Goal fulfilment in school for the deaf and hearing impaired - batod

Table 22. Proportion (%) of pupils who, according to the teachers, have an action plan in thesubjects Swedish, English, mathematics and sign language.Sv Eng Ma TspSpecial school 30 24 32 18Schools for the hearing impaired 26 26 23 5Individually placed 22 17 20 1Table 23. Proportion (%) of action plans for pupils in the younger and older school years respectively, in thesubjects Swedish, English, mathematics and sign language.School year Special school Schools for the Individually placedhearing impaired1 - 5 29* 27 466 - 9 71* 73 54* skolår 1-6 respektive 7-10At Kannebäcks School and in special schoolsteachers find that it is easier for hearing impairedpupils who learn sign language to work alongsidedeaf pupils (Carlsson et al. 2000). This probablyconfirms the accepted idea that communicationarises when people meet, and that those whomeet choose the method of communication thatis most effective for everyone involved.Many people believe that special schools have anenvironment that is completely silent and signlanguage-oriented. That is not the case. About80% of the pupils at special school communicatemainly via sign language but an increasingnumber of pupils ask for both sign language andspoken language. The National curriculum statesthat Special schools have a bilingual task. In theschools for the hearing impaired, according tothe parents, 28% of the pupils communicatemainly via sign language at school. Among theindividually placed pupils, 2% communicatemainly in sign language.Even if the investigation into the status of signlanguage (Översyn… 2006, SOU 2006:54)makes it clear that the question of sign languageis an issue of accessibility and democracy, thereis a growing debate about which pupils actuallyare dependent on sign language. At specialschools,there are already pupils who are taughtin spoken language for part of the day. It is alsouncertain whether sign language supports orobstructs positive linguistic development forthose children who have cochlear implants. Thismeans that there is probably uncertainty amongparents and cochlear implant teams as to whetherthe bilingual environment at the special schools,Nya Bro School and Kannebäcks School, reallydoes optimise hearing habilitation. The linguisticdevelopment is recognized in both sign languageand Swedish.Interest in sign language as a subject seems tobe half-hearted in compulsory schools. In itsstatistics for the school year 2005/2006, theNational Agency for Education reports that only230 pupils out of 124,285 chose the subject‘sign language for the hearing’ at compulsoryschools. In the schools for the hearing impairedand special schools, sign language is of coursean important subject, studied by all the pupilsin these types of schools. However, only 20 of46 Goal fulfilment in school for the deaf and hearing impaired