A philosophy for assessing the language proficiency of hearing-impaired students to promote English literacy.

Abstract

In the last decade, educators and parents have taken many positive steps in accepting hearing-impaired students as people who are (capitalization denotes minority group identity) rather than people who cannot hear. That is, the goal of intelligible speech no longer appears to be the major focus of the educational system. Rather, students are being encouraged to communicate in their natural modality of sign, 65% of those who teach hearing-impaired students are using a form of English in sign for instructional purposes (Jordan, Gustavson, & Rosen, 1976), and school curriculum is beginning to focus on subject content and the mastery of English literacy skills. A positive change of public attitude toward the Deaf is evidenced by the advent of captioned T. V.; the employment of a Deaf adult to teach regular sign vocabulary without voice on the daily children's program, Sesame Street; and New York's hosting of the successful play, Children of a Lesser God, which stars a mute Deaf woman in the major role. Seemingly, the Hearies, as the Deaf call hearing people, are beginning to respect the minority language (the language of signs) of the hearing-impaired culture. The next step is for parents and educators to understand the value of using sign as a base language on which to teach the English literacy skills so desperately needed by hearing-impaired students. Less than a decade ago, educators of hearing bilingual students in this country were in a similar situation: They were becoming convinced of the value of using Spanish or a Native American language to teach English. It therefore seems logical that educators in the field of Hearing Impairment should evaluate both the language and/or system (L/S) proficiency of hearingimpaired students and the research from the field of Bilingual Education concerned with effectively using a first language to teach a sec