language skills, research, CS (long)

[TWRIGHT at ACCDVM.ACCD.EDU]

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>