Chapter 2: Mainstreaming Deaf Education
Though American history indicates that DHH children have been present in mainstream schools since the 19th century, a number of key pieces of legislation introduced in the 1970’s provided legal assurance of this right. At the same time in Ireland, mainstreaming of some DHH children was becoming common practise. In 1993, the Special Educational Review Committee in Ireland was critical that 33% of DHH children attended residential schools for the Deaf, a figure they thought was too high, suggesting that all DHH students could avail of mainstream education. Later, the Education Act (1998) and EPSEN Act (2004) legislated for this mainstreaming.
Research into the benefits of mainstreaming for DHH children has produced mixed results. A review of the literature is in chapter 2 of the book. There are both social, academic and ideological considerations. Socially, while some have found that mainstreaming can be lonely for DHH children with fewer communication interactions occur between DHH children and their hearing peers, others have associated mainstreaming with improved quality of life. Some have demonstrated positive results when access to DHH peers is fostered, others have found that the school’s approach to inclusion affects the social experience of the DHH child. In Turkey, attendance at a segregated residential school positively correlated with social adjustment and self-image. Conversely, Canadian researchers found the opposite was true. Studies have identified reluctance amongst mainstreamed DHH children to identify as deaf, while some DHH adults that attended mainstream settings feel alienated from Deaf culture. Though DHH children represent a very heterogenous group, there appears often to be a communication and cultural gap between DHH children and their hearing peers. Importantly, contact with DHH peers is required to develop sign language and a Deaf Identity. As a result, some researchers have expressed concern that segregation from DHH peers may have negative repercussions for socio-emotional development.
Academically, research would typically have shown DHH children to lag behind their hearing peers. DHH students in Ireland are less likely to complete the Leaving Certificate, or to progress to third level education. Those that begin third level, are at higher risk of early drop-out. There are many possible causes of this academic lag. Mainstream teachers usually lack qualifications in methods for teaching DHH children, there is also a shortage of research-based methods and materials for this cohort. Compounding this, are language fluency difficulties and sometimes cognitive differences between DHH students and their hearing peers. Traditional assessment methods may also provide inaccurate representations of ability. While several studies have associated mainstreaming with better academic outcomes, this effect is less significant when statistically controlled for background factors. For example, it is often the students with additional learning disabilities, more profound hearing loss, or those who have struggled in mainstream that transfer to segregated settings. Notwithstanding this, mainstream teachers tend to hold higher expectations for DHH students than their Deaf school colleagues, and this may mean better academic outcomes in mainstream schools.
Ideological considerations have received less attention. These concerns usually focus on the difference in power between hearing professionals and DHH people in the deaf education system. Research on these concerns uses ideas such as audism and discourse to examine these power relations and often find that sign language is not valued in the deaf education system. This book is an example of research that concentrates mainly on ideological considerations of mainstreaming since it focuses on power in the deaf education system.
What is deaf education like in Ireland:
In Ireland, there are many services provided to DHH children as soon as they are identified. However, full universal neonatal hearing screening (UNHS) has only been in effect since 2013. As a result, the average age of identification was higher for DHH children in Ireland than in America. Because the opportunity to develop age-appropriate language depends on early intervention, this lag particularly affected DHH children born to hearing parents. DHH children can avail of publicly funded audiology and Speech and Language (SLT) services, and/or ISL home tuition – these services are free of charge. The ISL support scheme allows parents to hire an ISL tutor to come to their home to team the DHH child and their family Irish Sign Language. Unfortunately, with all of these services there can be regional inequalities with some areas having better access to services than others. For example, parents in more rural areas may find it more difficult to source an ISL tutor than parents living in the city.
DHH children are supported by the Visiting Teacher Service (VTS) from early intervention to third level. These itinerant teachers nearly always have a special qualification in deaf education. They usually have very many students on their caseload, sometimes more than 100 students to one. They can provide support to parents in the home, arrange for assistive technology and/or sign language tutors, and liaise with the school to support them in working with a DHH pupil. When parents find out their child is DHH, the visiting teacher is one of the first supports they receive. If the child eventually goes to a school for deaf children, they no longer receive support from the visiting teacher since they will have access to qualified teachers of the deaf in their school.
In school, DHH receive a range of different supports. They can access assistive technology like FM systems or soundfield systems and acoustic treatment of classrooms. Until 2017, DHH pupils in mainstream were entitled to a small number of additional hours of resource teaching time during the school day. DHH children with additional care needs are supported by Special Needs Assistants (SNAs). Although some Deaf adults work as SNAs, it is a non-teaching role. No provision is currently made for ISL-English interpreters in schools in Ireland. There are very few DHH teachers in Ireland. We have a number of DHH teachers working in postprimary school (high school) but very few at primary level. This is because there was a barrier facing DHH people becoming primary teachers for a long time. A high level of competence in the Irish language (gaeilge) is required to access primary teacher education programs in Ireland, and all mainstream primary school teachers are required to hold a certificate in professional competence in gaeilge. As most DHH students are exempt from studying Irish, their access to teacher education programmes in Ireland was blocked. An initiative began in 2019 to try to address this, but there will be very few DHH teachers in primary schools in Ireland for some time yet. As such, the mainstream educational professionals providing ISL support to DHH children are often in the early stages of ISL language learning themselves.
Where can DHH children go to school?
In Ireland, we have what is called a continuum of provision. DHH children can their local mainstream school, a mainstream school that has a class for DHH children attached to it, a school for DHH children, or a special school for children who are not DHH but who have other needs. There are two schools for DHH children in Ireland, one in Dublin and one in Limerick. There are also a number of classes for DHH children in mainstream schools around the country. When this book was published, there were 10 schools that had classes for DHH children around Ireland: 7 at primary level and 3 at post primary. The number of schools and classes for DHH children around the country is low. Most DHH attend their local mainstream school.