From the day a child is diagnosed as being profoundly deaf, he should learn the system of “total communication,” advocates Australian educationist Mr Brian Reynolds.
Mr Reynolds is one of the pioneers involved in developing “total communication,” a system which uses sign language, finger spelling, lip reading and mime to help the deaf communicate.
“It’s not the answer for all children with a hearing problem. But it’s a very big step along the way for kids born deaf or profoundly deaf, before they learn a language,” he said.
Many oralists who advocate teaching the deaf to speak a language are against sign language as they believe the child becomes lazy to speak.
“My philosophy is you suit the method to the child and not the child to the method,” he says.
AlternativeCurrent research has shown that at worst, teaching total communication had no harmful effects on the child. Instead it provided the child with an alternative to help it communicate. There were some children who found it very difficult to cope with the oral system, he said.
Each country in the world has its own sign language, and so the deaf also have problems communicating with those of different nationalities.
Mr Reynolds is in the country to help standardise a system of communication so that the deaf in New Zealand will have no trouble making themselves understood in Australia. He and a number of other colleagues are taking on the task of compiling a dictionary for the total communication system.
Mr Reynolds is principal of the Victorian School for the Deaf in Melbourne, where the system is taught along with the oral method. He said it is now being taught in New Zealand in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin as an alternative method.
Pressure
The president of the New Zealand Federation for Deaf Children (Mr J W Rose) believes parents of deaf children should concentrate on developing the child’s whole personality rather than making it conform to the rigid norms of the hearing community.
“It is unfortunate that most parents only see their mistake when their child has reached adolescence and they find the child is withdrawn or anti-social, or uncontrollable”, he said at the federation’s general meeting last week.
There was a tremendous pressure on deaf children to conform to rigid standards. The deaf child, right from “babyhood” was treated as if it could hear by many parents, he said.
Attitude
“Unfortunately this attitude is fostered by the agencies who have responsibility for guiding the child and parent specially in the early years and by the parents’ innate desire for their child to be ‘normal’,” said Mr Rose.
The federation was working towards a situation where those involved in deaf education would make use of the vast expertise available from parents who had faced up to the reality that deafness was a serious handicap.
In some vital areas, the progress was slow, he said.
“But the Department of Education has run deaf education virtually without any parent involvement for 100 years and we just cannot expect a juggernaut of this size to suddenly change overnight and accept the opinions and involvement of parents in such areas as advisers, speech therapy, staffing ratios, pre-school advice… all in just a year or two,” he said.
A working party report on deafness had been sent to the Education Department. Although well received, it would require pressure from the federation to ensure the recommendations were implemented, warned Mr Rose.
