When we look at the current state of deaf education, we can see that it is lacking. Most Deaf people have all been through that and suffered from that. For them, their real education began after they had left school at 16 to 18 years of age.

The failure of deaf education is due to the predominance of oralism. Deaf children struggled to try to understand their teachers through lipreading and expressing themselves through incomprehensible speech.

The policies of most local education authorities (LEAs) promote oralism. The “informed choices” for parents are biased towards oralism/auralism and give parents unrealistic dreams that their little Johnny or Jane will one day hear and speak like them.

The reality dawns when little Johnny or Jane become grown up (from about 10 years old onwards). By then, its too late for them and they are so far behind with their education.

It has not always been like this. There was a time before the mid 1800s when Deaf education was far better than it is now. There were even Deaf writers, lawyers, artists, teachers and professors.
What happened to bring Deaf education crashing down to where it is now? The answer is...

Milan 1880.