SIGN LANGUAGE WAS BANNED BY THE FATHER OF ORAL METHOD IN THE1890s

Oral method in Deaf Institutes (Post-Milan 1880)

This history is fascinating. There was a hearing man who married a Deaf woman, and they were advocating for oral method while there was a hearing man who married a Deaf woman and they were advocating for sign language method, they were called the father of oral method and the father of sign language method respectively. 

They forced their Deaf children to learn the oral language so they can know how to speak and they banned them from any form of sign language while the other one made the Deaf children to learn sign language so they can communicate by sign language and nothing to do with oral.

On those two sides, they have Deaf children who were successful with the oral method and sign language method, and at the same time, we have those Deaf Children that failed with the oral method and sign language method. 

But the oral method won the heart of every man in the past because the father of oral method was asked to bring in two or three Deaf children to prove its success stories, he brought in those Deaf children that were able to learn verbal and speak fluently, because of that, they banned sign language entirely and oral method reigned then they imposed oral methods on all Deaf children. 

After many many years later, they found out that that 50 % of grown Deaf adults failed with oral methods, and it was too late for them to learn anything because they were taught by verbal in school and it didn’t work for them a bit because they couldn’t read and write while it worked for the other 50% of grown Deaf adults. 

So because of that, they lifted the ban on sign language and allowed them to learn sign language, the one that suits them and that was how American Sign Language (ASL) came around as you can notice that ASL is not really the same as Signed Exact English (SEE), They used ASL as a mean for those failed grown Deaf adults to understand and they can’t ban oral method because it actually worked for 50% of grown Deaf Adults. 

That’s why today, we have the mixture  of both oral and sign language methods that are called “TOTAL COMMUNICATION” or “MANUAL COMMUNICATION.”

In the end, both the father of oral and sign language methods have one goal: the success of education of Deaf Children, but they did it differently.