“Least Restrictive Environments”
When we think of the least restrictive environment for students we often imagine students with disabilities, whether mental or physical, participating in a classroom with students who are not disabled. While this is all well and good, for at least one group of people it would seem as though the “least restrictive environment” is not actually that. This is because the least restrictive environment for a deaf student is not in a mainstream class but in a school for the deaf.
Now I know what you might be thinking “Oh but Sam, IDEA says that students with disabilities have a right to be included in both academic and extracurricular programs of general education. Are you saying they shouldn’t have that right?” However I want to make it abundantly clear that that is not the stance I am taking. I am simply trying to say that the LRE for a deaf student is in a school for the deaf.
When writing about the National Association of the Deaf, Hochschild and Scovronick (2003) say that “full inclusion creates language and communication barriers that are potentially harmful and, and may consequently deny many of these children an education in the Least Restrictive Environment.” (p. 139). And when you think about it they are right. Imagine being dropped into a classroom where you struggled to interact with anyone, even your teacher, without the assistance of your interpreter. Imagine a situation where 20% of the time you are the only student in your school who is deaf (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2006, p. 99). In the United States, of all the public schools serving deaf students, 80% of those schools are serving only 3 or fewer deaf students (Hill, 2012). In fact, all of the material that is being taught in mainstream schools is being presented in a nonnative language for these deaf students (no American Sign Language is not a manually coded version of English it is it’s own separate language). You don’t see parents taking their children who speak English, putting them in schools where everything is done in Spanish, giving them an interpreter, and telling them to do their best. It just doesn’t make sense. Instead we should be putting deaf students in schools and classes where they have the ability to communicate using their native language and where there are no degrees of separation, in terms of communication, between them and their teacher. Schools for the deaf even have classrooms that are much better suited for deaf students. It is not effective for a deaf student to try and figure out what a hearing classmate is saying let alone try and do it while staring at the back of their head.
It just doesn’t make sense to take a deaf kid and put them in a “least restrictive environment” where they have to use an interpreter, may be the only deaf student, and are often not properly accommodated. It really doesn’t make sense when that student could be attended a school for the deaf where they could learn in their native language and would be provided with all the accommodations that they need. It isn’t fair to deprive deaf children of their language and force them into mainstream schools. It is these kinds of practices that lead to some hearing students knowing more sign language than some deaf students and ultimately cause deaf students to suffer from life long language deficits that could have been prevented.
Hill, J. C. (2012). Language attitudes in the American deaf community. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.
Hochschild, J. L., & Scovronick, N. B. (2003). The American Dream and the Public Schools. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mitchell, R. E., & Karchmer, M. A. (2006). Demographics of Deaf Education: More Students in More Places. American Annals of the Deaf, 151(2), 95–104.
