Teaching Deaf Children Explained To C.W.I.

Press, Volume C, Issue 29499, 28 April 1961, Page 2

Teaching Deaf Children Explained To C.W.I.

The lonely, silent world of the deaf child and the patient work on the part of his teachers to make him speak to and understand others were explained to members of Country Women’s Institutes recently by Mr Darcy Vale of the Christchurch Teachers’ Training College. The guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Canterbury Federation of C.W.1., Mr Dale said the teaching and comprehending was slow in the schools for the deaf. There a child of nearly six years would have some 40 words in his vocabulary. A normal child of the same age would have learnt nearly 2000.

Teachers in New Zealand schools used constant repetition of words and showed the children how to feel vocal vibrations in a speaker’s face among other methods, he said. But in England a new machine had come into use showing by visual means a way of correcting speech sounds and inflections which have posed a problem for teachers of older pupils. The machine showed by a series of rows of lights the pitch of the voice that the deaf person could not hear for himself. Lights showed on one side of the machine when the voice was low and on the other when it was high. Other lights judged the clarity of a voice and its distinctness.

“Deaf people tend to speak in a rather breathy voice with little range in pitch.” said Mr Dale. ‘This guide helps them to speak as normal people do.” Suggested. Aid

Mr Dale made a suggestion for a machine with a similar use. He said he thought one with two screens like a television set, showing patterns on one screen of the teacher's pronunciation of a word, and showing patterns describing the deaf pupil’s attempts on the other when it was way the pupil had an example to copy and one to compare his own efforts with, he said.

One in every 2000 mothers, discovered that their child was deaf and their part in the teaching programme began as soon as the discovery is made. They talked to the baby as if he could hear but made sure that the child was watching The same sentences connected with the baby's daily routine were repeated all the time. After six months the child usually showed that he was beginning to lip-read. His first attempt at speech would be silent lip-move-ments.-At school his early attempts at gpoken words always met with enthusiastic approval l , from his -teacher. Later htJfoundfCiat notins came mote easily-to him than other words. •

Difficult Phrases ’The phrases deaf children find difficult and spend much time on are simple ones that come naturally to the normal child,” said Mr Dale. “They are those like, "who’s turn," "I can’t see’ and so on.” Pupils were given ‘‘activ-

ity” lessons in the classroom in the early stages. An observer might think the school was purely a playground, but there was definite method in all the games and lessons taught, he said.

There were two Stale schools for deaf children in New Zealand and one Roman Catholic school, at Feilding. About 300 children attended these schools and a further 400 were absorbed in normal schools. Not all children were nearly completely deaf and many could be helped with hearing aids. The more severe cases were taken at the special schools and even these pupils could hear a little in that they could sometimes distinguish one sound from another or could even be aware of a sound.

On leaving school. even very deaf pupils found there were numerous jobs available to them in every walk of life, Mr Dale said. Employers had

found them to be very hard and competent workers. They also made extremely good parents and unless, as in some rare cases, deafness was hereditary in the family, their children were born with good hearing. ‘Tn these homes there appears to be no strain on a child of deaf parents and the children are very helpful and understanding,” said Mr Dale.

The progress of scientific and medical research tn this field was considerable, he said. “There is a cure for some forms of ‘bone’ deafness (caused by malformation in bone structure round the ear) but so far there has been no cure effected on ‘nerve’ deafness.

“However, deaf people are now given a very good education and the future is much brighter for them. An American doctor is optimistic that a near-complete cure may be found within the next 10 years,” he said.