Universal Newborn Screening is resulting in even earlier identification and intervention than ever before.ģ- There is greater awareness and expectations that deaf children can indeed learn to talk thanks in part to the mass media. A combination of intensive, directed auditory training, speech reading and contextual cues, enables most deaf children to comprehend spoken language and use intelligible speech to communicate.Ģ- Earlier diagnosis and earlier fitting of hearing aids stimulates a deaf child's auditory system while capitalizing on whatever residual hearing the child has at a very early age. These factors include:ġ- The improved technology in hearing aids and cochlear implants makes it possible for most deaf children to receive enough auditory information so that learning to speak can be a realistic objective. There is renewed interest in auditory-oral education and there are a variety of factors which account for the increasing demand from parents of deaf children for their children to learn to talk in auditory-oral programs. If an individual does not have the ability to speak and understand the speech of others, that individual's associations and links with the vast majority of society are severely restricted. Deaf adults are surrounded most of the time by normally hearing people and the demands of everyday life necessitate a considerable amount of interaction with people who speak and do not sign. The ideological basis of the auditory-oral approach is that spoken language is the predominant means by which the majority of people interact. Studies support the notion that an emphasis on spoken English results in higher reading levels for deaf children than that which is achieved for children using signing approaches (Moog and Geers, Volta Review, 1989) The auditory-oral approach facilitates development of reading and writing skills because proficiency in the English language is critical to developing good reading ability. Graduates of auditory-oral schools are typically capable of being mainstreamed academically, socially and professionally to a large degree and being able to talk gives them ''mainstream life'' as an option if they so choose. Mainstreaming is implemented as early as possible, first through interaction in the family and neighborhood and later in schools with normal hearing children with full inclusion being the ultimate goal. The goal of mainstreaming is to give the deaf individual the necessary spoken language skills to be mainstreamed educationally and to function independently in the hearing world without a sign language interpreter. I will outline my thoughts on this topic below.Įxpected outcomes for Auditory-Oral education include: The benefits of auditory-oral education are great, but success in this approach requires hard work from the teachers, parents and the children. Sign language is not used in this approach. It is my belief that an auditory-oral approach to education teaches deaf children to use their residual hearing in combination with speech reading and contextual cues to better comprehend and use spoken language.
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