The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1897-03-27
SPEECH FOR THE DEAF.
A Wonderful Achievement to Teach

Them to Use Lanr.u &c Properly.
The hearing child just learning to
talk is quite unintelligble at first, but
gradually the organs learn their lesson,
and utterance grows distinct. But the
ear is the guide and critic Of these early
attempts. The deaf child, however,
hears no sound and sees only the ight
movements of the lips and tongue, and
can never learn to speak by his own
unaided observation and imitation OF
those motions. The teacher must fur
nish the correction ana training that
the ear ordinarily supplies. The teach
ing of speech to a totally deaf child
who has never spoken is truly 4 Won
derful achievement. He has no couccp-
ton of sound. and can never have; for
the only sense by which he can be
taught the existence Of such a thing IS
that Of touch, which simply gives him
a knowledge Of the motions that accom-
pany sound, but are no more the sound
itself than the vibrations that produce
heat are the sensation we call warmth.
To train the deaf childS organs TO
take their proper positions for the ut
terance of words as uncousciously as
those Of q hearing person is a very
slow process. The development OF any
set OF reflex actions is a laborious task
even where mistakes can be recognized
and corrected by the learner himself;
in this case, however, the learner can
not correct his own errors. but must
rely upon the alert ear of his teacher 60
keep him from acquiring a wrong set OF
reflex actions and forming habits that
It viii be almost impossible to break up.
Side by side with articulation comes
the task of teaching language. Imag-
Inc yourself III 4 country whose speech
You did not know, and whose inhabit-
ants did not understand yours. Imag-
inc. in addition. that you Were suddenly
deprived Of your hearing. How we'll
do you think you would succeed in
learning the new language? Yet the
congenitally deaf child is under even
greater disadvantage than this. He IS
not only in a foreign land the language
of which he does not understand, but.
10 begin with, he has no conception OF
what language is. He has no language
of his own which can be used as a
framework on which and by which TO
build the new. If he is more than two
years old. he may have invented for
himself few natural gestural signs to
Indicate isolated objects or the Simple
needs OF his body. such as hungry.
tired, thirsty; but these signs can no
more be called a language than the diff
fcrent movements of a dogs tail and
ears which indicate his feelings or his
wants can be dignified by that name.
He has no conception of a structurally
connected means Of expression.
Is it any wonder, then, if. after some
years of instruction, the teacher OCCa
sioually finds a sentence like this, writ
ten by boy in his journal after COM
ing to school one cold March morning:
The wind is very blew. and | am 4
little Shiyer:" Or this substitution Of
act for implement: The man chopped
the ground with his dig. and the dog
hurahed with his wag:' The irregu-
larities and Inconsistencies of English
grammar and spelling make it much
harder of course, TO teach the deaf,
and no class of people would be more
greatly benefited by a strictly phonetic
spelling and an eXceptionleSs grammar
than they. That the deaf child is not
frightened by these irregularities is
shown by the reply of a bright little girl
when asked to give the principal parts
OF some irregular verbs. Several were
given correctly. and then she began on
another: "Eat-ate'-she paused for a
moment in thought. and then added.
swallowed. '-"Speech and Speech
Reading for the Deaf" hy John Dutton
Wright, in the Century.