Deaf bilingual education: A return to our ASL roots

The purpose of this thesis is to show the historical discrepancies in literacy skills of deaf students in the United States and how they correlate to language philosophies and the resulting educational practices in deaf education. These philosophies are described chronologically beginning with the first formal educational institution for the deaf, in 1817, followed by the Oralism Movement, the philosophy of Total Communication, and the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach. All three language approaches can be seen today in schools for the deaf across America, but only the bilingual-bicultural approach builds a foundation in a natural L1 (American Sign Language) in an effort to develop the L2 (English).;The Oral Philosophy was introduced in the late 1800's and was in direct competition with the language philosophy of the early founders. Its educational focus was on the skills of lip-reading and spoken English and signing of any kind was banned. In the 1970's, the philosophy of Total Communication made its way into deaf education. Educators of the deaf began to incorporate signing along side of spoken English. This philosophy realized the invention of several sign systems whose purpose was to show every element of spoken English manually in addition to orally. The most recent attempt at language philosophy in deaf education in the US has been the Bilingual-Bicultural (BiBi) approach.;Although it has its roots in the advent of deaf education in the US, it also resembles ESL learning approaches. BiBi recognizes the culture of deafness that thrives among deaf adults and the language of ASL (American Sign Language) used by its members. BiBi perceives English to be a second language for deaf individuals and proposes that when deaf children are given the opportunity to fully develop a naturally occurring sign language (ASL) then they have an increased chance of developing a second language (English). The BiBi approach to educating deaf children results in early ASL competency and therefore increased access to English literacy skills necessary for academic success.