Contents

• Introduction
• Total Communication
• Sign Bilingualism
• Auditory Oral
• Choosing Options
• References

Introduction

A diagnosis of severe or profound bi-lateral deafness, whether at 4 weeks, 6 months, 9 months or later, is, with few exceptions, a shock to parents and generates questions that reflect feelings of anxiety and uncertainty about the prospects for their child.

• What are the implications of her degree of deafness?
• Will she talk?
• How will we talk with her?
• Must we learn sign, etc?

Unfortunately parental anxiety about their child's deafness is rarely met with cast iron assurances regarding their child's potential ability to acquire language and become literate. Parents want to do the best thing for their child. Parents suspect and fear that deafness from birth imposes a severe threat to the development of communication but they do not know how to unlock the barrier to communication associated with their child's deafness. Even when their first reactions of shock are over and they feel ready to make serious enquiries about how best to develop their deaf child's communication, they will in all likelihood meet with confusing and conflicting advice.

Parents may be told that they should use gestures and signs as well as speech and hearing as in total communication on the grounds that making use of all communication modes will help move forward the development of communication.

Or parents may be advised by pro-signers that they are blessed with a child with special features that are not the same as those possessed by a hearing child; that their child's natural language as a deaf child is sign language and that it is their duty as parents to allow their child to be deaf and use a sign bilingual approach. This approach requires, as a first step, that they and other members of their family must start to learn sign language.
Parents may be advised, on the other hand, to follow an auditory-oral approach, using speech and no signs in order to help their child make maximum use of her residual hearing and learn from the outset to communicate primarily through hearing, listening and vocalisation.
Parents cannot deal with the quandary raised by conflicting advice by putting into practice all the methods of communication since the different approaches are so incompatible. Recourse to professional opinion is likely to lead to contradictory views as to what is best for their deaf child (Note 1).

In any event, leaving the decision to "experts" is inadvisable since parents will feel undermined if they do not themselves play a major role in the decision-making. It is parents who must decide and parents must, therefore, be empowered to do the best thing for their child. No educational method is going to work well unless parents freely choose it and take responsibility for it. In these circumstances, "doing the best thing" for their deaf child means getting to know as much as possible about the nature and implications of the available communication approaches so as to make an informed choice. Parents, as the key agents in their deaf child's education and future life, need to be able to understand the pros and cons of different approaches and to really see the applicability of one as opposed to another to their own child.

The aim of this handbook is to offer information in as clear and impartial a way as possible to help clarify issues and claims made on behalf of different communication approaches in order that parents can arrive at their own solutions.

The three major communication options

• total communication
• sign bilingualism
• auditory-oral

will in turn he examined in order to reveal the arguments used to support each particular method and to examine its practical implications together with the most recent available educational outcome evidence. The choice of options that are likely to be available in any particular child's local area will also be considered.