Misc. Monday

Hi All!

Okay - it is one of those days. I don't know what to blog about! There are a few things I could tell you - like about how Skor is doing with his injured feet (He is doing okay but has found a way to chew on his back foot which is making the progress with that foot a lot slower than with the front foot. Also - this morning he managed to bite his tongues while I was giving him meds. Blood came pouring out of his mouth and scared the bejeebus out of me! Silly kitty!).

Another topic could be that it is finally cold in Texas (well, cold for Texas anyway!) and I walked with my scarf wrapped around my ears this morning because I couldn't find my nifty little earmuffs anywhere! Using them only a few times a year makes them easy to "lose" when I need them! The wind is the real killer down here - it makes it nasty even when the temps are not that low. I LOVE Texas!

Nothing major is happening in sign language except for the fact that I have to write a book report by class tomorrow. I have read the book (which I got from the library on Friday and that was a whole different ordeal!) and am now pondering what I will be writing in my paper. Did you know that the use of sign language by Deaf people was greatly discouraged in the US and around the world for about 100 years? That is right! People believed that Deaf children should be taught to read lips and talk. They even punished children who used signs! Yikes!

In about 1965, people in the US began to realize that the system of only teaching lipreading and speech, called Oralism, was just not doing much good for the Deaf children. The very best students were found to only understand, at best, about 20% of lipreading which made conversations very difficult for them. Oralism also didn't help the children make connections between the sounds they were being taught to say and any kind of meaning so their vocabulary was very limited making people believe that all Deaf people were mentally retarded.

The book I read was published in 1971 and was about a study done from 1966 until 1970 which was designed to look at the social and emotional growth of Deaf children. The book actually ended up reading more like an advertisement for Total Communication - teaching children signs as well as lip reading and speech. Just so you know - Total Communication didn't work too well either. Currently, educators generally agree that teaching Deaf children sign language from an early age is the best for the children emotionally, academically, and socially. Of course, not all parents of Deaf children learn sign language which can be a HUGE problem in the bonding between parent and child.

Hey - I think I know what to write in my paper for class . . .

Trisha

Voice Update: A bit "froggy" this morning. I think it is due to allergies????