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American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 148, Number 5, Spring 2004,
pp. 358-375 (Article)
3XEOLVKHGE\*DOODXGHW8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV
DOI: 10.1353/aad.2004.0004
For additional information about this article
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/aad/summary/v148/148.5johnston.html
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W(H)ITHER THE DEAF COMMUNITY?
POPULATION, GENETICS, AND THE FUTURE OF
AUSTRALIAN SIGN LANGUAGE
A
TREVOR JOHNSTON
JOHNSTON IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND
JAPAN-AUSTRALIA FRIENDSHIP FUND
FELLOW IN SIGN LINGUISTICS, RENWICK
COLLEGE, ROYAL INSTITUTE FOR DEAF AND
BLIND CHILDREN, UNIVERSITY OF
NEWCASTLE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.
CCORDING TO ENROLLMENTS in schools for the deaf and data from the national
census and neonatal hearing screening programs, the incidence of severe
and profound childhood deafness in Australia is, and has been, less than
commonly assumed. Factors implicated include improved medical care,
mainstreaming, cochlear implants, and genetic science. Data for the United
States, Britain, and other developed countries seem consistent with those
for Australia. Declining prevalence and incidence rates have immediate
implications for sign-based education, teacher-of-the-deaf training
programs, and educational interpreting. There are also serious
consequences for research, documentation, and teaching regarding
Australian Sign Language (Auslan), and for the future viability of Auslan.
Prompt action is essential if a credible corpus of Auslan is to be collected
as the basis for a valid and verifiable description of one of the few native
sign languages in the world with significant attested historical depth.
Very few countries have good data extending over many decades on the
number of people in their population
who are deaf or hearing impaired. Differing definitions of hearing impairment and deafness and differing criteria for inclusion or exclusion from
assessment also make what data is
available difficult to compare from
one point in time to another and from
one country to another. The definition
of hearing loss is a case in point. Some
definitions include “mild” as a separate category, while others conflate it
with “moderate.” Also, some definitions apply different thresholds to the
same category. For example, profound
deafness may mean hearing loss at the
91 dB level or greater or it may mean
95 dB in the better ear. As I am concerned in the present article with the
size and viability of the signing Deaf
community from a linguistic point of
view, one should remember that whatever definition is used, it is only children with an early and profound hearing loss, and many with an early severe
hearing loss, who are likely to be lifelong users of sign language. In many
early sets of data, severity of loss is
simply not mentioned, or is defined,
instead, with a single general descriptor, such as “deaf and dumb.” A related problem is a scarcity of studies
of the signing Deaf community—for
the purpose either of ascertaining
358
VOLUME 148, NO. 5, 2004
AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
numbers or establishing language use
(primary or secondary).
It is important to remember that
there are significant numbers of hearing people who are users of various
community sign languages. Indeed,
there are probably as many “native
sign language users” who are hearing
(having grown up using sign language
with their deaf parents) as there are
deaf native sign language users. However, for the purposes of the present
article, which is primarily concerned
with the implications for sign language
research, these hearing users of sign
languages have little relevance.
The Signing Deaf Community:
Size and Incidence
Previous Estimates
In 1986, two estimates of the size of
the signing Deaf community in Australia were published, both in The
Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People and
Deafness (Van Cleve, 1987). One was
based on the number of subscribers
to the Victorian Deaf Society newsletter; this number was then extrapolated
to Australia as a whole. The estimate
was 9,000 to 9,500 deaf signers (Flynn,
1987). The second estimate was approximately 7,000 (Power, 1987).
However, no explanation was given of
how the second figure was obtained.
In 1989, I suggested that the figure
was about 10,000 (Johnston, 1989a,
1989b). This number was based on the
widely cited estimate in the professional and educational literature on
deafness that approximately 1 person
per 1,000 (0.1%) in developed countries was severely to profoundly deaf.
This figure had received some support
from a profile of the size of deaf
populations around the world (Schein,
1987). However, I factored in the observation that many deaf people were
educated orally, had successful assisted
hearing, and did not use sign language.
I reasoned that the Australian signing
Deaf community must therefore represent a subset of an assumed population of severely to profoundly deaf
people of approximately 16,000 (0.1%
of a population of 16 million in 1987).
Flynn’s 1987 estimate of 9,500 appeared to suggest the size of this subset, and I used this as the basis for the
figure of “no more than” 10,000.
nity (Deaf Society of New South
Wales, 1998). Indeed, in this second
study, only 9 years later, the Society
estimated that the number was most
likely to be between 1,261 and 2,522
(extrapolating to approximately 3,900
and 6,900 nationally).
The most thorough study of the
size of the signing Deaf community
in Australia was conducted by Hyde
Table 1
Estimates of the Size of the Signing Deaf Community in Australia
Source
Total Population of Australia
(millions)
Signing Deaf
Community
Implied
Prevalence Rate
(per thousand)
15.8 (1985)
>9,500
0.60
15.9
7,000
0.40
16.0 (1987)
<10,000
0.62
Deaf Society of New South Wales,
1989
16.6
>15,000
0.90
Hyde & Power, 1991
17.2
>15,400
0.89
Deaf Society of New South Wales
6.3
(NSW), 1998
(1997, NSW only)
1,261–2,522
0.20–0.40
>15,000
0.79
Flynn, 1987
Power, 1987
Johnston, 1989a
Ozolins & Bridge, 1999
The estimate of 5,000 severely to
profoundly deaf people in the state of
New South Wales who “would be
considered as likely clients of the Society”—and thus likely users of Australian Sign Language (Auslan)—was
published by the Deaf Society of New
South Wales in 1989 (p. 2). This figure would extrapolate to a national total of approximately 15,000. However,
it should be noted that the researchers
for the Society’s second demographic
study experienced some difficulty in
locating the number of signers that
their first study would have led them
to believe were living in the commu-
18.9
and Power (1991). This study used a
“snowball” technique in which each
signing deaf person directly contacted was asked to identify other
deaf people who also used sign language. After duplicates were eliminated from the resulting database,
an analysis of the results led to an
estimate of 15,400 “deaf users of
signs” in Australia (p. 7).
After careful consideration of the
various estimates and a discussion of
the Australian census of 1996, Ozolins
and Bridge (1999) also suggested that
the total number of deaf Auslan users
probably exceeded 15,000.
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AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
W(H)ITHER THE DEAF COMMUNITY?
Table 1, which summarizes these
various estimates, includes a calculation of the implied prevalence rate of
deaf sign language users in the population at the time for which each estimate was made.
1982 Survey by the National
Acoustic Laboratories
A survey of the incidence of childhood
deafness in Australia between 1949 and
1980 was published in 1982 by Upfold
and Isepy. The survey was based on annual data from the National Acoustic
Laboratories, which have provided free
hearing aids to all Australians under the
age of 18 years since 1948. Because hearing aids have been provided even in the
most marginal cases and always as early
as practicable, few children were excluded from the survey. Consequently,
the figures “reflect the maximum pos-
sible number of cases” (Upfold & Isepy,
1982, p. 325).
The survey revealed a total average
incidence of 2.6 per 1,000 live births
(range 1.9 to 3.6) for those children in
this group born before 1974. Significantly, the survey revealed that rubella
was causal in more than 11% of all
cases (there was a rubella epidemic in
Australia between 1964 and 1970) and
that deafness caused by rubella was
Table 2
Total Number of Children Fitted With Hearing Aids, Total With Rubella Deafness, Birth Years 1949–1980a
Birth year
Children
(n)
Cases per
1,000
Severely deaf
(n)
Profoundly deaf
(n)
Likely signersb
(n)
Rubella cases
(n)
305
335
419
444
421
417
507
475
509
638
663
574
650
639
644
834
769
798
737
723
733
738
619
553
519
428
359
301
190
121
86
31
2.14
1.83
2.26
2.34
2.17
1.87
2.50
2.29
2.41
2.95
3.01
2.93
3.28
3.14
3.10
3.95
3.58
3.62
3.31
3.17
3.16
3.41
2.52
2.48
2.29
1.86
1.53
1.27
0.79
0.50
0.35
0.37
70
77
96
102
97
96
117
109
117
147
152
132
150
147
148
192
177
184
170
166
169
170
142
127
119
98
83
69
44
28
20
7
52
57
71
75
72
71
86
81
87
108
113
98
111
109
109
142
131
136
125
123
125
125
105
94
88
73
61
51
32
21
15
5
87
95
119
127
120
119
144
135
145
182
189
164
185
182
184
238
219
227
210
206
209
210
176
158
148
122
102
86
54
34
25
9
UAc
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
UA
UA
UA
UA
11
29
32
44
79
66
26
41
39
61
177
115
126
98
63
124
125
73
35
52
23
59
53
14
4
4
3
Notes. Adapted from Upfold & Isepy (1982, p. 324).
a
Known cases as of March 31, 1981.
b
Estimates of likely signers include all profoundly deaf children and half of all severely deaf children.
c
UA, unavailable.
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VOLUME 148, NO. 5, 2004
AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
most likely to be severe (61–90 dB) or
profound (91 dB or over). Also, the
survey revealed a dramatic drop in the
number of cases of rubella-induced
deafness—and, hence, of linked cases
of severe and profound deafness—
after 1970, when vaccination against
rubella was introduced, as well as an
overall and equally dramatic drop in
the number of all cases of hearing
impairment (see Table 2). This means
that by the end of the period in question, and especially after 1970, not
only had the incidence of all forms of
hearing impairment been greatly reduced, but the proportion of individuals with severe and profound deafness
had also been reduced.
In terms of the overall severity of
the impairment, Upfold and Isepy
(1982) reported that approximately
40% of cases were of severe or profound deafness (17% profound, 23%
severe). If one uses the figures they
provide, the incidence of all forms of
hearing impairment for these years can
be estimated, as can the number of
severely and profoundly deaf children
(see Table 2).
In sum, the survey based on figures
from the National Acoustic Laboratories suggests that the incidence of
hearing impairment between 1949 and
1980 increased markedly during the
years of the rubella epidemic (1964–
1970), averaging 2.55 in the decade
before the epidemic, 3.46 in the years
of the epidemic, and 1.4 in the decade
after the epidemic. Indeed, by 1980,
the incidence rate for all types of childhood deafness was 0.37, a nearly 10fold decrease from the peak of the
rubella epidemic, in 1966. In the ensuing 24 years, the rate has quite possibly
remained at or below that level.
Overall, these Australian figures do
suggest that a rate of 1 per 1,000 (approximately 40% of 2.6 per 1,000) is
not an unrealistic estimate for the inci-
dence of severe and profound deafness in young children until the mid1970s. In a earlier study, Upfold (1979)
had estimated that the incidence for all
types of deafness was 2.8 per 1,000.
Upfold documents a precipitous decline in cases of severe and profound
deafness between 1971 and 1980 due
to the virtual elimination of rubella
and the control of many other causes
of childhood deafness.
Universal Neonatal Screening
The advent of universal neonatal
screening for hearing impairment in
some developed countries has, in recent years, enabled a more accurate
record of early-childhood hearing impairment and made possible more reliable calculations of the underlying incidence of hearing impairment. In the
United States, 35 of 50 states have
mandated universal neonatal screening, and in the United Kingdom, pilot
programs have been established at 20
sites (Russ, 2001). In Australia, universal neonatal screening programs have
only been established in the states of
An overview of the universal neonatal screening program in the U.S.
state of Colorado revealed an incidence of overall hearing impairment
of 40 dB or more in the better ear in
young children at 0.9 to 1.0 per 1,000
(Mehl & Thomson, 2002). StredlerBrown (2003) suggests that the underlying rate of all types of hearing impairment appears to be considerably
higher than 1 per 1,000 births. After
approximately 10 years of the Colorado screening program, the incidence
of overall hearing impairment in
young children averaged 2.5 per 1,000
births in that state. Of these, children
with mild, moderate, or severe deafness accounted for 90% of all cases of
early-childhood hearing impairment,
30% for each category (StredlerBrown, 2003; Yoshinaga-Itano,
Coulter, & Thomson, 2000). In other
words, the rate of profound deafness,
at 10% of the total, appears to be approximately 0.25 per 1,000 births (see
Table 3).
A recent study by the Wessex Universal Hearing Screening Trial Group has
Table 3
Incidence of Types of Infant Hearing Impairment in U.S. State of
Colorado, Based on Universal Neonatal Screening
Types of hearing impairment
Rate per 1,000 live births
All
Mild (25–40 dB)
Moderate (41–70 dB)
Severe (71–90 dB)
Profound (>95 dB)
Sources. Stredler-Brown, 2003; Yoshinaga-Itano et al., 2000.
Western Australia and New South
Wales. Recent reviews of some of
these programs appear to support the
observations made by Upfold and
Isepy (1982) regarding underlying incidence rates up to the mid-1970s in
Australia and, indeed, likely projections
beyond the 1980s.
2.50
0.75
0.75
0.75
0.25
Percentage of all hearing
impaired infants
100%
30%
30%
30%
10%
identified similar rates and proportions of severity of hearing impairment in the United Kingdom, specifically, 0.9–1.0 per 1,000 for hearing
impairment of 40 dB or greater in the
better ear (Wessex Universal Hearing
Screening Trial Group, 1998).
The New South Wales program
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AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
W(H)ITHER THE DEAF COMMUNITY?
commenced in late 2002, and it is too
early to glean any data or trends from
that program. A review of the first 17
months of the Western Australian program revealed a incidence rate of less
than 0.7 per 1,000 for congenital bilateral permanent hearing loss of 35 dB or
greater (Bailey, Bower, Krishnaswamy,
& Coates, 2002). It may well be too
early to take this rate as an accurate
measure of the incidence of hearing
impairment in Western Australia, a
geographically large state with the
screening program serving approximately 45% of all babies born there
(Bailey, Bower, Gifkins, & Coates,
2002). Moreover, as Schein (2001)
cautions, rates can and do vary enormously by region in geographically
large countries such as the United
States (and, possibly, Australia). Nonetheless, a rate under 0.7 per 1,000
would not be surprising, given the implied underlying incidence rates up to
the mid-1970s derived from the National Acoustic Laboratories study, as
well as the likely projections beyond
the 1980s based on these figures for
the 1970s.
In sum, the prevalence of hearing
impairment appears to be both greater
and lesser than the earlier, commonly
cited figure of 1 in 1,000 in developed
societies. The rate is higher insofar as
improved diagnostic testing is revealing many more cases of mild to moderate hearing loss that would have
gone completely undetected in the
past or, at least, would have remained
undetected until much later in life. The
category “mild” (hearing loss of 25–
40 dB) is capturing a population not
described in the National Acoustic
Laboratories study, and the Western
Australian criteria include children
with hearing loss of 35 dB or greater.
Significantly, the category of mild
hearing impairment, according to
Stredler-Brown (2003), accounts for
30% of total cases. Universal neonatal
screening is also revealing that hearing
impairment continues to emerge in the
later years of childhood.
Conversely, the rate is much lower
insofar as the proportion of profoundly deaf children among all children with hearing impairments appears to be smaller than previously
thought, just 10%. One should also
remember that this 10% is a subgroup
of an enlarged hearing impaired population, now including children with
mild hearing impairment. Clearly, improved documentation and diagnostics and the changing etiology of deafness throughout the past century or so
(e.g., the management of rubella) are
all contributing to this outcome.
The more recent estimates of an
incidence rate of 0.25 per 1,000 for
profound deafness based on universal
neonatal screening in the United States
is comparable to the 0.3 rate (after allowing for the “mild” category) that
the National Acoustic Laboratories
survey found prior to 1980. Today, the
rate is likely to be even lower, as there
is every reason to believe that the already historically low Australian incidence and prevalence rates have continued to the present. The preliminary
results for the Western Australian
screening program, showing an incidence 0.7 per 1,000 for all types of
permanent childhood hearing impairment, suggest that this expectation is
well founded. One should thus regard
the recent research from Britain and
the United States as suggesting what
the upper limit of such rates is likely to
be in Australia.
British Study of the Incidence
of Permanent Childhood
Hearing Impairment
A study of the incidence of permanent childhood hearing impairment
between 1980 and 1995 in the United
Kingdom was published in 2001
(Fortnum, Summerfield, Marshal,
Davis, & Bamford, 2001). The survey
was based on questionnaires sent to
hospital-based otology and audiology
departments, community health clinics, and education services for children
with hearing impairments. Its main
findings were that incidence increases
significantly with age (i.e., to 16 years)
and that the universal neonatal screening may not fully capture the extent of
permanent childhood hearing impairment. The figures for incidence based
on neonatal screening alone need to be
revised upward to accommodate this
finding. They show that the findings
have implications for the need for repeat testing and the provision of services for children in whom hearing
impairment manifests itself only later
in childhood.
The British study found that prevalence rose from 0.91 for 3-year-olds to
1.65 for older children (ages 9–16
years), with adjustments for potential
underascertainment being 1.07 to 2.05,
respectively (Fortnum et al., 2001).
The important observation in determining the size of the signing Deaf
community is not so much that there
was an unexpected increase with age in
the prevalence of childhood hearing
impairment, but that the overall prevalence rates since 1980 (derived from
either the lower end of the range or
from the higher latest estimate from
the British study) are both lower than
previous studies have revealed. They
are, however, in accordance with, and
perhaps even higher than, the rates
one would expect post-1980 from the
National Acoustic Laboratories study.
(It should be noted that the National
Acoustic Laboratories study has built
in this factor. The counts for hearing
impairment are based on the number
of children who received hearing aids,
at any time up to the age of 18 years.)
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AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
In other words, the cited rates of
1.07 and 2.05 are for all types of hearing impairment. The breakdown of
the severity of impairment in the British study is actually similar to that for
the National Acoustic Laboratories
study: approximately 20% for profound (>95 dB), 20% for severe (71–
95 dB) and 60% for moderate (>40
dB). In other words, post-1980, no
more than 40% of a incidence rate of
1.07 per 1,000 (2.05 adjusted) are likely
to be severely or profoundly deaf
(>71 dB). This is equivalent to 0.49
per 1,000 (or 0.74 at the 2.05 rate) for
the category of severely or profoundly deaf, and a low of 0.26 per
1,000 (or 0.39 at the 2.05 rate) for the
category of profoundly deaf.
If one allows for the differing criteria for hearing loss thresholds, one can
see from Table 4 that the National
Acoustic Laboratories figures for incidence rate are similar to, if slightly
higher than, the cited U.S. or British
rates. This may reflect the fact that the
National Acoustic Laboratories rates
are based on an earlier period.
The Census
There have been several censuses taken
over the past 11 decades in which data
relevant to the determining the size of
the Australian signing Deaf community have been collected: a census of
the Australian colonies (1891), the census of the state of Victoria (1901), the
first three national censuses undertaken
after federation in 1901 (1911, 1921,
and 1933), and the last two national
censuses (1996 and 2001). The five
earliest censuses contained a question
as to the presence of “deaf and
dumb” people or “deaf-mutes” in
households and institutions. The last
two censuses contained a question as
to the language used in the home (individuals were invited to select from a
list or nominate, in an “other” box, the
language they used in the home, if that
language was not English and was not
listed).
From Table 5, one can see that the
prevalence of severe to profound
deafness according to these figures
ranged from a low of 0.24 per 1,000
(1996) to a high of 0.40 per 1,000
(1911). Severe to profound deafness
was the level of hearing loss that most
commonly led to individuals being described as “deaf and dumb” or “deaf
mute” in the 19th and early 20th centu-
ries. Such a level of hearing loss would
mean that most of these individuals
would have used a signed language as
their primary or preferred language.
Nonetheless, there is a considerable
difference between the implied prevalence rates based on the census and the
0.89 rate implied by the figure of
15,400 (Hyde & Power, 1991), which
has been the definitive estimate of the
size of the signing Deaf community in
Australia for more than a decade (see
Table 5).
In 2001, a total of 5,305 people reported that they used “some form of
sign language” in Australia’s national
census, while a surprising 11,860 reported “non-verbal communication.”
This latter statistic represents an almost
10-fold increase from the figure for
1996, when only 1,435 reported “nonverbal communication.” Data from the
National Acoustic Laboratories and
neonatal screening programs, presented
above, give one cause to regard this increase as an anomaly. There is no good
reason to believe that respondents were
referring to a Deaf community signed
language by using this descriptor.
With respect to census figures in
general, it is a long-held belief in the
Table 4
Computing the Incidence of Childhood Hearing Impairment: Universal Neonatal Screening vs. Surveying
Types of impairment
All
Mild (25–40 dB)
Mild-moderate (<60 dB)
Moderate (41–70 db)
National Acoustic
Laboratories survey,
Australia
Rate
%
2.605
100.0%
1.524
Severe (61–90 dB)
Severe (71–95) dB)
0.614
Profound (>90 dB)
Profound (>95 dB)
0.453
Colorado (U.S.)
universal neonatal
screening
Rate
%
2.50
100%
British survey,
neonatal (adjusted)
British survey,
childhood (adjusted)
Rate
0.91
(1.07)
%
100%
Rate
1.65
(2.05)
%
100%
0.75
30%
0.75
30%
0.45
(0.60)
55%
0.89
(1.21)
59%
0.75
30%
0.20
(0.22)
20%
0.35
(0.41)
20%
0.25
10%
0.26
(0.27)
25%
0.39
(0.44)
21%
58.8%
23.7%
17.5%
Sources. Australia: Upfold & Isepy (1982). Colorado (U.S.): Stredler-Brown (2003), Yoshinaga-Itano et al. (2000). Britain: Fortnum et al. (2001).
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AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
W(H)ITHER THE DEAF COMMUNITY?
Table 5
Australian Census Data and Deafness Prevalence Rates
a
Year
Region
Population
(millions)
Descriptor
Number
Implied
prevalence rate
(per thousand)
1891
Australia
3.2
“deaf and dumb”
1,200a
0.37
1901
Victoria
1.2
“deaf mutes”
410
0.34
1911
Australia
4.6
“deaf and dumb”
1,852
0.40
1921
Australia
5.6
“deaf and dumb”
1,855
0.33
1933
Australia
6.6
“deaf mutes”
2,326
0.35
1996
Australia
17.9
“Auslan,”
“sign language”
(+ “non-verbal
communication”)
4,425
(5,860)
0.24
(0.32)
2001
Australia
18.9
“Auslan,”
“sign language”
(+ “non-verbal
communication”)
5,305
(17,165)
0.28
(0.90)
Love (1896, p. 214).
Deaf community, and among educators of the deaf and other professionals who work with deaf people,
that the size of the Deaf community
has been consistently and substantially underreported. Indeed, concern and confusion about numbers
as a result of the census have a long
history. In early January 1904, there
was an exchange in the letters-tothe-editor columns of two
Melbourne newspapers, The Argus
and The Age, regarding the numbers
of deaf people in Victoria as noted
in the 1901 census and various other
estimates. Similarly, after the 1933
census, the chair man of the
Melbourne Programme Committee
for the 1934 Congress of the National Council of the Deaf of Australia, James Johnston (incidentally,
my grandfather), suggested in a letter on behalf of the committee that
the item “a more reliable census” be
added to the agenda of the congress
(James Johnston, personal communication, September 20, 1934). Finally, in the March 2003 issue of
AAD Outlook, the newsletter of the
Australian Association of the Deaf
(AAD), the 2001 census figures
were questioned. The AAD maintained that there were more than
16,000 deaf Auslan users. Ozolins
and Bridge (1999) echoed Hyde and
Power (1991) when they argued that
the Australian census had been consistently unreliable and had underestimated the number of “deaf and
dumb” (the label used in the early
part of the century) and sign language–using (the descriptor used in
the census of 1996) individuals in
the country. With respect to the
1996 census, for example, Ozolins and
Bridge suggested that underreporting
would have been common because of
the potential misunderstanding of the
reference to language “spoken in the
home.” Auslan, they suggested, was perhaps regarded as “signed” and not
“spoken” by many deaf individuals, as
well as being regarded as a (Deaf) community language, not a “home” language (p. 8).
However, the implied rates from
the census and the kind of longitudinal data from the National Acoustic Laboratories or British studies of
childhood hearing impairment seem
not to be vastly different. Exactly
how inaccurate the census figures
are is thus open to question. Fortunately, a fortuitous test of the reliability of the various censuses presents
itself through enrollment data available
from Australia’s main schools for the
deaf.
Enrollments in Schools for the
Deaf
Virtually all schools for the deaf in
Australia are situated in the six state
capitals, and until the mid-to-late 20th
century one central residential school
was the only school solely for the deaf,
or by far the largest such school, in
each of these cities. The first two of
these large schools were established in
Sydney and Melbourne in 1860. By the
beginning of the 20th century, most
deaf children requiring special education would have been receiving it in
one of the central residential state
schools. Thus, if the numbers of deaf
children enrolled in these schools is
known, one has a potentially good estimate of the numbers of signing deaf
people in the country.
Fortunately, most of the central
schools for the deaf celebrated their
centenary sometime during the 20th
century with special publications that
listed the names of all of the students
enrolled in any given year (Barkham,
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1974; Burchett, 1964; Hough & Knust,
1993; Western Australia School for
Deaf Children, 1996). (Though no
special centenary publication exists for
New South Wales, exact enrollment
figures have been retrieved from the
original register of the relevant
school.) It is a simple matter to calculate a cumulative total from the beginning of the century to estimate how
much the signing deaf population had
increased from an initial baseline number (with allowances for deaths) to a
given figure for any year up to the last
common year for which such data are
available, 1954. (A weighting of 20%
has been made to these figures: 5% for
the state of Tasmania, for which no
centenary publication or other data
source is available, and a generous
15% for children in small private or
Catholic schools for the deaf.)
From the enrollment data, it can be
calculated that the prevalence of hearing impairment and deafness great
enough to warrant attendance at a special school for the deaf averaged 0.42
per 1,000 from 1900 to 1954 (or 0.51
weighted).
After 1954, the move toward
mainstreaming began in earnest, accelerating rapidly until the end of the
1970s. Consequently, 1954 is not only
the last year for which enrollment data
across the country is easily available
for these large special schools for the
deaf, it is probably at the beginning of
an era when these schools could no
longer be said to account for the vast
majority of severely and profoundly
deaf children receiving an education
(see Table 6).
Beyond 1954, enrollments cease to
be a possible surrogate marker of the
annual growth, and thus size, of the
signing Deaf community. From the
mid-1950s, Australian education authorities adopted mainstreaming
with great enthusiasm. Australia now
has one of the highest rates of
mainstreaming of hearing impaired and
deaf students in the world (Power &
Hyde, 2002). Despite the fact that
many severely and profoundly deaf
students failed to achieve the language
and educational outcomes expected
and hoped from this approach,
mainstreaming has nonetheless meant
that significant numbers of these children did not grow up using Auslan;
neither do many mix and identify with
the signing Deaf community.
In addition to simply reducing the
numbers of potential signers,
mainstreaming has also had the important effect of seriously disrupting the generational and peer transmission of Auslan. Thus, from the
linguistic point of view, mainstreaming
has also negatively affected the integrity, and perhaps the long-term viability, of the already numerically reduced
signing community.
Table 6
Deaf Signers: Enrollments and
Census Figures Compared
Year
1901
1911
1921
1933
1946
1949
1954
Cumulative totals
by adjusted
enrollments
1,258
1,567
1,717
2,113
2,629
2,951
3,145
Census
figures
1,258
1,852
1,855
2,326
—
—
—
A Revised Estimate
Of critical importance in considering
the size of the signing Deaf community is the fact that the majority of children with hearing impairment have a
mild or moderate hearing loss—some
60%—and with hearing aids and targeted and specialist educational programs, they can and do function perfectly adequately using speech and
hearing. Few have any need for or desire to use sign language. Of the remainder, only 30% are severely deaf,
and many of them are able to benefit
from hearing aids and special oralbased educational programs. However, many of these severely deaf children whose education and
“habilitation” began as almost completely oral, without any signed input,
have acquired sign language later in
childhood or in early adulthood. Of
the remaining 10% of hearing impaired children (i.e., those who are
profoundly deaf), perhaps the majority
do not benefit from assisted hearing
devices and an exclusively oral approach to education and language
learning. They are likely to be early
sign language users or to become sign
language users as they grow up.
Most important, the general trend
throughout the 20th century—failures
notwithstanding—was for hearing
aids to improve in quality and reliability, and for their use to begin earlier
and earlier in life (in part as a result of
early detection). Thus, a counterbalance to the “failure rate” has been the
overall impact of hearing aid technology in lowering the threshold at which
residual hearing may be used for the
development of effective speech and
listening.2
With these assumptions in mind, it
is now possible to give a revised estimate of the size of the Australian
signing Deaf community. Once again
allowing for deaths,3 one may extrapolate beyond the 1954 figures arrived at
from enrollments in schools for the
deaf (see Table 6) by using the numbers of children fitted with hearing
aids each year by the National Acoustic Laboratories between 1949 and
1980. From 1980 onward, one may use
estimates based on the recent neonatal
screening prevalence figures for hearing impairment. I use a figure of 0.3
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per 1,000 derived from Fortnum et al.
(2001), representing 30% of all of the
early childhood rate of 1.07 (all of the
20% of cases of profound deafness
and half of the 20% of cases of severe deafness; see Figure 1).
Using this method, one arrives at an
estimated minimum signing deaf
population in 2001 of approximately
6,500 individuals. Once again, as was
shown in Table 6, the extrapolated cumulative totals are similar to the census figures for 1996 and 2001. This
lends further support to the reliability
of the census figures—though somewhat conservative, they may not
greatly underestimate the true size of
the signing Deaf community after all.
Therefore, the disparity between the
accepted figure of “in excess of
15,000” established by Hyde and
Power (1991) and this estimate cannot
be ignored, and the anomaly is not easily resolved.
In order to account for this discrepancy, one may argue that many more
severely deaf children become members of the signing Deaf community
than I have assumed. One possibility,
for example, is that there may have
been many more children with severe
deafness, and even moderate hearing
impairment, than actually attended the
large central schools for the deaf or the
schools provided by the Catholic education sector. As a consequence, many
more would have grown up to become users of Auslan than is assumed.
However, this seems unlikely, as the
regular school system during the first
half of the 20th century was completely unequipped to deal with children with significant hearing impairments.
Another possibility is that many
more severely deaf children in the second half of the century, particularly
between 1949 and 1980, gained little
benefit from their mainstreamed and
oral education than I have allowed for.
(I have assumed that all of these cases
of profound deafness resulted in individuals who were or would be users of
Auslan and members of the extended
signing Deaf community, but only
half of all cases of severe deafness.
This is the basis of the figures in Table
2. However, even if I calculate on the
basis of a “worst case scenario” that all
severely and profoundly deaf children
Figure 1
Number of Signing Deaf People in Australia Throughout the 20th Century
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gained little benefit from hearing aids,
mainstreaming, and oral education (effectively 40% of all cases of hearing
impairment in children are severe or
profound losses, according to studies
I have cited in the present article), the
1980 and 2001 figures are still lower
than the figure of 9,500 suggested by
Flynn (1987), and considerably lower
than the figure of 15,400 from Hyde
and Power (1991): that is, 7,897 in
1980 and 8,834 in 2001. (It has been
suggested that Flynn’s estimate may
have failed to account for the fact that,
at that time, many deaf people who
lived in other states received the Victorian Deaf Society newsletter in addition to their own state-based newsletter. It was a very popular source of
information on the national Deaf
community, not just the one in
Victoria.)
Finally, one may even wish to take
the adjusted higher overall prevalence
rate of 2.05 found in the British study
for the period after 1980 and extrapolate using a higher rate of 0.8 for all
cases of severe and profound deafness. (Both the enrollment figures and
the National Acoustic Laboratories
figures provide no reason to do so before this time.) The assumption is that
children diagnosed later in childhood
are equally likely to use sign language.
The resulting notional size of the signing Deaf community in 2001 would
thus be 10,982.
Not only do both these adjustments still leave a wide discrepancy
with Hyde and Power (1991), they also
seem unrealistic. First, it is contrary to
all expectations that the overall incidence of hearing impairment, especially severe and profound, should actually be higher in the last 2 decades of
the 20th century than during the first 8
decades (as indicated by enrollment
figures and figures from the National
Acoustic Laboratories ). Indeed, the
recent Western Australian figures I discussed above suggest an incidence rate
based on neonatal screening as low as
0.7 per 1,000 for all types of permanent childhood hearing impairment.
Second, despite the numerous and
well-known instances of the failure of
oralism with assisted hearing, not all
severely or profoundly deaf children
fail at this approach. Moreover, because hearing aid technology has improved since the 1980s, an increasingly
smaller proportion of these children
would have grown up using sign language. Third, a smaller percentage of
cases of profound deafness manifest
themselves later in childhood. The
later the emergence of the hearing
problem and the less severe it is, the
less likely the individual will be of becoming a user of sign language. Thus,
none of these adjustments are sufficient to make up the shortfall; nor are
they fully convincing.
All in all, the assumptions underlying the numbers in Figure 1 appear
robust, and the census figures
throughout the century appear reliable, if low. It would appear that the
Power (1987) estimate of 7,000 may
well have been the most reasonable to
date.
Medicine, Biotechnology, and
Genetics
Rubella
It appears that the dramatic reduction
in the incidence of all types of deafness recorded by Upfold and Isepy
(1982) in Australia by 1980 was due
primarily to the control of many diseases that cause hearing impairment,
especially rubella as a result of the discovery and introduction of a vaccine.
Any consideration of how to interpret
changing incidence and prevalence
rates in terms of estimating the size of
the signing Deaf community at various points in time must take the spe-
cific consequences of rubella into account. As I have already noted in the
present article, rubella not only dramatically increases the overall rate of
hearing impairment, it is also responsible for a disproportionately large
number of cases of severe and profound deafness. The control of rubella is also associated with a declining
rate of profound deafness. Thus, the
reduction in the number of new potential members of the signing Deaf
community may be much more significant than the “raw” numbers I have
presented would imply.
Multiple Disabilities and
Premature Births
The full extent of the decline in the
number of profoundly deaf children
after the 1980s has been masked by a
subsequent increase in the survival
rates for other diseases and events that
had hitherto fatal outcomes. This resulted in a radical change in the composition, not just the size, of the
population of newly identified severely and profoundly deaf children. A
large number of these children had
more than one disability. In other
words, since the early 1970s the cohort
of severely and profoundly deaf children with additional disabilities has
grown in absolute numbers and as a
proportion of all severely and profoundly deaf children.
A significant proportion of this increase can be attributed to the increasing numbers of premature births and
the associated improved survival rates.
A large number of cases of severe and
profound hearing impairment, particularly those with additional disabilities, are now attributable to complications of premature birth. One may
thus be easily misled by raw figures—
the rise in the number of premature
births has masked the fact that many
of the traditional causes of deafness,
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possibly apart from genetic inheritance, have become less important factors in the etiology of deafness in the
last 20 years. Interestingly, recent advances in the understanding of the
causes of premature births (such as the
role of reduced levels of progesterone or the levels of a muscle-relaxing
protein) may soon contribute to treatments that may directly address this
problem and, as a consequence, lead
once again to reduction in the number
of children with hearing impairments
(and other disabilities).
From the linguistic point of view,
most of these new cases of severely
and profoundly deaf children with
multiple disabilities are unlikely to be a
source of competent and fluent
Auslan users for the signing Deaf
community. If medical understanding
of the causes of premature birth is to
arrest and even reverse its frequency
or the severity of its adverse consequences, even this consideration may
become somewhat irrelevant. But either outcome is likely to reduce the
number of future sign language users.
Rate of Cochlear Implantation
Rates of cochlear implantation of severely and profoundly deaf children in
Australia are reported to be very high
and to be rising rapidly. If one considers Australia’s birthrate, and then compares the estimated number of children born with hearing impairment
with the number of cochlear implantations performed on young children,
some idea may emerge of the likely
current incidence of the procedure.
The Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre (SCIC) of New South Wales, which
performs most of the cochlear implants in that state, reported that approximately 56 implantations in children were conducted in association
with the SCIC in 2002, compared to
53 in 2001 and 42 in 2000 (Sydney
Cochlear Implant Centre, 2002). Of
these, 36 were in children 5 years of
age or younger, with most children
being 2 years old. Additional implantations are conducted in association with
the Shepherd Centre (estimated at 5 to
10 cases in 2002). The 40 or so procedures performed in 2002 in younger
children are equivalent to about 10%
of the possible 425 severely and profoundly deaf children born in the past
five years in New South Wales if the
rate of hearing impairment is reckoned at 2.5 per 1,000. These figures
would extrapolate to approximately
160 procedures nationwide. At these
levels of implantation, approximately
45% of severely and profoundly deaf
children are being implanted at a incidence rate of 2.05 per 1,000, and well
over 100% at 1.07 and 0.7 per 1,000.
In 2002 alone, there were possibly five
implantations in children less than 1
year old (four by the SCIC and at least
one by the other provider). This is anywhere from 25% to 84% of the profoundly deaf children likely to have
been born in that year in New South
Wales, depending on which incidence
rate one believes is applicable.
Whatever the exact figure, there can
be little doubt that very many newly
identified severely and profoundly
deaf children who are suitable for an
implant are in fact being implanted,
and at a very early age. Obviously, not
all severely and profoundly deaf children are implanted. Some are simply
not suitable, and others are implanted
despite having more moderate levels
of hearing impairment. A significant
proportion of the otherwise potential
candidates are not implanted because
additional disabilities make them unsuitable. This fact simply compounds
the reduction of numbers of potential
new signers.
Given current habilitation practices
with young children with cochlear im-
plants, it is unlikely that many of the
implanted children will be exposed to
Auslan or any form of sign language in
their early years or later in childhood,
though practices have been changing.
(There has been an increase in the use
of sign language with some children
with cochlear implants.) Overall, however, the “negative” impact of the cochlear implant program on the future
growth of the signing Deaf community must be deemed to be significant,
irreversible, and well under way.
Genetic Screening and Gene
Therapy
Biotechnology, in particular the science of genetics, appears about to
change the character and size of the
deaf population even more. The
change may well be dramatic if not
definitive.
In recent years, there have been
many advances in the identification of
genes related to deafness. Estimates
vary as the to number of genes associated with deafness, but they range
from 100 to more than 400 (Gregory,
2003; Pandya & Arnos, 2003). Most
important, of the 0.9 per 1,000 incidence rate for severe and profound
deafness now commonly cited for the
United States (Nance, 2003), it is estimated that 50% of the cases are genetic, and of these, 50% are
nonsyndromic (i.e., manifest themselves only as deafness) and 50%
syndromic (i.e., have other expressions
besides deafness; Pandya & Arnos,
2003).
Though the identification and
study of all of these genes has only
begun, the recent completion of the
Human Genome Project means that
the process is about to experience significant acceleration. One milestone in
this area has been the identification of
the Connexin-26 gene, which is associated with deafness. Indeed, it is esti-
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mated to be responsible for, alternately, 30% to 40% (Nance, 2003), or
even 80% (Pandya & Arnos, 2003), of
all heritable deafness in some populations. (Asian, European, and Jewish
populations each seem to have their
own distinctive subtype of the
Connexin-26 gene.)
The implications of the identification
of specific genes are manifold. It permits the development of procedures to
determine if individuals (whether deaf
or hearing) are carriers of a particular
gene, and thus the likelihood that any
offspring will be deaf. The procedure
can also be used to screen a fertilized egg
(as part of an in vitro fertilization, or
IVF, procedure) prior to implantation,
or to screen an embryo already developing in the womb. Such tests have been
developed for Connexin-26 and are
available. Genetic screening based on
identification of the Connexin-26 gene
has been available for some time, and
has been used in conjunction with genetic counseling to help would-be parents make reproductive decisions before
and during early pregnancy. In late 2002
in Melbourne, the first known use of
screening for Connexin-26 in vitro was
conducted. The couple used IVF specifically for this purpose, so that only a
fertilized egg not carrying the Connexin26 gene would be selected and implanted. The further, medium-term aim
of medical research in this area is to
achieve effective and safe gene therapy
whereby the affected fertilized egg, embryo, or newborn may have the genetic
condition corrected.
Even failing the development of a
gene therapy (which according to
some genetic scientists may prove to
be a much more difficult task than
many researchers assume), genetic
screening for several identifiable heritable causes of deafness is now available. There are many moral, social, and
political questions surrounding the ap-
plication of such technology, but there
is a strong possibility that many “atrisk” couples will avail themselves of
screening opportunities. After all, both
hearing and deaf parents-to-be already
routinely undergo genetic screening for
a number of other conditions (e.g.,
cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, or Down
syndrome). Even though, for many
deaf people, and indeed for many
hearing people, screening may not
seem desirable nor necessarily lead to
termination of a pregnancy, early indications and preliminary attitudinal research indicates that for a sizeable minority (at least 40% of hearing
parents), it would be (Middleton,
2003).
As more genes are more accurately identified and the screening
tests themselves become simpler,
cheaper, and more exhaustive (e.g.,
routinely screening for a whole
range of genetic dispositions in a
single test), incidence rates, and
hence prevalence rates, for severe
and profound deafness are unlikely
to go unaffected.
The Future of Auslan
The Size of the Signing Deaf
Community: Future
Projections
In 1999, there were approximately
250,000 live births in Australia. Regardless of whether one assumes a
relatively high or a relatively low incidence of hearing impairment and of
the various degrees of severity, the
numbers of additional newly identified profoundly and severely hearing
impaired children is not expected to be
large.
In terms of the future strength and
size of the signing Deaf community,
the best possible scenario is one in
which the highest incidence rate for all
hearing impairments is 2.5 per 1,000
(0.8 for severe and profound deafness), and in which all severely and profoundly deaf children grow up to be
Auslan users (see [a] + [b] in Table 7). At
251 births per year, the signing Deaf
community is likely to begin contracting in the near future, as births would
not compensate for the rising death rate
in an aging and already small community. The signing Deaf community has
an inverted age pyramid and a significant bulge of 35-to-45-year-olds due
to the rubella epidemic of the late
1960s. An even less favourable scenario
for the viability of the signing Deaf
community is the possible addition of
only profoundly deaf children to that
community at the lower rate of 1.07
per 1,000 (see [c] in Table 7). The numbers are extremely small, and presage
Table 7
Likely Yearly New Casesa of Childhood Hearing
Impairment in Australia, at 250,000 Live Birthsb
Type of hearing
impairment
Mild (25-40 dB)
Moderate (41-70)
Severe (71-90 dB)
Profound (>95 dB)
Total
Rate per 1,000c
2.5
2.05
1.07
0.7
187 (62)
187 (62)
(a) 187 (62)
(b) 64 (23)
154 (52)
154 (52)
154 (52)
51 (18)
80 (27)
80 (27)
80 (27)
28 (9)
52 (18)
52 (18)
52 (18)
(c)19 (6)
625 (212)
513 (174)
268 (90)
175 (60)
a
All figures are rounded to whole numbers; totals are adjusted accordingly.
b
Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 1999 figures: 248,870 live births, crude birthrate 13.1.
c
New South Wales figures in parentheses calculated at 85,000 live births. Based on ABS figures for
New South Wales (2001): 84,578 live births, crude birthrate 12.8.
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the imminent contraction of the community, as illustrated in Figure 2.
However, these scenarios do not
take into account two factors, either of
which could effectively bring an end to
the community within half a lifetime: a
75%, or even saturation level, rate of
cochlear implantation, and the systematic implementation of genetic knowledge to avoid reproductive outcomes
with known causes of hearing impairment. Alone, the current high rate of
cochlear implantation may have already effectively ended the growth of
the Deaf community in any meaningful sense. From Figure 2, it would appear that this decline may have begun
in the late 1990s. Decline due to implantations seems inevitable even if
more and more implanted children receive education that uses both oral/
aural and signing approaches. On top
of this, the potential “elimination” of
genetic causes of deafness, not to
mention the control of premature
births, would almost guarantee the
worst possible scenario—a greater and
more precipitous contraction in the
signing community. In other words,
future developments in genetic science
may only make the change that is already under way permanent, irreversible, and total.
Anecdotal evidence from Australia’s
biggest cities suggest that this contraction
may already be taking place. Both in
Sydney and Melbourne, many, if not
most, very young deaf children now
have implants. Few are in sign language–based or sign bilingual programs, and it is becoming increasingly
difficult to find children to fill such
programs and maintain a minimal linguistic community, a “critical language
mass” (see the following section, “Implications for Auslan”). It is even becoming difficult to fill such programs
with deaf children from deaf families,
because the number of deaf children
of deaf parents itself appears to be
much smaller than the 5% to 10% of
deaf children commonly cited in the
literature. From the enrollment
records of the Royal Institute for
Deaf and Blind Children (in which it
was recorded if a child had any
known family history of deafness), it
appears that only approximately 3%
of children have any deaf relations in
earlier generations (parents, uncles and
aunts, grandparents), though approximately 11% of children are recorded
as having a deaf sibling. (In recent attempts by one of my doctoral research students, Louise de Beuzeville,
and myself to locate deaf children of
Figure 2
Numbers of Deaf Signers in Australia, With Two 20-Year Projections
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deaf parents under the age of 9 years
across Australia, for participation in a
research project on sign language acquisition, we have been unable to locate
more than 50 potential subjects.)
Like the population of Australia as
a whole, the signing deaf population is
aging. However, along with decreased
birthrates in the entire population,
there is an additional and real reduction in both the incidence of severe
and profound deafness and the natural
process of enculturation of some of
these children into the signing Deaf
community as young adults (due to
improved hearing aids, cochlear implants, and mainstreaming). As an aging population fails to be renewed by
younger members at a sustainable rate,
the inversion of the age pyramid is
accentuated. This means that despite
greater overall life expectancy in the
community, the point is reached where
the death rate of the subpopulation
begins to accelerate, and far outstrip
that of the wider community. At that
point, one experiences population collapse. The Australian signing deaf
population is experiencing the first of
two inevitable and significant drops in
population size. The two periods of
decline are linked to the two rubella
epidemic age cohorts (see Figure 3).
One cohort belongs to the epidemic of 1944-1948 and the second
to the epidemic of 1965–1970. The
first cohort is now almost 60 years old
and has a high death rate. It sits at the
younger end of an age cohort that belongs to the first half of the 20th century, when the overall incidence of
deafness was higher, schooling centralized and residential, and the use of
Auslan an almost inevitable linguistic
and social outcome of education. In
the past 20 years, the vast majority of
the early-20th-century group has already passed away. The second rubella
epidemic cohort is now in its mid-tolate thirties. The reduction in the size
of this second group will not become
acute for about another 4 decades, but
they will be living in an ever-shrinking
and ever-aging community, with very
Figure 3
Age-Related Growth and Contraction of the Australian Signing Deaf Community
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few younger members. The 20-year
projections in Figure 2 do not take account of this demographic fact because no provision has been made for
an increasing death rate in a community that is aging much more rapidly
than the wider community. The projected decline to 2020 may therefore
be conservative.
Implications for Auslan
There is little doubt that many thousands of hearing impaired individuals—with various degrees of hearing
loss—use hearing aids, have had an
orally focused education and upbringing, and are not regular or competent
users of a community signed language.
Nonetheless, they may avail themselves of elements of gesture and sign
language, especially when communicating with other similarly hearing impaired individuals with whom they
have established social and personal
contacts during and after their school
years. Many would be known to
Auslan-using members of the signing
Deaf community. However, they cannot be described as users of Auslan
themselves. This group of people may,
in fact, account for some of the
overreporting, if overreporting it is, in
the estimate of 15,400 by Hyde and
Power (1991). Many Auslan users may
know many other non-Auslan-using
oral Deaf who “know some signs.”
When research for the first Auslan
dictionary was conducted, in the 1980s
(Johnston, 1989a, 1989b), it was during a period of demonstrable stress
and rapid change in the Australian
Deaf community, caused by the first
wave of the major demographic and
educational changes I have discussed in
the present study. This was precisely
the reason why the research was conducted. There was a serious need to
document, preserve, and possibly revive the language usage of that com-
munity—generational and peer transmission of Auslan through the large
central schools for the deaf had been
badly disrupted because of
mainstreaming (vigorous since the late
1950s) and the introduction in the early
1970s of an alternative contrived
signed system (called “Australasian
Signed English”) for use in special
schools and units where a signed approach was tolerated (Jeanes &
Reynolds, 1982).
Naturally, changing education systems and artificial signed systems cannot alone completely undermine a linguistic community based on real and
unchangeable communication needs.
In the end, they did not, and the language is still viable. There is reason to
believe that the identification (“naming”) of Auslan and the recognition of
the language achieved through the
publication of the dictionary of
Auslan have significantly contributed
to its integrity and continued survival.
Despite this achievement, the continued and growing stress exerted on
the Australian Deaf community by
declining incidence and prevalence
rates, ever-increasing mainstreaming,
and virtual saturation levels of cochlear implantation simply cannot be
ignored. Attitudinal change involving
recognition of, respect for, and promotion of Deaf community sign languages cannot reverse the impact of
such trends, nor can they—and this is
the essential point—guarantee a “critical language mass.” By this is meant
the minimal viable size for a linguistic
community in both numbers of users
and functional range of use. Though
languages may survive with extremely
small numbers of users, without ongoing use in a variety of functional domains, including the socialization and
enculturation of new speakers or signers (especially in the absence of a written form and accessible literature), a
language may cease to be a “living language” long before the last speakers or
signers disappear. Additional stress
must be experienced by a community
of sign language users who are, by
their very nature, dispersed through
and embedded within a much larger
community consisting of users of a
majority spoken language.
There is no known way that the
continued aging and shrinking of a linguistic community without replacement by younger native users can support a viable language beyond the life
spans of the current majority cohort,
despite all the goodwill in the world.
Indeed, one would expect examples of
language attrition or language convergence to appear as precursors to possible language death. Younger sign language users may be growing up in a
linguistic environment that is very different from that of older signers, and
which is itself rapidly changing. Linguists must take account of these developments when collecting and evaluating language data.
Implications for Sign
Language and Auslan
Research
For research on sign language, and on
Auslan in particular, the implications
of a radically different linguistic environment are also great, and revolve
around the question of research priorities and the hope that “missed opportunities” in studying Auslan as an
example of an established sign language could in any real sense be compensated for by future research outcomes with other sign languages.
With respect to Auslan research, the
situation is not unlike that of the early
1980s. Indeed, it is worse. Recognition
of the language has brought many
benefits (e.g., improved teaching in the
language, sign language interpreting
services, sign bilingual programs), but
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the initial lexical documentation and
analysis of the language has not been
augmented by comparable syntactic,
psycholinguistic, or discourse studies.
As I argue in the present article, it has
become apparent that not only is the
Auslan community considerably
smaller than has been assumed, but that
it is biased toward older members and
is shrinking rapidly at both ends of the
age spectrum. Moreover, very few
members of the younger cohorts actually use the same type of Auslan as the
older community members. This is
well known to anyone who is a competent signer and at all familiar with
and knowledgeable about the Australian Deaf community (the former implies the latter). However, it is not well
documented.
There has been no systematic,
widespread, and exhaustive collection
of a representative sample of Auslan
as used by peer-recognized “true users
of deaf sign language.” Claims of this
type of generational change, let alone
claims as to grammatical patterns and
discourse structures of the language,
or the impact of modality on the processing of language in the brain, cannot be empirically tested without a
credible corpus of Auslan. Quiet, definitive action is essential if an Auslan
corpus is to be established as the basis
for a valid and verifiable description of
this language. Modern linguistic science is, quite rightly, increasingly suspicious, if not intolerant of, grammatical and lexical studies based on native
signer intuitions alone, or unsupported by a corpus of the language.
With respect to sign language research generally, though Australia is a
relatively young country with a small
population, history and geography
have conspired to give it one of the
few native sign languages in the world
that has an attested historical depth of
considerable length, compared to
other sign languages. It is more than
200 years old and has been handed
down within some families for more
than five generations. (I have 15 living
deaf relatives, including parents,
uncles, aunts, and cousins. Indeed,
there have been 21 deaf people in my
extended family tree over five generations, including grandparents and their
siblings.)
Australia’s majority spoken language and its Deaf community sign
language predate the settlement of the
continent by Europeans. Australian
English is a variant of English. Auslan
is a variant of British Sign Language
(Johnston, 2000). Not only can the
roots of Auslan be traced to early19th-century forms of signed language used in Britain, the first schools
for the deaf in Australia were established relatively early (in the 1860s)
compared to those in most other
countries. Many countries have never
made educational provision for deaf
children; others have experienced a
situation in which indigenous religious
schools, or schools established in colonial periods by the metropolitan
power, have long ago been closed because of poverty or political upheaval.
When one looks at the core of the
signing Deaf community in Australia,
one is not looking at a language that
has emerged or reemerged in a single
generation, but one with had a continuity of more than 2 centuries.
One must ask how likely it is that any
of the newly identified and emerging
sign languages of the developing world
will endure for generations and continue to be handed down within families 2 centuries hence. If the arguments
I make in the present article are correct,
the coming decades may be the only
opportunity that will ever present itself
for linguists to properly document and
thoroughly understand the structure of
the few native sign languages of Deaf
communities with this type of age profile. Auslan is one of these languages.
Other Implications
Demographic and linguistic changes
have enormous implications for the
delivery of a variety of language and
educational services for deaf and hearing impaired children and adults,
which I can only touch on in the
present article. For example, educational sign language interpretation is
likely to suffer a contraction in the
near future. Ironically, however, there
may be a modest interim period of
expansion due to the closure of sign
bilingual schools or sign language–using units in a response to reduced intakes. Instead of dedicated schools,
units, or classrooms, individual children may be assigned or entitled to an
educational sign language interpreter
or service, rather than a signing
teacher of the deaf. Indeed, this appears to be emerging as the model of
“bilingual” education for deaf children
in the state of Western Australia.
However, as the cohort of the current
generation of school-age signing children and young adults moves through
the system, demand for this type of
service will itself decline, before perhaps disappearing.
The implications for training programs for teachers of the deaf (in
which teachers are trained to work in
sign language–using environments)
are almost immediate. The implications for interpreter training programs
in the slightly longer term are self-evident. Slowly but inevitably, the demand for sign language interpreters as
a whole will decrease with the shrinking and aging Deaf community, but
this will take several decades and is not
of immediate concern. For teacher
training, sign bilingual and sign language–using schools, and government
and nongovernment organizations
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W(H)ITHER THE DEAF COMMUNITY?
that serve the needs of deaf and hearing impaired children (with or without
other disabilities) and their families, the
effects will be felt very soon indeed, if
not almost immediately. One might
argue that the effects have begun to be
felt already.
It is important to remember that
the apparent declines in incidence and
prevalence reported in the present article need not have any negative impact on service delivery by way of
damaging quality or threatening entitlement (e.g., through a feared reduction in effective political lobbying).
Though the ability of all sorts of minorities to argue for due consideration
can be weakened if their numbers are
extremely small, in some circumstances a special-interest group may
experience a greater consideration for
this very reason. Governments may
actually be more willing to adequately
and properly respond to the legitimate
language needs of deaf and hearing
impaired citizens if numbers are modest, so deaf people need not feel
threatened. Thus, not only is it not
necessary to appeal to large numbers
to establish language rights, should the
newer lower estimate of the size of
the Australian signing Deaf community presented in the present article
prove accurate, it would be unethical
to continue to do so (cf. Schein, 2001).
In any event, of course, nothing is
to be gained for linguists by confusing
the hundreds of thousands of hearing
impaired people in Australia with the
signing deaf population. The former
cannot yield any valid data on the
natural sign language of the Deaf
community.
Conclusion
It is a well-known fact that during the
past 20 years, the profile of the population of children who are hearing impaired or deaf has been rapidly chang-
ing. I have argued in the present article
that the size of the signing Deaf community in Australia is considerably
smaller than some previous estimates
of the size of the Deaf community. I
have also argued that the signing Deaf
community is about to experience
more dramatic changes and an eventual decline. Of course, this is the scenario in a rich developed Western
country that has a relatively small,
highly concentrated, urbanized population, a history of early implementation of mainstreamed education, free
universal access to hearing aids for
children under age 18 years, and a federally funded universal health care
scheme that subsidizes most of the
cost of an initial cochlear implant. It is
also a country in which much of the
development and improvement (and
by some accounts, discovery) of the
cochlear implant has taken place. It
has been taken up with great enthusiasm. Australia may thus not be comparable to other developed countries
from this point of view. It even appears to have had a historically low incidence of hearing impairment
throughout the 20th century, not just
in recent decades. As for the underdeveloped and developing world, conditions there are certainly not comparable to those in Australia and other
parts of the developed world; nor will
they be comparable within the foreseeable future.
The likely decline in the size and
structure of the signing Deaf community in Australia (and potentially in
many other developed countries) in
the near future does not yet presage an
“end to deafness” in any real sense.
Not only could new and totally unexpected causes for deafness appear tomorrow, there are millions of severely
and profoundly deaf children and
adults in the underdeveloped and developing world. Many are part of new
and growing deaf communities in
which new sign languages are being
created, and existing ones rapidly developing and changing. The developed
world has a great moral imperative to
ensure that the linguistic and material
circumstances of deaf and hearing
impaired people in the developing
world are addressed and ameliorated.
This process should proceed in tandem with fulfilment of another urgent
intellectual and cultural responsibility
of the developed world—the production of exhaustive and accurate corpus-based linguistic research into existing well-established sign languages.
A Coda
Throughout the present article, I have
tried to objectively describe the current and future size and constitution
of the Australian signing Deaf community because of the crucial impact
this will have on the possibility and
integrity of linguistic research. Shooting the messenger or denying the realities of the situation cannot reverse the
trends. Given my personal connections and family history, and given the
potential loss of language and culture
that appears to be all but inevitable, it
goes without saying that this scenario
gives me no joy. Indeed, I experience
deep sorrow at the impending loss.
There is little doubt that many individuals in the signing Deaf community would have stronger emotions regarding these developments. However,
sorrow at the potential cultural loss
need not be compounded by inability
or refusal to act appropriately. Refusing to take seriously the task of recording a corpus of Auslan for ongoing
and future research would display a
profound indifference toward our cultural heritage, and a lack of appreciation of the most basic principles of
scientific research.
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Notes
1. The publisher of the report, the
Deaf Society of New South Wales,
has acknowledged a 10-fold error in
the actual numbers printed in the report, 12,612 and 25,225 respectively
(Rebecca Ladd, executive director,
Deaf Society of New South Wales,
personal communication, June 2003).
When these figures were first published, the authors appeared to accept
them, although they suggested that
they represented significant underestimates (Deaf Society of New South
Wales, 1998).
2. This counterbalancing trend
should not be used in any moral
reckoning of the justifiability of
educational practices that effectively
deny deaf children a linguistic safety
net (by denying them simultaneous
early access to a signed language).
There existed an expectation or hope
that the non–sign language-using
approach alone would succeed. It
was “supported” by the unsubstantiated belief that the use of a signed
language would actively hinder the
simultaneous acquisition of oral/
aural skills.
3. The death rate is approximated at
0.5 per 1,000 (the “underlying incidence from enrollments”) of the overall death rate for each year, on the basis of the population of that year.
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