Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheri
Bear did not say speech wasn't important like some of you have said, bear stated that speech is as extremely important as signs while you and the others thinks speech is just a bonus. What would happen if those deaf children have no speech skills since in deaf schools speech are only given maybe twice a week, is that enough? I don't believe so. You don't want those kids to grow up and enter the hearing world feeling awkward tenision and uncomforable with lack of speech skills. Since bi bi program is ASL all the way from the begin to the end it is use to teach English too as a second language how can ASL teach English when ASL signs itself uses ASL syntex?
While I have no problem with introducing babies to signs the first 6 month of the baby's life until there's a stage to pick up spoken language. ASL is different than English, those kids need spoken language.
The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is speech is not meant to replace ASL, speech should be very apart of the child's life as well as signs and I do think that is extremely important not the least important.
We don't need people to see that deaf people are always going to be a failture if something is limited to them. I know most of you believe that ASL is a native language for the deaf, but it does not mean you should limited their communication skills to ASL.
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I never said that speech skills were not important. But what I did say is that English skills, in whatever mode the child can access them, are more important than diction. In other words, it is more beneficial to be able to read and write fluently in English than to be able to pronounce some words clearly, but be limited in vocabulary and language usage. For instance, a deaf person who is unable to develop the ability to speak clearly, but has a grasp of English that allows them to read and write at a college level will be more independent and have more opportunity available in the job market. Just being able to speak does not neccessarily mean that one has fluent use of the language. like, I can speak a bit of Yiddish, and can understand much of what is said to me in Yiddish. Sometimes, I have to guess the meaning from the context,though. And I cannot express my thoughts in Yiddish as easily as I can in English. So, just being able to pronounce the words so others can hear them doesn't mean that I can communicate fluently in Yiddish. That is what I mean about speech being a bonus. The real goal should be to develop fluency in English. And fluency in the written form of English will benefit more than concentrating so hard on the mechanics of sound production that fluency is neglected. Of couse, work on speech skills if that is what the individual wants. But make literacy the priority, not diction.