William C. Stokoe

In the last 40 or 50 years, psychological perspectives on deafness have penetrated
farther and taken in more than could be imagined by the writers of textbooks
for teachers in the first half of this century. Called The Psychology of Deafness,
Hearing and Deafness, and the like, the early books presented a dim view of
deaf people, their language, and their educational prospects. To see the progress
of change since mid-century requires a wider perspective, one that encompass-
es not only other disciplines than psychology but also engineering and technolo.
gy along with science.

From such a perspective it is plain that what was formerly being called the
psychology of deafness or the psychology of deaf people was not a body of scien.
tific knowledge but an attempt, after the fact, to support an engineering ven-
ture. Broadly seen, the engineer's task is to solve problems, using available
knowledge and technology. One such task is teaching language to deaf children.
In a period when the task of teaching all children became increasingly the do.
main of psychologists, the performance of deaf children on the myriad of testing
instruments psychologists devised was, to say the least, disappointing.

Psychologies of deafness then -- and there were several differing only in minor
details -- addressed not the scientific question of how culture and language are
acquired and transmitted (especially when deafness intervenes) but an ex post
facto attempt to justify decisions already made about how to engineer educa-
tional solutions when those to be educated could not hear. The technology avail-
able for solving this educational problem had been accepted as a panacea for
50 years; its label read: fit every deaf child with a device to amplify sound,

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