Current Deaf Education developments and trends within the South African context

The greatest challenge of all has proved to be bridging the gap between the idealism expressed in policy documents and the realities of education systems that influence the responsiveness of schools and communities to inclusive education (Engelbrecht & Green 2007:82).

In a publication issued by the Human Rights Commission (2006) titled Report of the Public

Hearing on the Right to Basic Education, DeafSA submitted the following criticisms in respect of

inclusive education and learners with disabilities:

 In South Africa, educating deaf learners is centred on a medical approach. This approach focuses on speech training at the expense of education. This results in the lack of a regular curriculum and many deaf persons being functionally illiterate.

 In its experience, the policy contained in the White Paper has not been translated into reality.

 Deaf people are not provided with sufficient opportunities to speak for themselves. Instead they are too often reliant on others who interpret on their behalf

 The department fails to consult and engage sufficiently with the deaf community. In its view, the department should start consulting as they have demonstrated little or no knowledge of deaf education practice, SASL or deaf culture (sahrc 2006:24).

Van Staden, Badenhorst and Ridge (2009:53-54) point out that even though advancements have been made in the endorsement of SASL as the first and natural language of the deaf, and although SASL receives mention in the Constitution of South Africa (1996) and various other policy documents, SASL has still not achieved the status of an official language. Furthermore, many deaf learners are being educated in communication modes other than SASL because many educators at Schools for the Deaf are not only unable to sign, but they are of the opinion that Deaf learners should learn the spoken language of the area. It is still not a requirement that these educators attain formal training and qualifications in the education of the Deaf, and most hearing teachers at Schools for the Deaf are not well versed in the pedagogical implications of teaching literacy skills not matter what the mode of communication chosen for instruction. Parkin (2010:491) concurs by stating that ‘’many teachers enter the classroom for Deaf learners with little or no experience with deafness; nor are they required to have any”. Magongwa (2010:495) emphasises that the provision of SASL as a language of learning and teaching without the recognition of SASL as a proper language subject in schools is a challenge because without this provision the learning and teaching of SASL cannot be successfully facilitated. Druchen (2010:496) argues that although several advancements have been made regarding inclusive education and the deaf learner, there remains the need to promote SASL by means of development and training. SASL as a language must be the vehicle for including Deaf learners in

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inclusive school environments.

In September 2009, during National Deaf Awareness month DeafSA (Deaf Federation of South Africa) published a leaflet entitled ‘’Deaf Learners & their Education Rights: Is South Africa

Listening? The following information was highlighted in this pamphlet:

 Diagnosis of hearing loss or deafness happens as late as 4 years old, in some cases 8 years old!

 Deaf children often enter Grade R with little or no language.

 1 in 10 babies in SA is born with some degree of hearing-loss.

 The average Deaf school-leaver leaves school with a reading age of 8.

 75% of the Deaf community is functionally illiterate.

 70% of the deaf Community is unemployed.

 Only 12 schools for the Deaf offer Grade 12 and are concentrated in 3 provinces.

 Only 2 FET Colleges in South Africa employ South African Sign Language Interpreters.

 600 000 South Africans use South African Sign Language as their primary language.

 Only 14 % of teachers in Schools for the deaf can sign fluently.

 South African Sign Language is not a school subject.

DeafSA put forward the following recommendations to improve the status quo:

 Newborn hearing screening should be LAW as it is in many other countries.

 Early Intervention should be immediately available to parents of children with hearing loss so there are no language delays.

 Early Intervention will ensure the deaf child has a language foundation on which to commence schooling and literacy can progress on grade-level.

 More schools for the Deaf need to be funded and supported to offer Grade 12 which will ensure more Deaf people have a Grade 12 certificate and can enter tertiary education and find employment.

 FET Colleges need to budget for the employment of South African Sign Language Interpreters thus giving Deaf students access to this education pathway.

 Teachers need to receive specialist training in South African Sign Language and Deaf Education.

 South African Sign Language must be implemented as a subject in schools (DeafSA 2009).

Parkin (2010:492-493) asserts that the tasks faced at the macro-level in the education of the deaf in South Africa are by no means small and cannot be addressed instantaneously. Many schools have followed international trends in deaf education resulting in a ‘stop-start-stop-start’ system of

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first adopting oralism, then signed English, then Total Communication, then the Bilingual- Bicultural mode of communication. This has caused fragmentation of development and an inability to evaluate any approach critically over an extended period of time. What is needed is cohesive, collaborative leadership formed through a ministerial committee. Education officials, school principals and educators need to appraise the recent research developments in deaf education practice and realise that the goal of educating deaf learners goes beyond teaching them speech skills. The general consensus amongst educators is that early exposure to sign language is detrimental to a deaf child’s development of spoken language. However, a vast amount of evidence has come to the fore over the last fifteen years indicating ‘’that early

exposure to a signed language will actually facilitate better speech development later on’’ (Parkin

2010:493).

At the XVI World Congress of the Federation of the Deaf hosted in Durban, South Africa, from the 18th to the 24th of July, 2011, Navanethem Pillay – UN High Commissioner on Human Rights – declared that

Deaf people can't compete in an environment that is not accessible. The failures to recognise sign language, a lack of bilingual education and sign language interpreting have perpetuated the invisibility of people who are Deaf. There is a general unawareness. This prevents deaf people living independently in the community - which is a basic right recognised by the UN convention (Pillay 2011, quoted in DeafSA Newsletter 2011:1).

The status of deaf education in South Africa is an on-going concern, but legislation is in place as a foundation for continued development. Coupled to this development is the need for all stakeholders to understand the barriers faced by deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) learners and how to best help overcome these barriers from a pedagogical perspective. In order to evaluate what constitutes best practice in the educational environment of the DHH learner all educators, principals, education policy makers and ministerial commissioners need to investigate the latest research on how deaf children acquire language and develop the literacy skills of speech perception and production, reading and comprehension, written language and its structure and thinking and reasoning skills. This will inform future programme development. This research undertaking aims to evaluate the efficacy of literacy programme in supporting the development of literacy skills in a deaf learner who uses the spoken language approach, and so inform future pedagogical practice.

The research participant, Sally (pseudonym), was initially enrolled at a Centre for Language and Hearing Impaired Children which operates as a pre-school. This school offers a specialised language-rich environment which is centred on listening and speaking in order to promote

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expressive oral language. At age 4 she had no spoken language skills and she did not use sign. After 2 years her receptive and expressive skills were still poorly developed so she could not go to a regular mainstream school. Sally attended a remedial school where she followed an individualised learning programme as her parents were opposed to her attending a School for the Deaf where only sign language was used. Sally was subsequently enrolled at a supported mainstream school which embraces inclusive education philosophy. Classes are small, a multilevel, adaptive teaching approach is used and learners straddle the Grades and Phases as they work on individualised education programmes. Multilevel teaching is underpinned by the principles of individualisation, flexibility and inclusion in order to accommodate all learners in classroom activities despite their diversity. To this end collaborative, co-operative teaching strategies are in place.

Sally is the research participant in this study which aims to evaluate to what extent the Teaching, Reading, Writing and Spelling Skills (THRASS) programme – which incorporates the use of the Phoneme Machine with a Cued Speech option – may enhance the literacy levels of an Intermediate Phase learner who is deaf and who uses the spoken language approach. In order to appraise the results of the intervention process as the phenomenon under study and which is underpinned by the development of language skills, it is pertinent to gain background knowledge of how children acquire language and how deafness per se impacts on the ability to acquire language.

2.6 THE CONCEPT OF DEAFNESS AS IT PERTAINS TO LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND