Pros And Cons Of Oralism

Many parents may be upset when they learn their child is deaf; this could be because they have never come in contact with someone who is deaf. As human beings, the unknown is a scary thing. However, there’re many pros and cons for both manual and oral philosophies for educating the deaf. Personally, I feel if a child is deaf themselves and the parents should learn American Sign Language. American Sign Language is their native language; why take the language away from them. How is that fair? That’s just like someone taking away English from us and forcing us to learn and speak another language. I understand that parents want their child to be able to communicate with others; but I feel the child can do this with gestures or writing on a piece …show more content…
Pros of oralism is the child will be main streamed just like all the other children, the child will learn to speak, the child will supposedly have a better reading score than children who just learn through ASL. According to Freda Norman, a teacher told her that deaf children should be educated through oralism because the majority of people are hearing; therefore the deaf would be able to speak with them. Freda spent her life trying to fit in and speak. Now she questions if she should’ve spent all that time trying to be like the majority. Therefore, a con of oralism; is the individual will lose a sense of self. Haven’t we been taught to be ourselves? Taking away ASL from an individual isn’t teaching them to be their self; it’s teaching them to conform, to be like everyone else. All in all, oralism is unnatural for a deaf …show more content…
Being deaf is uncommon, therefore one could see the deaf as being abnormal as well as unsuccessful. When in reality using American Sign Language might cause a few difficulties; but isn’t anything someone can’t handle. The child will need to learn and work on communicating with hearing people, which is perfectly okay. There are countless successful deaf individuals; just because they are deaf doesn’t mean they aren’t normal. Another reason, I think this is an emotional controversy is the parents don’t want their child to get teased; which is a valid concern. Unfortunately, you can’t control if other children will tease the child; but why force the child to be something they aren’t. If they aren’t hearing then why try to change them and make them speak; speaking isn’t their native form of communicating. It’s one thing if the child desires to learn how to speak; but if you’re forcing them; that is completely unfair. As a result, the emotional controversies revolve around parents wanting their child to fit in and be