Despite the shocking living and working conditions in the average poorhouse, some children received a limited education. But even asylums that provided some basic schooling considered it their chief duty to provide food, shelter, and a place where the inmates would not bother the rest of society. Buildings were surrounded by fences, and in most asylums, parents were only permitted to visit their children once a week in special visiting rooms. Normally, whatever schooling might be provided in such an asylum did little to meet the needs of the visually or aurally impaired.
Education for the deaf and blind. From the early 1700s educators in the United States worked to develop successful methods for teaching the deaf and the blind. European models offered several starting points. Basing his efforts on French methods, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet founded the American Asylum for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in 1817. Elsewhere, a form of sign language, allegedly developed by Spanish monks who had taken a vow of silence, found its way into the United States. This form of communication met significant resistance, however. Scholar Joseph Shapiro points out some of the reasons for this opposition:
As Arden Neisser notes in her history of sign language, "gesturing was something that Italians did, and Jews, and Frenchmen: it reflected the poverty of their cultures and the immaturity of their personalities.
This is a free page. This page contains 190 words. This
article contains 3,223 words (approx. 11 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our The Miracle Worker Access Pass.
