2024/10/09 by Leonhardt, Annette
#Medicine and health
paper · doi:10.3205/zaud000051
The spoken language approach in the education of the deaf and hard of hearing in Germany can be traced back to the methods employed at the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb founded by Samuel Heinicke in Leipzig, 1778. It remained dominant right up until the sixties, by which time research conducted in the USA proved that sign language could fulfill all linguistic criteria governing a language. The eighties witnessed an almost simultaneous acceptance and recognition of sign language on the one hand and – by means of the cochlear implant – oral communication training on the other. Whilst these two approaches seemed initially contradictory, they are now frequently combined as standard methods of teaching and learning in both schools and rehabilitative facilities. Those concerned, however, hold varying opinions on this practice.