History of deaf education in the United States

The history of deaf education in the United States began in the early 1800s when the Cobbs School of Virginia, an oral school, was established by William Bolling and John Braidwood, and the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, a manual school, was established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. When the Cobbs School closed in 1816, the manual method, which used American Sign Language, became commonplace in deaf schools for most of the remainder of the century. In the late 1800s, schools began to use the oral method, which only allowed the use of speech, as opposed to the manual method previously in place. Students caught using sign language in oral programs were often punished. The oral method was used for many years until sign language instruction gradually began to come back into deaf education.

Before the 1800s, few, if any, educational opportunities existed for deaf children in America. Some wealthy families sent their children to Europe's schools, but many non-high class children had no access to education.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many wealthy colonists sent their deaf children to Europe to receive schooling. The best known deaf educational institution was the Braidwood Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland, established in 1760 by Thomas Braidwood as the "Academy for the Deaf and Dumb." The Braidwood Academy was an expensive private oral school that was very secretive about its methods, only sharing their methodology with a few select people.

The Bolling family, who lived in Virginia, were the most prominent colonists to send their deaf children to the Braidwood Academy. Thomas Bolling and his wife Elizabeth Gay (who was also his first cousin) had three deaf children, John, Mary, and Thomas Jr., as well as at least two hearing children. John was the first of the three children to go to the Braidwood Academy in 1771, with Mary and Thomas Jr. arriving later. The three Bolling children arrived back in the United States in 1783; however, they became ill shortly after arriving home, and John died on October 11, 1783. Because of this, it cannot be determined how effective the ten years of oral instruction he received were. Mary and Thomas Jr. lived for at least another four decades, and comments about Thomas Jr. noted that he was a "miracle of accomplishments."

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