The Importance Of Sign Language In Deaf Education

Deaf education

Haualand & Allen (2009) have researched all of the Deaf communities all over the world and their report found that the education systems and literacy levels of Deaf children are not acceptable in any country. Most of them said the quality of education of Deaf people is low and their literacy is poor which shows massive ignorance in education systems about the importance of sign language in Deaf education. The main discussion revolves around whether Deaf people should be taught by using signed or using speech known as oralism. Despite reports that told them that orlaism in education failed in Deaf children’ (Haualand & Allen, 2009), they continued to do so now and this causes Deaf people’s literacy levels to be low. With the failure of orlaism, it changed the way of thinking in Deaf education to a more bilingual approach.

A bilingual approach entails using signed language as the language

This will give Deaf children a good basis for direct and independent communication in all surroundings. Bilingual approaches have become widespread and show promising results. Doherty (2012) carried out a research between Northern Ireland and Sweden on deaf people’s experiences in mainstream school. This study stated the Swedish deaf people had a more positive experiences in their school than the British. The main reason for this was the “encouragement of deaf cultural environment where sign language was used by teachers and pupils for instruction and social interaction throughout the school” (Doherty 2012). Although the British did not experience the deaf culture within their