The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-11
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN, Director.
Washington, ID. c.
TEACHING DEAF CHILDREN.

TEACHING DEAF CHILDREN.
Kensington, Md.,-In this suburb of
Washington sixteen deaf children are
being taught to read. write, talk and
do all the other things that normal
girls and boys learn. When they leave
the school here, these children will be
able to take their places in colleges.
offices, and in social life on prac-
tically equal basis with people who
have all their faculties.
1t is not so long since deaf per-
son was always set down as deaf and
dumb. He could not hear. and there
fore how could he be expected to talk
Sign language or a pad and pencil
were his means of communicating
with the world. Then lip reading and
reproduction of positions of lips and
teeth to make the sounds were de-
veloped, and now in this little Ken
sington home-school and several
other progressive schools for the deaf,
the sign language is barred entirely.
Miss Anna Reinhardt, principal of
| the Kensington school, says that the
most important phase of teaching deaf
children is to talk to them.
You must talk, talk, and then talk
to the deaf child, no matter how dis
coura ging or tired you may be. I
have repeated a sentence to child
until it had no meaning to me. But
the child finally got it, and that was
a victory for US both"
! Consider how difficult it is some
times for a hearing. child to reproduce
certain sounds, and then think of the
deaf child who must get them by
merely watching the position of the
lips. Naturally this requires greater
/ patience-on the part of both teacher
and pupil.
Miss Reinhardt regards the teach
ing of deaf children as her life work.
She founded her school eleven years
ago. after she had studied methods
of teaching the deaf. and had done
some teaching in Philadelphia. Her
school is not in the dleast like an or
binary day or boarding school. She
believes that to get the best results
with deaf children the school must be
a home first of all. The home at
mosphere is what impresses the visitor
most about the Reinhardt school.
The school is a large. old-fashioned
country house, with broad porches
and surrounded by sloping lawns. In
side, it is exactly like the home of
large family. There are no school
rooms with desks screwed into the
floor. The older children, of about
eleven or twelve years. have movable
desks set up in a living room at les
son time The younger ones of kinder
garten and primary ages are taught IN
a cottage annex This cottage had to
he added for school rooms and dorml-
tories when the school grew so rapidly.
There are four teachers and an as
sistant for the sixteen children, Tor
deaf children need a great deal of in
dividuaI instruction.
Many of the children who come TO
a school for the deaf have been ms
understood or neglected at home be-
cause of their defect. a child normally
begins to talk at two years, and-w when
speech is retarded long after that tli1e
the cause should be Investigated Tor
possible deafness. Often parents think
that a baby who does not talk is only
slow in learning. and som etimes sew
eral years elapse before they really
understand that the child is deaf. by
this time the child may have become
habitually irritable or may have de-
veloped a terrible temper due to its
being continually expected to react as
normal child would.
A child of this sort placed in a school
for the deaf at seven or eight years
may not advance 50 rapidly as a much
younger pupil. Miss Reinhardt has in
her school half a dozen pupils of from
three to six years, some of whom talk
more plainly than the older children.
tie pupils were being taught to under
stand and interpret lip reading as they
made pictures with colored squares of
paper. AS a sample of the progress OF
this class the teacher held one little
boy on her knee and asked him: SHOW
me your nose Show me your coat
and so on, speaking distinctly but
with ordinary rapidity. The boy in
each case pointed TO the object men
toned and repeated mes or coat"
smiling all the while, and keeping his
eyes fixed on the teachers face to
catch every word. Only in one case
he failed to understand and respond
correctly, and that was when ear and
hair were confused. These two words.
the teacher explained, look similar
and are difficult for him to distinguish.
Some of these deaf children talk in
natural tones, while others, especially
those deaf from birth speak without
expression or with a queer accent. All
of them who have had special train
ing for three or four years are easily
understood. AS they grow older they
seem to lose some of the strain notice
able in the voices of the smaller ones,
and the effect is rema rkably natural
k and other sounds made in the
| back of the mouth are most difficult
| for the deaf to grasp and reproduce,
but even these are mastered after re-
peated illustrations apd much prac
| tice.
These children are starting out in
| life without the ability to hear and
| with such handicap in the way of
! learning to speak, and yet when you
| look in on them at lessons, meals. or
game they are apparently normal boys
and girls. They laugh and talk. Some
| times they alb talk at once just like
any group of happy school children.
| Their lessons are much less formal
| than those in a regular school, and
tthey are encouraged to talk, so long
as they do not get too far from the
school work at hand, or do not forget
politeness.
! Arithmetic and other lessons are
put On practical basis. Learning
/ to reat is for them matter of being
| able to enjoy more stories, and their
/ letters from home. Most of them are
/ voracious readers. The writer was in
| terested to find that when they had
] 2 re- L,,nr1,a1,t aIdor-