Deaf History Roman Era

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Deaf HistoryRoman Era   

• TutorialSocial Aspects of Deaf CultureSign
  Language Interpreter Training ProgramKirkwood
  Community College 

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• Objectives
• Identify important events and people and
  ideologies in the development of Oral education
  for the deaf given information contained in the
  tutorial.
• Identify important events and people and
  ideologies in the development of manual education
  for the Deaf given information contained in the
  tutorial.

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• Vocabulary
• Manualism - education of the deaf using sign
  language, and the manual alphabet
• 2. Oralism - education of the deaf using speech
  and lip-reading

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• Deaf - a cultural and linguistic identity
  acquired by many deaf person which is viewed as a
  desirable and valued state-of-being.
• 4. deaf a term used to describe the inability
  to hear normal speech patterns and general sounds
  within the environment.

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5. Residential Institution - state school for
the deaf, state funded schools serving a regional
or statewide population of Deaf and
hard-of-hearing children. 6. Language - a
systematic form of communication which enables
its users to talk about anything, anywhere,
according to a system of grammatical rules which
are learned and internalized.  
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• American Sign Language - a natural,
  visual-gestural language  which is indigenous to
  North America with specific grammatical and
  linguistic properties.
• Congenital Deafness - deafness which is present
  at birth.

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• Deaf Community a community made up of Deaf and
  non-deaf people who share the goal of furthering
  the goals and interests of Deaf people and work
  collaboratively to that end.
• Hearing a term used within the Deaf Community
  to refer to non-deaf people who are basically
  misinformed or uninformed about the Deaf
  experience.

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• Pre-lingual deafness - the significant loss of
  hearing which occurs after birth, but prior to
  the time an infant acquires oral/aural language
  competence.  This is usually considered to be
  before the age of three.
• Post-lingual deafness -  the significant loss of
  hearing which occurs during adolescence, after
  oral/aural language competence has been acquired.
  

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Roman Era 100 600 A.D.
All text is taken from the Encyclopedia of
Deafness, Gallaudet Press
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The Stoics, in the Roman era, wrote that speech
was not a natural development from animal sounds,
but was s stream of thought from the soul.
Natural reason led to natural language. The
Greek physician Galen, born 129 A.D., accurately
located the center for speech and reason in the
brain, but also thought that speech was the
messenger of the soul. Stoics also believed the
soul to be the Creators supreme achievement and
speech was the supreme achievement of the soul,
the external logos from the internal logos of
reason.
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Galen, a Greek physician who lived during the 2nd
century, made numerous anatomical discoveries by
dissecting animals. One of his findings was that
arteries carry blood. His studies dominated
European medical theory and practice for 1400
years.
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The Justinian code (A.D. 529) documents attitudes
toward deaf people and those without speech. In
the codification of the Roman law, a speechless
person was considered a legal impediment, and
speech was necessary for citizenship. A
speechless child, one writer said, had not
intellect, which was the truly human factor. A
deaf person could not make a promise in a court
of law. Although, if one was deafened after
acquisition of language, a written will was
accepted. Under Roman law, the ability to reason
and the ability to speak were indissolubly
connected. A person deaf and mute were
associated with minors or those incurably
diseased or insane as being incapable of handling
their own affairs.
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• Questions
• Had the philosophies about deafness changed?
  How?
• Does the Justinian Code see deafness as a
  disability or a culture?

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Answers
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• From philosophers, law givers, and physicians.
• Prevalent thoughts about deafness were that it
  was a disability.
• That deafness meant lack of a soul or a severe
  defect in the soul.
• Disability.
• Not much, however, they had located the center of
  speech in the brain, not the soul.
• As a severe disability, seemingly worse than
  blindness.