Deaf History and Culture - Essay Example

# 6449 # 6449 May 3rd, 2007 DEAF HISTORY AND CULTURE: Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Centre lists about 109 deaf colleges and universities in America on their website. When discussing the deaf history and culture, there are three names which should not be forgotten. These are of Helen Keller, Charles Michel de L’Eppe and Laurent Clerc. A brief overview for each of these personalities is given below: Helen Keller was a deaf and blind US author, activist and lecturer. She was born at Ivy Green in Tuskumbia Alabama on June 27, 1880. At the age of nineteen months, she was diagnosed as a case of “acute congestion of the stomach and the brain”. This short term attack of illness left her deaf and blind. Helen proved to be a quite an intelligent child. By the age of seven, she had invented sixty different signs to communicate with her family. Helen’s education career began when her mother took her to a specialist doctor for advice. Actually she was inspired by hearing about another child who was deaf but completed her education successfully. The doctor referred her to the local expert, Alexander Graham Bell. Bell was working for the deaf children at that time. Alexander Graham Bell told Helen’s parents about the institute where that child had got education. It was called the Perkins Institute for the Blind, located in South Boston. Helen was brought there. One of the former students of the school, named Anne Sullivan was designated as Helen’s teacher. She was blind herself and had got education from the same institute. Anne proved to be a very hard working teacher. After a good effort of about three years, Helen learnt the names of many familiar things. The next step was to speak. Anne taught her to speak using the Tadoma method (touching the lips and throat of others as they speak). Helen continued her education starting from Perkins Institute, then Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, Horace Mann School for the Deaf, The Cambridge School for Young Ladies and finally, the Rad Cliffe College in 1900 becoming the first deaf and blind person to graduate from the college. As mentioned in Wkipedia, the online Encyclopedia: Keller went on to become a world famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities as well as numerous causes. She was a suffragist, a pacifist and a birth control supporter. In 1915 she founded Helen Keller International, a non-profit organization for preventing blindness. In 1920 she helped to found the ACLU. Keller and Anne Sullivan traveled all over the world to over 39 countries, and made several trips to Japan, becoming a favorite of the Japanese people. Helen Keller met every US president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain. When the American Foundation for the Blind was established in 1921, she got an effective outlet for her efforts. From 1924, onwards she was a member of the Foundation staff serving as counselor on national and international relations. The same year, she began her campaign to raise the “Helen Keller Endowment Fund” for the Foundation. Until her retirement from the public life, she was tireless in her efforts to make the Fund adequate for the Foundation’s needs. Helen Keller was as interested in the welfare of blind persons in other countries as she was for those in her own country. Her active participation in this area of work for the blind began as early as 1915 when the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund, later called the American Braille Press, was founded. She was a member of its first board of directors. In 1946, Miss Keller was appointed counselor on international relations for the American Foundation for the Blind. It was then that she began the globe-circling tours on behalf of the blind for which she was so well known during her later years. During seven trips between 1946 and 1957 she visited 35 countries on five continents. In 1955, when she was 75 years old, she embarked on one of her longest and most grueling journeys, a 40,000-mile, and five-month-long tour through Asia. Wherever she traveled, she brought encouragement to millions of blind people, and many of the efforts to improve conditions among blind people outside the U.S. can be traced directly to her visits. Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, at Arcan Ridge, a few weeks short of her 88th birthday. Under the terms of her will Helen Keller selected the American Foundation for the Blind as the repository of her papers and memorabilia. Now we discuss about the second contributor, Charles Michel de L’Eppe. Charles Michel de L’Eppe lived from 1712 to 1789. He was born to a rich family. He was a priest by profession, but after serving as a priest for a period of 25 years, he became interested in helping the deaf persons. So, he started a shelter for the deaf and ran it by using his income. He also made efforts to teach the deaf children. One effort in this context was that of writing a book named “Instruction of Deaf and Dumb using Methodical Sign”. It was about the use of signs to educate the deaf children. But it was not a proper sign language; rather it was French in manual form. Among other great contributions by Charles Michel was that he wrote a dictionary named “Dictionary for the Use of Mutes”. This dictionary gave a good coverage of the sign language, with a greater detail. It was him who first presented the thought of educating the deaf persons. Before that, there was no such concept as people thought it impossible to teach the deaf children. Because of this deficiency, they could not take part in any of the social activities, like trade and marriage etc. Charles Michel first thought of teaching the French language to the deaf children, as he believed that these special children already have their own sign language. But this proved to be a very difficult task. Then he observed that he had learnt Latin by using his native language, French. So, he decided to teach such children by using the signs of the Deaf community. Charles didn’t consider the FSL (French Sign Language) to be a real language, because there was less to write down when it was translated into the French words. In short, the basic reason for the fame of this great person is that he was the ‘first hearing person’ who asked the Deaf people to teach him the Sign Language. Someone said that h was brave because at this time most hearing people hated Deaf people. He was responsible for making sure that dozens of schools were set up across Europe.(www.broadgreenhigh.org.uk) Now talking about the third major contributor in the efforts for the deaf persons, we will discuss Laurel Clerc: His full name was Louis Laurent Marie Clerc. He was also French by birth. He was born on December 26th, 1785. His family was among the servers of the king since 15th century, through the office of Tubelion or the Royal Commissary. His father was royal civil attorney, justice of the peace. It was never clear if he was congenitally deaf, or developed it later on, as at the age of one year, he fell from his chair into the kitchen fireplace. His right cheek was severely burnt and following a fever, it was discovered later that his senses of smell and hearing were completely lost. Despite all the efforts made by his parents, his deafness could not be treated. For the next 11 years, he stayed at home and remained un-educated. At last, when he was twelve years old, his uncle enrolled him in the first public school for the deaf in the world. Clerc proved to be a very brilliant student. Within a short term period of only about nine years, he was appointed as teacher in the same institution. After some time, he went to London and started practicing his teaching methods there as well, for the deaf children. Thomas Gallaudet, was Yankee Congregationalist minister. He had special interest in the education of the deaf children, as one of his friends Dr. Cogswell, had a deaf little daughter. At that time, there were no educational institutes for the deaf in the United States. As their cause was the same, so Gallaudet soon came to know about Clerc. He met him. After meeting Gallaudet, finally Clerc decided to go to America and start his efforts there as well. Clerc, with Gallaudet as his interpreter, and sometimes accompanied by Dr. Cogswell, delivered many speeches and demonstrations of their teaching methods to get public, legislative and financial support for their goals. On April 15th, 1817, they started the first school for the deaf in America. Gallaudet was the principal and Clerc, the head teacher. The very next year, Clerc went to Washington D.C. to gather support from the Congress. Due to his efforts, a bill was passed granting the school with 23,000 acres of government land in the state of Alabama. As a result of his continuous efforts, in all, more than thirty residential schools were established all over the nation during Clerc’s lifetime. On July 18th, 1869, Clerc passed away at the age of 84. Among the most useful hearing aids, the cochlear implants are important. According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology website: A cochlear implant is an electronic device that restores partial hearing to the deaf. It is surgically implanted in the inner ear and activated by a device worn outside the ear. Unlike a hearing aid, it does not make sound louder or clearer. Instead, the device bypasses damaged parts of the auditory system and directly stimulates the nerve of hearing, allowing individuals who are profoundly hearing impaired to receive sound. A cochlear implant consists externally of a microphone, a speech processor (usually worn on a belt or in a pocket) and a transmitter, internally, it consists of a receiver and stimulator and an array of up to 24 electrodes which transmit impulses directly into the brain. It is implanted under the skin behind the ear. Coming to the history of the cochlear implants, it dates back to 1790, when Alexandro Voltra, the inventor of the battery, first experienced the sound with the help of metal rods inserted into his ears. The first direct stimulation of the acoustic nerve was performed during an operation by two surgeons Andre Djourno and Charles Eyries. The patient experienced this sound, when a current was applied to the wires. In 1961, an American doctor William House, successfully implanted hearing devices into three patients. In the following years, during 1969, he invented the first wearable cochlear implant with the help of Jack Urban. These efforts continued until in 1978, Melbourne became the first person in the world to receive the multi-channel cochlear implant. In 1984, the Australian cochlear implants were finally approved for the adults, and now, the implants are available even for four months old child. With more advancement in technology, the cochlear implants are now available in very small sizes, called as Behind-the-ear (BTE) speech processors. After the success of unilateral implants, the bilateral implants were introduced with a better result and are now being utilized at various countries. One point must be clear that the cochlear implants do not restore the normal hearing. The success of an implant varies from person to person. Additionally, it depends upon various factors like the duration of illness (for how long the patient has been deaf), the number of surviving auditory nerve fibres and the patient’s own motivation or will to learn. The cochlear implants are approved by the Food and Drug Administration only after detailed clinical investigations. The cochlear implants are basically designed only for individuals who cannot get any benefit from the hearing aids. They are suitable for ages above 12 months although now such devices have also been introduced which are for as young as 4 months old children. The cochlear implants are surgically implanted followed by regular checkups and readjustment of the speech processor if required. As a result of the advancements in technology, in the near future, the cochlear implant recepients may be able to hear at a level higher than the general public. Moreover, they may become obsolete, if a biological hearing method is introduced. To conclude, we can say that the cochlear implants are a great invention rather a great blessing for the deaf community.   Works Cited 1. “Elementary, Middle and High Schools for Deaf Students in the United States That Have Web Sites”. Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center. May 4th, 2007. http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/InfoToGo/schools-usa.html 2. “Helen Keller”. Wikipedia. May 3rd, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller#Biography 3. “Deaf history”. May 4th, 2007 http://www.broadgreenhigh.org.uk/drbmain/mydrb/Deaf%20History.htm 4. “Laurent Clerc”. Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center. May 4th, 2007. http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/Literacy/MSSDLRC/clerc/index.html 5. 5. “Cochlear implant”. Wikipedia. May 4th, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant#Future_technology Read More