed that DHH students who have higher self-concept/identity and self-esteem will have more positive views of the world and successes in life. Residential schools play a highly significant role in DHH students’ communication skills because it is in residential schools where DHH students learn more in-depth a formal deaf communication system appropriate to them, through classroom lessons and daily practice in their environment. According to Scheetz (2012), residential schools embrace a variety of communication methods for DHH students including American Sign Language (ASL), Total Communication, or a bilingual-bicultural (Bi-Bi) approach. The Texas School for the Deaf, for example, uses ASL (Texas

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