Exposing Lower Primary Pupils with Hearing Impairment to Sign Language: The Disconnect between Home and School

Santrauka

Pupils with hearing impairment, especially those with post-lingual hearing loss, arguably possess the same capacity to learn language as their hearing peers, and share the same desire to communicate with them. However, an infant with congenital or early-onset hearing loss whose parents find it difficult to learn conventional sign language, and who therefore resort to local sign language as a mode of communication, may become alienated from the sign language used by teachers in school. Any discrepancy between the communication modes of parents and teachers can hamper the smooth education of the child. This study examined the extent of the differences between the sign language used at home and in school, and the challenges these differences pose to the holistic development of lower primary pupils with hearing impairment. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Seventy-five respondents — fifteen special teachers, thirty lower primary pupils with hearing impairment, and thirty parents of the pupils — were selected. Two self-designed questionnaires, the Sign Language Use by Parents Questionnaire (reliability 0.97) and the Sign Language Use by Special Teachers Questionnaire (reliability 0.82), were used to collect data. It was found that the sign language commonly used at home is non-conventional, whereas schools use conventional sign language to communicate with lower primary pupils with hearing impairment. Recommendations were proffered based on the findings.