Chapter 33: The Trouble with Speech Pathologists

Before taking ASL I, I did not know that there was disagreement as to whether or not Deaf people should be taught to sign.  I had also always assumed that speech pathologists were for children who had trouble speaking clearly for reasons other than hearing loss.  I can understand now why Deaf individuals would resent people who think that speech is superior to signing and especially people who inflict physical punishments on students who do not pronounce sounds correctly.  It seems as though the authors must have had negative experiences with speech pathologist and other such professionals as they spend quite a bit more of the chapter focusing on the negative than the positive attributes of people who go into these professions.

I wonder why some people think speech is superior to signing.  In the story of the graduate student who was working with a graduate speech pathologist student to compensate for his or her hearing and speech-skill loss, the student he or she was working with did not approve of Deaf children signing.

"...I noticed that she had a look of grim disapproval on her face.  She was actually frowning!...All she could say was, 'They should be using more speech.'"--pg. 198, p. 4 and 5

Why would she care how a group of people she will never have to interact with communicate with each other, especially when no one involved in the conversation would have been able to hear speech anyway?  I do not understand why people cannot mind their own business instead of trying to push their opinions on aspects of life they cannot relate to on others who actually understand those aspects of life.