Sir, - I refer to An Irishman's Diary (May 26th) on Alexander Graham Bell. In the deaf world the Deaf-Bell-Telephone triangle has a hollow sound. This is because Bell never overcame his illusion that "reading" a person's lips was a substitute for listening to their voice, and that by raising the sound level (shouting) of speech deaf people will hear. Bell's vain and misguided attempt to help the deaf, therefore, was not just a failure - he is acknowledged by deaf organisations around the world as the person who did more harm to the deaf than anyone else. His ideal of every deaf person coping without sign language is against the laws of nature. Bell insisted on the primacy of speech, while for the deaf community their native sign language is the first choice. The deaf have nothing against speech, as long as it is not forced on them and as long as they are not deprived of their natural native language.
His reputation as a genius after winning the telephone patenting law cases gave Bell the stature of the prophet of the deaf world. He hit the American deaf scene like a plague, just when it was at its peak as a result of the evolution of American Sign Language in the mid-1800s. Bell's oral ideas drove deaf teachers and sign language out of the classrooms, with the result that education of the deaf went slowly downhill for the next 80 years.
Probably his single most destructive act was, in 1890, to found the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, and lavishly fund it from one of his invention royalties. With limitless funds, it has for over 100 years been pumping out harmful propaganda around the world about the so-called value of speech to a deaf person. Like a wolf in a sheep's clothing it has the more friendly and inviting title of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf. It has been the first port of call for people and the media has been one of the main conveyors of his fallacies.
The Irish Deaf Society and the Model School for the Deaf Project are currently lobbying TDs to get recognition for Irish Sign Language in the Education Bill. ISL is the third indigenous language of Ireland and has around 4,000 users. Apart from its primary utility as the principle means of communication, it is their primary source of identity and culture.
Research and experience has shown that where deaf children have a native sign language environment in the home and school their education can keep pace and reach the same heights as hearing children. With Bell's beloved oral method, which Ireland has used for the past 50 years, well over 80 per cent of deaf school leavers have literacy problems. - Yours, etc., E. J. Crean,
Cypress Park, Dublin 6W.