Het Gebruik Van Gebaren In Het Onderwijs Aan Doven: Een Kwestie Van Keuzes

From a psycholinguistic point of view, asking for the reasons for using signs in the education of the deaf has become superfluous, for the answers are by now obvious.There remains however another question to be answered, a question concerning the way in which signs should be used.It is possible to use signs in the form of Signed Dutch; the signs support the spoken Dutch, consequently the order of the signs will be same as the wordorder in Dutch.Another possibility is to use Dutch Sign Language. This leads to bilingual education of deaf children.At this moment a choice between both methods is, as far as the Netherlands are concerned, merely a theoretical matter. Although there are some problems involved in combining speech with support-ing signs and although there is reason to consider the bilingual option seriously, a real choice cannot be made.We first have to wait for empirical results with respect to the use of Signed Dutch in the educational process. We also need more information about the structure of Dutch Sign Language and about the acquisition of aspects of this language. Then, i.e. in the future, a choice can be made if necessary. Meanwhile we have to realise that deaf children are in fact in a bilingual situation and that they have to acquire a sign language without appropriate models. A situation which calls for a solution.