The Real �Toll� of A.G. Bell: Lessons
about Eugenics
Historian Brian Greenwald offers a revisionist interpretation of Bell. He
reviews Bell�s role and influence within the American eugenics movement and
shows that Bell had the respect of the most prominent American eugenicists. His
intimate knowledge of deafness, from personal experience with his mother and
wife and from his studies of deaf people on Martha�s Vineyard, caused American
eugenicists to defer to him on matters related to the deaf population. Greenwald
argues, therefore, that Bell could have been extremely destructive to deaf
people�s right to marry and reproduce as they wished. The opportunity was
available for Bell to advocate invasive government eugenic measures against the
American deaf population, but he did not do so. Greenwald believes that several
factors explain Bell�s behavior, but he concludes that Bell�s personal contact
with deaf people throughout his life �humanized and personalized� his approach.
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Are You Getting the Message?: The Effects
of SimCom on the Message Received by Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Hearing
Students
When hearing speakers address a mixed audience of hearing and deaf participants,
they have a choice of three methods by which to convey the information in their
presentation. They may choose to use English and provide an English-to-ASL
interpreter, use ASL and provide an ASL-to-English interpreter, or use
simultaneous communication (SimCom). The choice to use SimCom (i.e., to speak
and sign at the same time) is based in part on the idea that equivalent
information will be communicated directly and simultaneously to both hearing and
deaf audience members.
This study examines the effects of SimCom on the degree of correct information
received by deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing students. Our objective is to
ascertain whether a qualitative difference exists in the comprehensible input in
order to determine whether all of the students are receiving equivalent
information in the classroom.
Previous research on SimCom shows that the auditory and visual messages produced
are not equivalent; the current research seeks to determine whether the received
messages are equivalent. Direct feedback from deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing
students is the indicator of message equivalence.
Our methodology consisted of showing several short video clips from various
presentations given using SimCom. Participants viewed the clips and then
responded to one or two questions about the information presented in them. The
number of correct responses was tallied and compared across groups. Results show
that the messages received by the different cohorts are not equivalent;
therefore, the use of SimCom in the classroom needs to be reconsidered.
1. Deaf with a capital D refers to deaf individuals who
consider themselves culturally deaf. Deaf with a lowercase d
refers to deaf individuals who do not consider themselves culturally deaf. It is
also used as an all-encompassing term to refer to both Deaf and deaf individuals
as a single group.Back to the Top
�A Grave and Gracious Woman�: Deaf People
and Signed Languages in Colonial New England
This article discusses a new source about the lives of deaf people in the first
century of the American colonies�Increase Mather�s An Essay for the Recording
of Illustrious Providences (1684). One of the chapters in his Essay
describes a signing deaf couple, Sarah and Matthew Pratt. Born in 1628 and 1640,
they lived several decades before the first record of a signing deaf person on
Martha�s Vineyard. This source gives new insights into the use of signed
language in colonial New England, and the way laypeople went about educating
deaf children before deaf education became the job of �experts�. Sarah and
Matthew Pratt seem to have had a high level of participation in the Puritan
community at Weymouth, Massachusetts, throughout their lives. Mather also
discusses a wide range of international sources on deaf people�s education,
communication and spirituality, giving us a unique picture of what people knew
about deafness in the seventeenth century, and showing that even mainstream
writers were starting to become interested in deaf people. This is a valuable
new source which contributes to the history of deaf education, sign language
linguistics, and broader cultural history.
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Meemul Tziij: An Indigenous Sign Language
Complex of Mesoamerica
This article examines sign languages that belong to a complex of indigenous sign
languages in Mesoamerica that K�iche�an Maya people of Guatemala refer to
collectively as Meemul Tziij. It explains the relationship between the Meemul
Tziij variety of the Yukatek Maya village of Chican (state of Yucat�n, Mexico)
and the hitherto undescribed Meemul Tziij variety used six hundred kilometers
away in the K�ichee� Maya township of Nahual� (department of Solol�, Guatemala).
Consistent with indigenous beliefs, these languages are distinct and unrelated
to the European and Euramerican sign languages. The sign language varieties in
question likely belong to a single ancient language family derived from an
ancient signed lingua franca, given the fact that indigenous communities
scattered across Mesoamerica still use the languages. The conclusion summarizes
findings, discusses implications for Mesoamerican history, and suggests
directions for future research.
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