development and academic achievement. Only through a natural language can children acquire world knowledge, organise information and express themselves (Drasgow, 1998). Drasgow (1998, 337) also points out that early exposure to ASL provides deaf children with sufficient and flexible language skills, “so that when they enter school they can continue to learn rather than begin to learn”. Most hearing children enter school with extensive world knowledge. To what extent and how children’s background knowledge actually is used in the classroom is, however, debatable (Resnick, 1987). Putting this interesting discussion aside, most hearing children do enter school with a solid enough language and knowledge basis that enables further learning.
Deaf culture is situated in the hearing world and therefore knowledge of the national language(s) does indeed improve the deaf individual’s possibility to func-tion and participate in society. A high-standard educafunc-tion and competence in Sign Language combined with a well developed literacy in the majority language is therefore the main objective for the recent approach to bilingual education for deaf children (which is discussed in section 5.3) (Mahshie, 1995).
The need for deaf people to be able to participate in the hearing society has certainly influenced the main dispute in deaf education, that of oral vs manual communication. Many hearing parents who choose to speak with their deaf child feel that orally trained children have more opportunities, that they are stronger academically, socially and linguistically than manually educated children (Moores, 1991). The important issue here is to examine the consequences and outcomes of both approaches. According to Montanini Manfredi (1993), the choice of school programme goes beyond the manual vs oral debate. The author points out that the choice of school also affects the deaf child’s development of social relationships and social abilities, as well as personality and identity (Montanini Manfredi, 1993, 54). A frequently neglected issue in the education of the deaf, is the lack of deaf
adult role models for deaf children in the schools (Erting, 1988; Londen, 1992).
Deaf adults have similar background knowledge and experiences as deaf children.
This has implications for deaf children’s motivation and ability to learn (Padden &
Humphries, 1988), and as Lane (1984, 300) writes, “instructing a deaf child as if he were not deaf generally suits his parents, if they are hearing, but it never suits his education”.
Although deaf parents generally tend to have a lower socio-economic status (which has been linked to lower academic achievement) compared to hearing par-ents, deaf children from deaf families perform slightly better on academic skills compared to deaf children from hearing families. However, in Sweden the rate of deaf pupils attending college or university equals that of the hearing population (Inger Ahlgren, personal communication, April 3, 1998). Nevertheless, it is im-portant to note, that regardless of parental hearing status, the average deaf child lags behind his or her hearing peers in most, if not in all, academic areas. As deaf children have no cognitive deficits, the educational system in most countries thus seems to fail many deaf children (Johnson, Lidell, & Erting, 1989). In fact, about 80% of the deaf population worldwide receive no education (Proceedings, XI World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf, 1991).
Below the different educational alternatives for deaf children are briefly de-scribed. In Section 5.4 an outline of the educational options in Finland and in Section 5.5 the current educational options for Finland-Swedish deaf pupils are presented.
Deaf schools using Sign Language
Deaf schools can be residential schools or day-schools. Traditionally residential schools have been more accepting of Sign Language, considered to be the centres of deaf subculture (Meadow, 1980). In fact, given the inconsistency of generation change within the deaf community, schools for the deaf have a significant impact on the continuation of Deaf culture, on the pupils’ signing skills and on Deaf aware-ness. Nevertheless, some schools for the Deaf use a Total Communication ap-proach.
The aim of Deaf schools using visual communication is to provide the deaf child with a linguistically, culturally and socially accessible learning environment and to support the pupils self-esteem and deaf identity. The advantages of good residential schools are clear but the main disadvantage is that young children often have to live away from home. Understandably many parents are reluctant to send their young child away to school.
Oral education
Oral educational programmes for deaf and hearing-impaired children focus on speech training and lip-reading. Sign Language is not used, being in fact often prohibited, and parents are encouraged not to use Sign with their children. To the amazement of hearing people one can find deaf or hearing-impaired children at-tending oral schools who speak well and seem to hear when spoken to. However, only a small number of deaf children educated orally reach intelligible speech and satisfactory lip-reading skills (Evans, 1982; Lane, 1993). Among many, Lane (1993)
points out that we must consider several factors when evaluating the success of oral education. Whether the hearing loss is pre- or post-lingual has a decisive effect on the child’s ability to speak and master a verbal language (Heiling, 1993;
Lane 1993). Apart from the onset of the hearing loss the severity of the hearing loss does indeed also influence the development of speech and ability to lip-read.
In addition, we must evaluate the orally educated child’s ability to communicate in different settings and not only with family members and teachers (Lane, 1993).
With the rising number of deaf children receiving cochlear implants the demand for oral educational programmes is likely to increase, as will the need to structure the instruction in order to meet the specific needs of these children.
According to advocates of manual communication, a predominantly oral envi-ronment does not provide deaf children with a good basis for the acquisition of social and linguistic behaviours. Moreover an oral educational programme25 con-veys in their view the message that deafness is not accepted.
Inclusion
Inclusion (or mainstreaming) indicates that the deaf or hearing-impaired child is integrated in a school for normally hearing children. Many issues need to be con-sidered in order to facilitate the daily classroom situation for the hearing-impaired child: where in the classroom the pupil is sitting, the acoustics in the classroom and the size of the class, to name but a few (Mattus & Ojala, 2000). The need for learning support must also be evaluated and the teacher needs information and guidance (Mattus & Ojala, 2000). Deaf children integrated in regular school set-tings may have a personal Sign Language interpreter or an assistant. A deaf or hearing-impaired child mainstreamed in the neighbourhood school can live at home in a normal family environment and attend the same school as hearing siblings and hearing peers from the vicinity. This fact is highly valued by some parents.
Another reason for mainstreaming is that both parents and some educators of-ten believe that deaf children integrated in schools for normally hearing children perform better academically, socially and linguistically (Moores, 1991). It has also been asserted that the cost of educating deaf children in residential schools is more expensive than educating them in regular school settings (Moores, 1991).
Today there is a strong tendency towards inclusive education for children with disabilities. Even though this multifaceted issue is not to be discussed in this work, one must bear in mind that for a deaf signing child inclusion can be considered a form of segregation. The question is whether a hearing school can support a deaf signing child socially, linguistically and cognitively. Although placement in a public school is an available option for deaf signing children few parents in Finland choose this alternative. The parents of signing children value highly the linguistic and social benefits of interactions with both deaf peers and adults and consequently they choose education in a deaf school. Nonetheless, the parental interviews show that when
25 This regards deaf pupils and not hearing-impaired pupils who benefit from spoken language input.
considering the entire group of parents they are strongly divided in their beliefs about the appropriateness of mainstreaming deaf children. The beliefs are very much linked to their choice of communication method (see Section 8.3.4 and 8.3.6).
In countries such as Sweden and Denmark, where focus is on Sign Language and bilingualism for deaf children, mainstreaming is now often limited to hearing-impaired children who can participate and function in a school for normally hear-ing children without an interpreter or assistant. The reason is that deaf children must be allowed to be children, and children cannot play through an interpreter.
Mainstreaming a deaf child in a school for normally hearing children is socially devastating for the deaf child (Inger Ahlgren, personal communication 1998; Kris-tina Svartholm, personal communication, 1998).
Bilingual deaf education
The latest movement in the education of the Deaf underscores the two languages and the two cultures of the deaf child. The Deaf communities as well as hearing educators and parents of deaf children now consider deaf children’s achievement of bilingualism to be a very important part of the children’s development and education.
The pioneering work of this movement originates in Denmark and Sweden, but has now gained more and more support in other countries as well (Hansen, 1989;
Neuroth-Gimbrone, 1994). The national language is taught as a second language.
Although the concept of bilingual education and second language learning is achiev-ing more attention, research on these specific areas is scarce. The fact is that not many educational programmes have yet implemented this method (Drasgow, 1993).
Proponents of this view believe that it is devastating to bring up a deaf child with-out any exposure to sign, withwith-out providing a good language base, and withwith-out installing an understanding of the child’s own history and culture, all factors which are crucial for further learning (Mahshie, 1995). Interestingly, the need for deaf children to learn two languages was put forward by Carl Oscar Malm as early as 1852.26
A basic rule behind bilingual education is the acceptance of Sign Language as deaf children’s first language, and, furthermore as the language underlying speech learning, and thus fundamental for bilingualism (Bouvet, 1990). In Sweden, Swed-ish Sign Language is considered to be deaf people’s first language, and according to a 1981 Swedish Parliament Bill deaf people “need to be bilingual in order to function among themselves and in society at large” (Svartholm, 1993, 291).
26 According to Malm (1852, 69): “Emedan döfstumma elever måste lära sig två språk, hwilka användas i skolan, nemligen pantomim- och skriftspråk, så inhämtas skriftspråket af dem, medelst det förra, nästan lika som främmande språk studeras af de fullsinnade på deras modermål”. “As deaf-dumb pupils have to learn two languages that are used in school, namely pantomime and a written language, they learn the written language through the use of the former language, almost like pupils without a hearing loss study foreign languages through their mother tongue”.
The goal of bilingual education is to provide deaf children with an environ-ment fostering communication, achieveenviron-ment and a normal language acquisition (Bouvet, 1990, 146). Many support the view that deaf children’s poor reading skills and academic performance are due to the use of either a spoken language or diverse communication systems (such as Total Communication27) as the language of instruction (Johnson, Liddell, & Erting, 1989; Svartholm, 1993).
Both Inger Ahlgren (personal communication, April 3, 1998) and Kristina Svar-tholm (personal communication, April 3, 1998) strongly stress that the issue with-in deaf education with-in Sweden no longer is whether manual or oral communication should be utilised. Rather, the issue relates to bilingual education and to the need for an acceptance of Swedish as a second language for deaf pupils as well as the need for this language to be taught accordingly. In addition, the fact that learning Swedish as a second language is different, and perhaps more difficult, for deaf children than it is for hearing children learning it as a second language must be recognised. Therefore, as was discussed in Section 3.5, both Ahlgren and Svar-tholm point out that it is unrealistic to expect all deaf pupils to learn to write perfectly. It must be considered sufficient if deaf children learn to write a com-pletely understandable Swedish without having to master all the nuances and the entire spectrum of grammatical variability of written language. Speech, which to a great extent depends on residual hearing, cannot be main priority either. In Swe-den, parents of deaf signing children accept that their children do not speak, and therefore do not train them to speak and listen. This does not necessarily apply to parents of deaf children receiving cochlear implants. Ahlgren stressed the need to give the parents realistic expectations concerning the child’s ability to speak, and the assumption needs to be that speech is not essential in the education of deaf children.
The well-known knowledge gap between hearing and deaf pupils is, in Swe-den, steadily decreasing. Nevertheless, it seems that even in Sweden deaf pupils finish school with a somewhat lower level of knowledge than hearing pupils. This may be considered to be the major challenge for the education of deaf children.
The reason for the still existing knowledge gap is a built-in difficulty with deaf education, namely the need to use teaching material in Swedish before the pupils master this language. Although teaching material in Swedish Sign Language is being introduced, this material needs to be further developed (Inger Ahlgren, per-sonal communication, April 3, 1998; Kristina Svartholm perper-sonal communica-tion, April 3, 1998).
To summarise, although the experiences of bilingual education are positive and allow deaf children to learn and develop literacy in the national language, the chal-lenges of bilingual education are many. Among other things a successful bilingual educational programme requires fluent signing skills on the part of the teachers, more knowledge of the teaching of the national language as a second language for deaf pupils and more deaf teachers (Davies, 1994; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1994).
27 Total communication indicates simultaneous use of speech and signs.