Deaf History Middle Ages

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Deaf HistoryMiddle Ages   

• 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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Middle Ages 700 - 1500 A.D.
All text is taken from the Encyclopedia of
Deafness, Gallaudet Press
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Medieval writers often used the classical
doctrine of the four humors to explain human
physiology and behavior. These ideas were based
on Greek philosophy and developed into systems by
Islamic writers. In the late Middle Ages there
was increased study of speech defects and
possible cures, including some surgery. However,
there still existed reverence for ancient
authority and interest in emphasizing speech as
the special property of the soul.
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The Four Humors
The belief that disease was caused by "isonomia",
an imbalance in the four humors consisting of
yellow bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile.)
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Understanding of human anatomy was gradually
increasing, as postmortem examinations were
conducted more frequently. A real turning point
came in the work of the physician Andreas
Vesalius, in the 1500s, who made possible modern
scientific study of the brain. Although he
believed in the soul, Vesalius denied that it
could be found anatomically. He wrote that
congenital deafness was the major source of
speechlessness. If a child never heard anything,
he lacked the stimuli necessary for the mind to
instruct the bodily parts responsible for
articulation.
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Vesalius
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Jerome Cardan (1501-1576) wrote that deaf-mute
people could be taught to express themselves, and
even invented a Braille-like system to prove his
point. He denied that thought was impossible
without speech, pointing out that deaf
individuals could hear by reading, and mute
persons could speak by writing. He broke down
the ancient idea that the speechless person was
without language, and so without reason or soul.
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Cardan
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And so Aristotle and Hippocrates had been wrong
in believing that mutism and deafness inevitably
went together. Through dissection, one could
understand anatomy, and trace the nerves of the
tongue and ears as they entered the brain on
their separate routes. Due to the new thinking
of the Renaissance minds and the accomplishments
of people like Vesalius and Cardan, no longer was
there much dispute about whether or not deaf and
mute persons could be taught speech. The
question was not if, but how.
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• Questions
• What new development helped break the hold of the
  philosophies of Aristotle and Hippocrates?
• Who had the most influence in making that break?

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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.