language skills, research, CS (long)

[Tane Akamatsu]

The latest issue of Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education has a very
thoughtful article written by Carol LaSasso and colleagues.  I don't have my
 copy
in front of me, but it gave a well reasoned and balanced review of the issues.

Tane Akamatsu

TWRIGHT at ACCDVM.ACCD.EDU wrote:

> Carolyn Ostrander wrote:
>
> > Most proponents of CS see ASL as a valid language of instruction, either
> > as a partner with English in a bilingual setting or as a preferred
> > monolingual option if the child already knows or is learning ASL at home.
>
> A few years ago, in observing and participating in discussions on this topic
> on Deaf-L, I also noticed a marked willingness on the part of Cued Speech
> parents to allow their children exposure to ASL, and even to consider
> English via Cued Speech/ASL bilingualism.  This was striking to me in view of
> the characteristic unwillingness of parents and teachers who advocate oral
> or signed English-based approaches to allow deaf children to be exposed to
> ASL.
>
> Some participants in these discussions pointed to research about exceptional
> L1 acquisition results with deaf children using Cued Speech (of course,
> what method doesn't have its purported research support?)
>
> I wondered if perhaps Cued Speech indeed serves as a more
> efficient vehicle for the transmission of English than other attempts to
> manually encode English, and that CS kids were successful enough at
> acquiring English so as to alleviate the anxiety parents and teachers might
> feel about allowing access to a "competing" language like ASL.  After all,
> if a method isn't working for a kid, and you've staked everything on it,
> the last thing you're going to do is introduce a second language to compete
> for precious time, especially with self-admittedly labor-intensive approaches
> such as oralism.  If, on the other hand, things are going well on the English
> acquisition front, perhaps parents have an easier time seeing the benefit
> of ASL.
>
> This is all purely impressionistic, and I have no idea whether it could
> be backed up by solid data.  I do strongly feel, however, that we should not
> lump all manual coding of English into the same bin thoughtlessly, especially
> in view of the very different approach Cued Speech takes as compared with
> MCE systems, and also in view of the receptiveness CS advocates have shown
> recently toward ASL and bilingualism.
>
> JMHO
>
> --Tony Wright <twright at accdvm.accd.edu>