[senco-forum] RE Deaf literacy

Hi Stevie!

I welcome your input.

I need no convincing that someone with partial hearing can learn to both speak and read. I have in fact worked in a school with a class of hearing impaired children.  The speech patterns of the children there seemed to reflect the partiality of their hearing in spite of the fact that they used a system which amplified their individual and specific frequency deficits. They did not, and understandably, appear to be able to recreate the sounds with frequencies which were outside their hearing experience.

A friend who was a life-long teacher of the deaf told me that she had never in her long professional career met anyone who was completely deaf - all were partially hearing. I understand that the improvements you speak of, including cochlear implants, were in the exploitation of whatever residues of hearing remained.

In support of my proposal that a completely deaf person could not learn to speak I was citing the hypothetical case of someone with no hearing whatsoever eg someone with say, completely dead auditory nerves which were not capable of carrying any auditory signals to the brain. I had in mind someone with the same concept of sound as a species of creature with no auditory senses whatsoever.  You seem to be claiming that even in that extreme case, that person could learn to express themselves in the series of complex sound patters that is speech even given that they could have no concept of what sound is.

 I would really appreciate your describing for me the process by which this is achieved?

.

Eddie C.