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Report of the Medical Officer (Education),
163
transferred to the front desks in a hearing school, and one was found to be too deaf to benefit by the
class and was transferred to a deaf centre. Although the class has only been at work a comparatively
short time the increased industry and happiness of the children, the difference in their bearing, and the
new confidence due to their finding a means of following the meaning of their teacher, show that it is
a success. The care of the teacher has had much to do with the ease with which the children seem to
acquire lip reading, and those who have most hearing seem to have learned the lip reading best. The
nearer they approach deaf mutism the longer they seem to take to learn it and the more practice they
require to become thoroughly proficient.
However carefully the hard of hearing children are segregated from the very deaf, it is a mistake
to place a hard of hearing class in a deaf centre. It should be in a hearing school so as to prevent
the undesirable system of mingling hard of hearing children with deaf mutes, whose mode of thought
is different from that of the former and detrimental to them. At Ackmar-road to prevent this mixing
the hard of hearing children arrive at nine in the morning and proceed straight to their class-room
instead of assembling in the hall. They have prayers in their own room. Their play hours are
different, they have their dinners in a separate building, and they are dismissed before the deaf children.
It would be better to have the class in a hearing school. In some cases a few months of the special
teaching in the hard of hearing class will be sufficient to enable these scholars to resume their places
in hearing schools. The contrast is marked between the alertness and ability displayed by the
children in tho Ackmar-road experimental class before they joined, and that now shown after only a few
weeks' attendance; marked also is the eagerness with which the children, handicapped hitherto by their
loss of auditory acuity, grasp at lip-reading as a new method of communication with their teachers and
fellows. Classes of this nature should be arranged in every large school district and into them should be
drafted suitable children from the districts they are designed to serve either as permanent classes, held
daily, or temporary classes, held on certain specified days of the week. Such classes would be under
certificated teachers of the deaf, but in the case of temporary classes these teachers would be visiting.
Under the first plan, suitable children would be members of the class until such time as they were fit,
in the opinion of their teacher and the doctor, to be returned to their ordinary classes. In the second
case the scholars would have instruction in lip-reading exclusively whilst in the class, rejoining their
hearing classes on other days to receive the ordinary teaching of the school curriculum. In the
ordinary hearing class a child, unless it has sufficient hearing to enable it to benefit largely from a
position in the front row desks, must necessarily lose a good deal from his inability to watch the
teacher's face and lips properly and continuously. The child cannot lip-read the teacher whilst bending
over a book or an exercise, or whilst the latter has his back turned, as when writing on the blackboard.
If the scholar has considerable residual hearing, however, he can benefit largely by the mutual
assistance of hearing and lip-reading.
The precise method of education of particular deaf children is a very difficult one to decide at
once. It is probable that the best plan may be to educate all those who cannot hear the whisper
below 6 feet, save the very deaf, partly in the front row of a hearing class, partly in the temporary
hard of hearing class, under a visiting teacher, and that the present experimental hard of hearing class
shall be a class for the semi-deaf and semi-mute. Lesser defects of hearing than the 6 feet whisper
would do perfectly well in the front row of a hearing class. But the whole matter requires very
careful working out.
Another point in which difficulty arises is that of age and standard. The number of children
who can be taught adequately in a hard of hearing class, such as that with which this report deals,
is small. One containing 17 to 20 children of all ages and degrees of mental quickness is too unwieldy
for a single teacher. The largest number, for the instruction given to be adequate, is from 10 to 15,
the former being probably nearer to efficiency. In a class of about 16 children of ages varying from 7
to 14 and representing all standards, it is not practicable to teach all together, as the language and
ideas of the older scholars are much in advance of those of the younger ones, and with the aim in view
of their return to a hearing class, a certain amount of teaching, with practice in lip-reading, of such
subjects as Geography and History appears advisable, besides giving an added interest to the school
work.
A considerable amount of time must be spent in keeping the younger children usefully employed,
and in training them to work by themselves whilst the others are having lessons. The little ones also
require instruction in reading and writing. When the class is small, some of the children can advantageously
be set to practise lip-reading with each other, whilst the teacher is giving special attention to
the more backward and those with speech defects. Some of these difficulties could be obviated by the
organisation of classes under visiting teachers. Two classes in each district containing at most
15 children on the roll, one class for children aged from 5 to 10, the other for those from 10 to 14, would
perhaps be the best solution of the problem.
This experimental class has succeeded so well, that further classes should be formed, otherwise
the "hard of hearing" child for whom the Ackmar-road class is impracticable by reason of its
distance, has to go either to a deaf centre or to the front row of an elementary school. 64 cases
suitable for hard of hearing classes were found during the year, but only some 15 or 17 have been
accommodated at the class started at Ackmar-road, leaving nearly 50 cases noted but unprovided with
suitable education. These are, of course, only a fraction of the number of such cases.
To educate the whole of our deaf children on a rational and scientific basis, which will provide
for the exact educational want of every class of deaf child will mean enormously better results at
less cost and with an expenditure of less labour. This is what the experiment of a hard of hearing class
promises and its success is now assured although the exact form may not yet be fixed.