Social adjustment in deaf children

Abstract

The problem to be discussed is broadly that of the integration of deaf children into the hearing community. More specifically, it is a consideration of the efficacy of the method currently being used to achieve this aim in New Zealand; that of placing deaf children either in the same classroom as hearing children or in a special class within the normal school. It will be impossible to tell whether this type of education leads to better integration until the children are adults. In the meantime, the effects of having deaf children taught with normal hearing children are to be measured, not by the children's academic progress or by the development of speech and lipreading but by their social adjustment in terms of their behaviour in the classroom. The child's social adjustment in the classroom is probably not an exact index of his acceptance by the hearing community but if he is disturbed and unhappy this will create additional problems over and above those imposed by the hearing loss and his assimilation will certainly be hindered.