N.A.D Consultation on Deaf Education
Summary
Introduction
Shri Arun Rao opened the conference and set the scene for the day's discussion by describing his own experiences twenty years ago when his daughter became deaf at 6 months old. He described that at that time there was a plethora of misadvice available for the parents of deaf children. It was an extremely traumatic experience for him and his wife and they were unsure of whether or not they were doing the right thing. They had no communication with their daughter and at the age of three they found themselves in situations where their daughter was incapable of expressing herself when something was wrong or when she had a problem.
He realised that there must be another option available, and in the end, after discovering the book "A Child Like Me" by Joseph Radley, an American author writing of his experiences of having a deaf daughter in America in the 1960s, he decided to learn sign language as a means to communicate with his daughter. Prior to that he hadn't believed in sign language. He wasn't open to it. He wanted a "normal" child. However his quest for normalcy seemed to be detrimental to his daughter. Within 6 months she could sign competently and was able to read. And, at the age of four and a half it was evident that she was conceptually clear, as with any other child of the same age. For his daughter's education he was appalled at the deaf special schools that he saw, and didn't even consider sending her to a mainstream school. In the end they decided to educate her at home.
In general education of the deaf in India today is still a major problem. Deaf children need serious help. They may attain 10th pass, but are still unable to string three sentences together. Their grammar is inadequate and only a few are able to speak. He stressed that there needs to be recognition that this is a major problem. Instead of talking of a 2% success rate we should be talking of a 98% failure rate.
His request to everyone is that we should view the education of the deaf as a process. It is a process that deaf people go through and then 15 years later they are still unable to get a job and function fully in society. At the moment the process we have is unusable. It is not working. There needs to be some process that can actually work and we need the support of professionals, government funding, etc. We need to evaluate the process because there is something definitely wrong. Something needs to work and it is that process that we need to find.
Deaf Education in India: Current Status and Issues of Concern
Dr. Randhawa, in giving her presentation, said she was speaking to the group from two perspectives, that of an educator of the deaf and also as a researcher of deaf education. Her presentation was based on the material from her PhD study into selected special schools for the deaf and she highlighted the current inadequacies of the system and the problems that exist in education of the deaf today.
She explained that even after her training to become an educator of the deaf she still felt that she started her career as an untrained teacher. She had no idea about deafness and had no introduction to sign language. She didn't even know the difference between sign language and sign systems and only learnt this once she had gone overseas. Teacher's salaries are currently very low and their training course is only one year in length, which she feels is not long enough to become a fully trained educator of the deaf. She feels that there should be a three-year degree course in Deaf education that teachers should have to undertake.
At the moment in India she described that we are doing less than we should for deaf children, and stressed that we cannot blame the deaf children themselves. Instead the responsibility should be borne by the teachers and the deaf education system as a whole. The child should be taught in a way that they are able to understand, however at the moment accessibility is the biggest issue.
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Only partial accessibility to language;
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A teacher-centric environment in the classrooms;
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Low expectations of the teachers; and
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A large gap between the training of teachers and the teaching itself.
School creates a huge role in a deaf person's life; therefore it is of great importance for their learning, cognitive skills, promotion of personality, and to provide them with future opportunities and employment.
Current Issues
Their special education was very poor and they were the ones running these institutions. Some had not even talked to the deaf children. There was a high degree of discrepancy in answers between the Principals and the Teachers, therefore there were either no general policies in the schools, or where there were the teachers were unaware of any.
Only 211 of 261 teachers were trained and of those trained the training was inadequate. There was a lack of training at higher levels and teachers were conducting teaching at higher levels when they were not qualified. The majority of teachers taught more than one class, and Diploma pass teachers were teaching secondary classes. Furthermore, teachers were assigned to teach any subject at random. The student teacher ratio was poor, especially in the larger schools and particularly so in Government schools.
Most schools did not have deaf staff. Those that did were for sports, art and the vocational subjects.
There were more male than female students. Class sizes were often above the limits. In general there was an age gap of 3-6 years. (The average age of the oldest child was 18 and there was even an incident of a 25 year old in 10th grade). Their speech pattern was in broken words with very few students being able to speak in sentences. Their vocabulary was not beyond 500/600 words. The time spent on Individual speech therapy was on average ½ an hour per week.
The major problem is the communication with the deaf children. Teachers struggle with communication. They often believe that the school will get a bad name if they use sign language and Principals often discourage teachers from using sign.
81% of teachers admitted sign language is the first language of the deaf and all agreed that they are using sign language outside the classroom. Yet, they all still think that speech is the answer. They put the blame on the deafness and not on their teaching methods. This is due to the fact that they are completely misinformed. They think they are able to communicate with the pupils, but partial input, which is currently occurring in the deaf schools, will only result in partial output.
Intervention areas
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Policy of the school
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Teacher environment — It should be pupil-centric and not teacher-centric
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Better qualified Principals
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Reading skills improved
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Assessment of deaf children
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Family-school interaction
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Teacher training improvement
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More in-depth study to be conducted
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More accountability
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The need for a proper perspective
Dr. Randhawa ended her session by stressing that deaf persons themselves need to be included and involved in this process in an important way.
Floor Discussion
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The importance of having this statistical data and evidence was stressed
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The BA for Deaf Education has no place for sign language.
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The issue between inclusion and customised education should be on a continuum. Language competence should be assessed and it should be taken from there.
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Participation of the deaf should be the first precondition.
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There is no need to doubt deaf people’s abilities and potential. It is a rights issue. Deaf people have a right to be a full member of society.
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Information — there needs to be a dissemination of information due to a lack of awareness.
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Communication — we need to campaign for Sign Language to be recognised as a national language of India and that every child should be exposed to sign language.
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Education — the education system needs to be evaluated.
Inclusion needs to work both ways and information must be made available for all.
It is a grassroots problem. NCERT have included sign language in the schools curriculum, but schools cannot be enforced to follow this. For most schools their curriculum is merely guidelines. At the moment there are no takers for sign language so there needs to be a mass-awareness campaign so that it becomes something that people want.
Networking and interaction between schools is currently not there. Some good work is being done, but only in isolation. People need to network and interrelate with each other in order to share skills, experience and ideas.
Children in mainstream schools should have more exposure to the disability sector.
There is a current lack of interpreters in India. We need to recognise the importance of interpreters, as without them the deaf cannot participate as full members of society.
We cannot have division between all the different disability spheres. We need to look at the big picture.
You need a central communication that includes Sign Language and Sign language needs to be a subject in schools.
There should be an evaluation of teachers of the deaf
Can we increase awareness for the hearing impaired sector in the same way as the film Black did for the visually impaired sector?
The need to revisit and revise the curriculum, and trying to have better master trainers who can implement this curriculum. Sign language needs to start from day 1 in training.
We need consensus here and we need to market and promote through funding and involvement.
Information has to be circulated that SL is the language of the deaf. Teachers need to know sign language. They need to realise that pupils will be taught speech more easily if the teaching method is in SL.
We need sustained strategic awareness campaigns and we need to make sure that this is of high importance. If you want to change attitudes we need to bombard people. We shouldn’t just preach to the disability sector. We need to create awareness in every sector. We need strategic planning and campaigning, and we need this all the time.
Deaf Education in India: Choices
Education of the Deaf
While the world has come a long way in general, there has still been no major breakthrough in deaf education. On average deaf children read at 4.5-grade level after 12 years of schooling and this is in Western nations. The actual situation is in India is unknown. Deaf people are in a dismal social, economical and emotional position.
It is a traumatic experience for parents and they want their children to be able to speak and function as ‘normal’ children. They focus on speech and speech training, but only 5% effectively benefit from this method, and so a lot of time is lost in this endeavour. Other options are offered, but then it is too late. It has been found that if a child does not acquire a language by the age of 3, then they will not acquire the cognitive skills for learning a language and to learn a language will be an uphill struggle; an intellectual or even a memorisation task.
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Early intervention. As early as possible - when they are one day old.
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Parental involvement. Successful deaf children have had a lot of support from their parents.
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Appropriate modality of instruction. Which is the best method? What works for one child will not necessarily work for another.
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A challenging environment.
We need respect and belief in the deaf person. If they are not respected then their self-esteem will go down and they will not be able to grow as a student or as a worker.
Choices Available for Parents
No two deaf children are alike and we need to look at each child as an individual. We need to look for their strengths and not their weaknesses. They are children first: children who happen to be deaf. They are not defective and need to be ‘fixed’. They need respect, understanding and a holistic education.
Some benefit a lot from this while others do not benefit at all. It is expensive. A doctor can never predict effectiveness. There are also some side effects. A little mistake in the can have disastrous consequences. Is the child therefore the prime candidate for these implants? When we do not know the effectiveness and consequences.
It depends on the type of hearing loss. You need early use of amplification and auditory training and the child need support of all kind – this is essential.
Basically an oral approach, but with prompts for sounds that look the same.
These are bona fide languages. They have their own grammar, syntax, and morphology, like any other language. In Sign Language one can express abstract and scientific concepts. You can use this language very effectively. Children learn sign language automatically and fast. It is the natural language of the deaf.
It is a philosophy. A child can decide what he or she wants. Use what works and keep options open.
The key is that the deaf child is included with their hearing peers with the appropriate support. You need a fully inclusive environment. They have to have FULL support.
These are schools and not institutions, and here deaf pupils can get an excellent education. Some are extremely successful, but some are abysmal. There are situations where the kids learn nothing. This is not the problem with the special school, but in the way the children are being taught. These are sometimes just dumping grounds for deaf children. Success depends on the drive and vision of the school’s Principal.
Children of deaf adults are performing better. They are introduced to sign language at an early age. It is their primary language. They pick up signs before and at school, and they learn English as a second language. They have a language that is the same level as their hearing peers. Neurolinguistic findings prove that if a child learns any language by the age of three then they will have the cognitive understanding to learn more languages. Deaf children can therefore learn English based on their knowledge of sign language. This is a holistic approach.
What should we do?
We should offer choices and these choices should all be equally emphasised. We need to realise that what works for one child will not necessarily for another. We need to have early intervention. The earlier this occurs, the better the results will be. We should start their education programme as early as possible. We need to have respect for deaf children and their rights. They have a need for holistic education. Without this they will not benefit from education.
We should not sacrifice deaf children on our beliefs. We need to provide them with what they need, not what we believe in.
Floor Discussion
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We should look at all education in India. We need to find out how many children are learning and which schools are good. We need to know what is working here and focus on that. We need to find out what is happening in the rural areas as 70% of deaf children are in rural areas. We need inclusion with support. These children need to get some kind of education.
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We need to brainstorm and culminate all our ideas together.
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With inclusion each child needs to get the support that he/she needs. The problem that there is in every country is that it is the politicians and bureaucrats who make policies. Teachers are not involved in this process. If they were to be included then this would help a lot.
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Inclusion has advantages for all children.
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Deaf children of deaf parents do much better. There is something critical to be learnt from this. Early intervention is very critical.
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We should not be scared of inclusion pulling down the other children. If children become used to everyone being included form the word go then this will not be an issue in later years. If anything it will increase sensitivity.
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We need to focus on the parents of the deaf child. They are the ones that need to learn the language that their child will be taught in. Otherwise this child will always be years behind. There needs to be education of the parents.
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Inclusion is not possible in India at the moment. It needs to be a gradual transition.
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In India the only choice that is being offered today is oral education through speech. Where is the informed choice? In reality there is no choice. We need to work on this issue.
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Cognitive development by Oralism is not up to the mark. We need to start up bilingualism.
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There is currently good work being done, but there is no sharing or networking.
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One focus of awareness should be on Paediatricians first of all. They are the first people who will come into contact with the parents so this is a way of getting advice to the parents of deaf children as soon as possible
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