The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-01-23
SPEECH FOR THE TOTALLY DEAF.
1t Is a Wonderful Achievement to Teach
Them to Use Language Properly.

Them to Use Language Properly.
The hearing child just learning 20
talk is quite unintelligible at first, but
gradually the organs learn their les
son, and utterance grows distinct. But
the ear is the guide and critic of these
early attempts. The deaf child, how
ever, hears no sound, and sees only the
slight movements of the lips and tongue,
ind can never learn to speak by his own
unaided observation and imitation of
those motions. The teacher must fur
nish the correction and training that
the ear ordinarily supplies. The teach
ing OF speech to totally deaf child who
has pever spoken is truly a wonderful
achievement. He has no conception OF
sound, and can never have; for the
only sense by which he can be taught
the existence of such thing is that of
touch, which simply gives him a knowl-
edge of the motions that accompany
sound, but are no more the sound itself
than the vibrations that produce heat
arc the sensation we call warmth.
To train the deaf child's organs to
take their proper positions for the ut
teranoe of words as unconsciously as
those of hearing person is very slow
process. The development of any set
Of reflex actions Is q laborious task even
whore mistakes can be recognized and
corrected by the learner himself: in this
case, however, the learner cannot cor
rect his own errors, but must rely upon
the alert ear of his teacher to keep him
from acquiring wrong set of reflex
actions and forming habits that it will
be almost impossible to break UP.
Side by side with articulation comes
the task OF teaching language. Imagine
yourself in country whose speech you
did not know, and whose inhabitants
did not understand yours. Imagine, in
addition, that you were suddenly de-
prived OF your hearing. How well do
you think you would succeed in learn
ing the new language? Yet the con-
Centrally deaf child is under even a
greater disadvantage than this. He is
rot only in q foreign land The language
OF which he does not understand. but.
to begin with, he has no conception of
what language is. He has no language
of his own which can be used as a frame
work on which and by which 10 build
the new. If he is moro than two wears
old, he may have invented for himself
few natural, gestural signs to inii-
cate isolated objects or the simple needs
Of his body, such as hungry, tired.
thirsty; but these signs can no more
be called language than the different
movements of 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 IL any wonder. then, if. after some
years of instruction the teacher occa-
sionally finds sentence like this. writ
ten by a boy IL lis journal after coming
10 school one cold March morning:
The wind is very blow. and I am littls !
slIver?" Or this substitution Of act for
The man chopped the /
ground with his dig, and the dog hur- /
rshed with his waQ?- TIE Irregular
ties and inconsistencies OF English T.
grammar and spelling make 1t much 4
harder, of course. to teach the deaf. anil 4
no class OF people would De more greatly I
benefited by strictly phonetic spelling 4
and an excePtionless grammar than 4
they. That the deaf child IS not fright /
ened by these irregularities s shown I
BY the reply Of q brigh; little girl when
asked to give the principal parts Of some
irregular verbs. Several were sv5vey, cor
rvetly, and then she began on another:
'Est-ate''-she paused FOR a moment
IL thought. and then sC-ied. "syva.-
lowed John Drttoa Wight, II Gen.
tEv.