Summary: Supporting Deaf Students

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The Educational Leadership article Supporting Deaf Students--And All Students by Christina Yuknis, Joseph Santini, and Thangi Appanah focuses on the importance of having inclusion in regular schools for deaf students. One quote that captures the main objective of the article is this: “In American Sign Language, the standard sign for “mainstream” is both hands in a five-landscape (all five fingers extended) overlapping. But this sign has recently changed so that one hand has only one finger extended, symbolizing the loneliness that the mainstreaming experience can generate.” It is very common that regular schools establish a culture that is very segregated from one another. One of the important roles of teachers is to blur the lines that may …show more content…

It is common for children to reject one another because of the differences that may arise. It is important for teachers to integrate deaf culture into the classroom as a way to prevent the alienation of deaf students to their hearing peers. Methods the authors suggest to improve the relationship of deaf and hearing students would be to incorporate American Sign Language into everyday learning to strengthen the lines of communication between peers. Another way would be to provide examples of people who are deaf who have made important contributions to society, such as famous composer Beethoven, or inventor Thomas Edison. The last method mentioned to “engaging students socially” would be to create a way of communication that the deaf student can follow. Some ways would include, having one person speak at a time and making sure that the speaker is not turning their head away from the deaf student, as well as giving the deaf student time to transition focus onto the next speaker. This provides a way for the deaf student to keep up with the class, as well as teaching the hearing students of effective communication and listening to one

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