In the world today, people believe that everything needs to be integrated. This is not the best way of action in some circumstances. One of the major ones is for children who are deaf and cannot have hearing implements. The government is saying that it is too expensive to keep these deaf schools open any longer in this economy. They are starting to be shut down which will effect the deaf community more than the government realizes. Although these schools are very expensive, the effects that they have upon those who are deaf severely outweighs the costs.
Most children who have moderate to severe hearing loss who are not able to use hearing implements, such as cochlear implants, have lost one of the senses that is fundamental in their emergent literacy. This is so because they are not able to grow up in as academically challenging of an environment as hearing children. An academically challenging environment is cultivated by parents who teach their kids to do mathematics through games or puzzles, who help their children grow academically before they are sent off to school (McKenzie). Unfortunately the children who are deaf are not able to be fostered in such an environment because their learning is retarded over the fact that they cannot hear.
Children learn by example, they learn by listening to their parents talk. Sadly deaf children cannot hear so they can only learn through sight. Though if the deaf children are taught simultaneously through speaking and signing, they are able to learn faster and more efficiently because then sign language becomes their first language. In a study done at the University of Illinois and the University of Rochester by Jenny L. Singleton and Elissa L. Newport they found that:
Simon [who] is a deaf child whose deaf parents both learned American Sign Language (ASL) after age 15. Simon’s only ASL input is provided by his late-learner parents. The study examines Simon’s performance at age 7 on an ASL morphology task, compared with eight children who have native signing parents, and also compared with Simon’s own parents. The results show that Simon’s production of ASL substantially surpasses that of his parents. (370)
Simon is a perfect example of what should happen to children who are deaf. He was able to be taught early enough that he was able to perform to a better capability than his own parents. Sadly for Simon, there is not a deaf school for him to go to.
Simon is in a classroom where he teacher does not know full ASL, she only knows simultaneous communication which is not proper ASL, it is directly translated from speaking to sign, without any change of grammar to ASL grammar. On top of this, Simon is “mainstreamed with hearing children for Physical Education and Art classes and recess” (380). Being mainstreamed like this is detrimental to deaf children’s social abilities. The vast majority of the people, outside of his class for deaf students, are hearing and have hearing parents, so there has been no reason for them to ever learn ASL. Thus Simon and his fellow hearing impaired peers are left to fend for themselves for communication between themselves and their hearing peers.
This is what is going to happen to all of the children who currently go to schools like the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf in Wilson, North Carolina. This school is in the process of being shut down. Most people outside of Wilson, don’t even care. But the residents of Wilson are afraid that their community “will be lost, scattered and torn apart if the School for the Deaf closes as part of budgetary cuts proposed by the state Department of Health and Human Services” (Moore). This community has grown together. The majority of its inhabitants are deaf. This little town has become a family to its citizens. The state has proposed that they consolidate its two Schools for the Deaf into one in the middle of the state. This fact that they are even considering doing this is quite appalling.
Closing down these schools will force these families to make one of the largest decisions of their lives; they will have to choose between moving to an unknown city, or forcing their children to go to public schools. The Eastern North Carolina School for the deaf has a residential program that allows their students to choose if they want to go home either daily or weekly. It is not considered a boarding school, but has the capabilities of any hospital or boarding school. Some of the services that are offered at ENCSD, as stated in their school website, include “audiology,... child psychiatry,... independent living skills,... literacy, medical care, occupational and physical therapy, orientation and mobility,... sensory integration, speech and language therapy,... and therapeutic horseback riding.”
The ENCSD offers more than just a normal deaf school. The Reverend Daniel Johnson graduated from ENCSD and fully endorses the school saying, “deaf people feel the school is home” (Moore). The entire country needs to realize that although these schools cost more, the effect that they have upon the population and how they have helped a community come together and become a family, is more important than the extra money it costs to keep these facilities in use. The United States should not force people like Simon to endure through years of public school where no one understand them. America should realize how much these schools help the deaf community as a whole and support them more fully.
