"If they never get beyond 'bad, mad, pad, and dad' or drills in sentence diagrams, they won't stick around to luxuriate in the delights of Jane Austen or Shakespeare. Why bother?"--pg. 159, p. 4I can see where it would make sense that reading is one thing that Deaf people and hearing people experience in the same way...if they had the same English backgrounds, and they do not. I do not understand why anyone would think not being able to hear would make someone less intelligent.
I would say that literacy therapy is more important than speech therapy. Once grasped, reading is something that Deaf people would be able to do without struggle due to not being able to hear. Speech, however, will never match the level of hearing people. Unless a Deaf person has an individual interest in learning how to speak, I do not see a reason to make them attempt it. It seems like it would be very frustrating, especially if you have no desire to learn the skill.
I think there is a fine line of political correctness in every aspect of life and the story of the Deaf man on page 161 is walking rather close to it. It is almost as if he is asking for separate but equal--which has been ruled as inherently unequal in regards to race in 1954 and Massachusetts marriage terminology in 2004--and I am glad that the authors point out that this man's view is not universal for the Deaf community. I personally think that qualified teachers with positive attitudes should teach, regardless of their status as Deaf or hearing.
I agree with you that literacy skills are more important. Reading skills are really important just for going through the motions of everyday life.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you based on literacy skills over speech therapy, which is funny because I am studying to become an SLP. But I just feel as if literacy is undoubtedly more important and a crucial skill to obtain as a deaf individual versus being able to talk.
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