Oral/Auditory Approach
As I previously went over in my introduction and my first blog post, I will be analyzing different methods used in deaf education. In this post we will be discussing the oral/auditory approach to deaf education. The oral approach relies on residual hearing, verbal therapy as well as assistive technology to be successful. This method attempts to put deaf students into the “mainstream”. Over 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. This being the reality, some parents choose to assimilate their children with their hearing family and friends as they grow up. Children who get Cochlear Implants (CI’s) or hearing aids are more likely to be taught using the oral/auditory approach than those who do not get CI’s/hearing aids.
FM systems are a significant example of assistive technology. My teachers wore and used an FM system that connected to my hearing aids all throughout my grade school education. In my own experience, as I grew older, the more and more of a hassle the FM felt like to me. I grew up thinking I was just like all of my completely hearing classmates however, the older I got the more frustrated I got. I also got extensive speech therapy to speak as clearly and “normal” as I do today. I remember repeating “S” words constantly and putting cheerios in my mouth to help my pronunciation. When I was exposed to signing and started to learn about the Deaf world, it was eye opening for sure. I related to a lot more than I ever thought I would.
I am very fortunate to have received the education I got and attended the upstanding schools I went to. Blending in with my hearing classmates however, was exhausting. The biggest misconception of cochlear implants and hearing aids is that it mimics perfect/normal hearing. This is not the case, unlike glasses that can replicate 20/20 vision. This is a crucial reason why I think deaf students should be taught using both spoken word and signing. In Deaf education I believe that we can give students “the best of both worlds”. We will continue analyzing different education models and features of Deaf education which will allow you to come to your own conclusions! Thank you for visiting alookintodeafeducation.org! I have posted some visual aids as well as some oral education links below!
Links:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17qoOcbrxL1_xU4BvMi3IojlHzFxTkIsYiq7YHVG_aTk/edit?usp=sharing (visual aids)
