Spanish Monks EducatedDeaf in 1500's
In the middle of the 1500's,
Pedrode Ponce deLeon interested himself, as a young monk, in the education ofthe deaf.
He established a school forthem at the monastery of San Salvador, where he taught until his death.The pupi's of Ponce de Leon came from the wealthy and noted familiesof Spain, and they were deaf from birth. The best known among themwere two brothers and a sister of the constable of Castile and a son of thegovernor of Aragon in the sameschool.
Ponce de Leon taught them to speak,write, read, repeat the prayers, servethe Mass, and confess themselves with the living voice.Ponce de Leon left his own records with his methods and their results butthese were lost, possibly in a firethat destroyed a library of the monastery. No mention was made of theuse of lipreading by Ponce de Leon and his
pupils. It may have been accepted as a natural corollary to theirlearning to speak.He may
have communicated withhis pupils by means of conventionalsigns as it seems much more
likelythat he showed with his fingers bypointing at the object whose name he was
teaching at the moment.He died in 1584. To him belongsthe honor of having created the art of teaching these deaf people from birth to speak.
One of the next figures in Spain to come on the scene of the deaf education was Juan Martin Pablo Bonet.
He was once a Spanish soldier and was interested in teaching the deaf when the widow of the Constable of Castile had three children, and one of them was deaf. He began to teach him and other deaf people. He taught them to write and speak in the same idea as Ponce de Leon taught his pupils. He published, at Madrid, his famous book, "Simplification of
Sound and the Arts of Teaching the Deaf and Dumb to Speak."
—Kentucky Standard
http://archives.rsdeaf.org/content/...1969_v90.pdf
Posted 01/23/2019 04:34 am
