Initiating Reform in Total Communication Programs

Abstract

Although total communication is a major comin their classrooms. As a result, there is much munication approach used in the education of inconsistency in the signing behavior of teachers. deaf students, the field has not undertaken to critiIn this paper, it is suggested that new policies that cally examine the role or the impact of using signs.stress the explicit roles of sign communication and Furthermore, teachers have received little prepalanguage are needed for total communication proration in the use of various types of signing and, grams. Initially, a brief overview of selected for the most part, are able to dictate how they sign research is given.Since the term total communication was coined in the late 1960s by Roy Holcomb (Clarke, 1972), it has been defined in various ways. Denton (1972) stated that total communication is the right of a deaf child to learn to use all forms of communication to facilitate the development of language. Moores (1987) outlined the practice of total communication as consisting of the use of speechreading, amplification, signs, and flngerspelling to provide linguistic input to deaf students, while the students are able to use whatever modality(ies) in which they are best able to express themselves. Stewart (1982) summarized various philosophical and methodological positions on total communication as follows:In theory, it reflects an attitude embraced by teachers, parents and children to allow them to use any available means of communication to express a thought. Thus, it is a philosophy that urges not how one communicates but that one communicates effectively. In practice, total communication calls for parents and teachers to develop their skills, and those of a child, to utilize various abilities of transmitting and receiving information, (p. 139)In each of these definitions, there is a lack of specificity as to how various modalities are to be used for instructional and other discourse purposes in the classroom and how language type will affect total communication processes. Predictably, lack of clarity in the implementation of total communication has led to equally unclear and misguided practices in the field. Two decades ago, however, the logistics of implementing a total communication approach was not central to the support that total communication received. This support stemmed mainly from disenfranchisement over the lack of success that oral-aural communication methodologies were having in the education of deaf children. The use of signs espoused in the total communication approach Address:

Formación en comunicación y dirección en algunas maestrías en gerencia de empresas

“…Lo importante de esta visión es el entendimiento de la comunicación como un problema realmente multidi mensional y envolvente de la trama em presarial. Los problemas comunicaciona-Entre estos se encuentran Comunicación Humana (Watzlawick et al, 1995) Comunicación Di rectiva (Rojas Vera, 1994a;Rojas Vera y Herreros, 1994); Comunicación Corporativa (Lessem, 1992;Herreros, 1993); Comunicación Total (Stewart, 1992); Comunicación Interna (Andreu, 1996); comunicación y creación para el desarrollo de equipos (Bucholz y Roth, 1987); Comuni cación y creatividad para el cambio (Ford, 1996); Comunicación y creatividad como clave del pensamiento estratégico para las empresas del futuro (Murakami y Nishikami, 1993); Comuni cación organizacional (Martinez, 1988); Comunicación y solución de problemas de trabajo (McCall, 1990); Comunicación y liderazgo (Adair, 1990;Bass, 1985;Bennis y Bust 1985;Bru man, 1992;Cohen y Bradford (1990); Comunicación y visión (Namak¡-EI, 1992;. Comunicación y tecnologías de la información (Andreu et a!., 1991;Comellá, 1994); Comunicación e inteligencia empresarial (Paéz, 1992;Rojas Vera, 1994b;Fayard, 1996); Comunicación y cambio de paradigma (Orucker, 1994;Sharp, 1988;Toffler.…”

A Response to Hall: bilingualism in deaf education explored

“…While bilingual/bicultural programs for Deaf children are gaining acceptance worldwide, there is little empirical research to back up the claims made by some educators regarding their effectiveness (Stewart, 1992). Evidence for the efficacy of such programs appears to be largely extrapolated from bilingual/bicultural programs for hearing students who are learning two languages, both of which are oral/aural languages.…”

“…Deaf and CODA individuals have been invited to planning sessions with the purpose of them contributing to overall policy and to the philosophic stance taken by the program as has been advocated by various authors (Stewart, 1992;Woodward & Marcowicz, 1978).…”

Looking beyond discussions of medical and social models: A critical qualitative examination of deaf health disparities

“…Again challenging the pure oral method, total communication calls for the use of a variety of approaches including signs. However, according to Stewart (1992), native sign languages are rarely considered and English remains the targeted language.…”