SORDOMUTI

SORDOMUTES. — Those lacking both hearing and speech faculties. In the congenital form, or that which develops in the earliest years of life, although it may depend on defects of the peripheral apparatus, deaf-muteness is often linked to "verbal deafness" due to cortical and subcortical lesions of the temporal lobe (sensory audimutism).

Damage to these brain regions may be produced through a germinal mechanism, in relation to hereditary factors (genotypic or idiotypic alterations), or to traumas suffered during gestation and birth, or to infectious diseases (meningoencephalitis) that affected the individual during intrauterine life or in the first years after birth. Many believe that deaf-mutes are frequently the children of blood relatives (particularly cousins); not rarely, deaf-muteness is linked to cretinism. The defect may be complete or only partial, in which case more or less abundant remnants of hearing ability remain. True deaf-muteness must be distinguished from muteness due to developmental delay (S. De Sanctis), which usually does not extend beyond the third year of life and is of familial origin; nor should it be confused with motor audimutism, in which, although the hearing apparatus is intact and verbal hearing is preserved, the individual is incapable of speaking spontaneously.

Deaf-muteness, if not susceptible to education or abandoned to itself, leads to a stunting of psychic faculties and severe deficiency in intellectual endowment.

I. EDUCATION

Pedagogically, the deaf-mute may be considered a sensory anomaly; they possess, in fact, the ability to express their thoughts and desires in other ways, which are not, at least initially, spoken language—for example, through gestural mimicry, the different placement and intertwining of fingers, or writing. Hence, facilitated by the development of the experimental sciences, the study to rediscover and progressively perfect methods and means to overcome the anomaly of deaf-muteness as perfectly as possible.

1. History The occasion for the modern, extensive, and effective movement on behalf of the deaf-mute dates only from the early 16th century. The distinguished humanist Rudolph Agricola (1443–85) had noted with great surprise that he had seen a deaf-mute exchange discourses and reasoning with others through writing (De inventione dialectica, bk. III, ch. 16). To this wonder, the physician Girolamo Cardano (1501–76) replied by observing that writing is associated with speech, speech with thought; but that written characters can be combined without the intervention of sounds, so that a deaf-mute can "hear" by reading and "speak" by writing (Paralipomena, III, ch. 8; De surdo et muto litteras edocto). From this, the conclusion followed that speech is not at all necessary for the development of intelligence, although it is the most effective and adequate means; and that, by substituting sensory stimuli, the deaf-mute can be brought to the visible expression of thought through signs that appeal to sight, since appeals through other channels remain impassable and insurmountable.

The task now remained to find a practical way to realize this demonstrated possibility of instructing the deaf-mute. The first attempt was undertaken by the Benedictine monk Pedro Ponce de León (1520–84) of the monastery of S. Salvador in Oña. Starting from the principle that spoken language is not merely an auditory phenomenon but also a visual one, he sought to induce the deaf-mute to imitate the movements made by the vocal organs in the act of pronouncing a given letter, syllable, or word; thus, by imitating the visible element, it was possible to obtain from the deaf-mute the production of the audible element as well. Having adopted writing as the initial means, he succeeded in getting the deaf-mute to pronounce all the letters of the alphabet, then various syllables, and finally words; to name the objects they represented, to perform calculations, to recite prayers with understanding, and to make oral confessions. He left nothing in writing about his method; but not long afterward, the Aragonese priest Juan Pablo Bonet, who followed his procedures, expounded them in a theoretical-practical treatise: *Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar los mudos* (Madrid 1620), the first treatise on special didactics for the deaf-mute. He made use of a manual alphabet, invented a system of visible signs representing the sounds of words, and also provided a description of the position of the vocal organs in the pronunciation of individual letters, adding effective suggestions still in use among modern practitioners of vocal articulation and lip-reading.

The Jesuit physicist Francesco Lana Terzi (1631–87), after mentioning some examples of excellent results from the oral method, dwells on describing its "truly marvelous" art—the same as that of Ponce and Bonet—observing that "each of us, even before attaining the use of reason, learned to utter words through the marvelous industry of nature, which, stimulated by necessity, strove to imitate another's speech by giving the lips various movements until it found the one that articulated the desired word" (*Pro-dromo overo Saggio di alcune invenzioni nuove*, Brescia 1670, p. 48). The celebrated philologist Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735–1809), a missionary in America, also published *Escuela española de sordo-mudos* (2 vols., Madrid 1795), in which he particularly insists on the method of teaching the deaf-mute the meaning of abstract words, terms of philosophy, theology, sociology, etc.

Meanwhile, Bonet’s method spread to England and Scotland through the work of Kenelm Digby (1603–65), followed by some members of the Phonosophic Society of London, especially John Bulwer (1600–69), who, in his works *Chirologia and Chironomia* (London 1644) and *Philocophus* (ibid. 1648), sought to demonstrate that the acoustic phenomenon of speech is transformed for the deaf-mute into a visual phenomenon, in which the essence of lip-reading lies, making articulated speech usable in social life—whether with or without phonation—in mutual relations among the deaf-mute and between them and speaking individuals. In this way, he completed Bonet’s theory, which had neglected lip-reading in favor of communication with the pupil through a manual alphabet. He was followed by others: John Wallis (1616–1703), William Holder (1616–98). All of these treated the subject in separate works, acknowledging instructors of the deaf-mute a prominent place in the history of phonetics. Along the same lines should be remembered for Scotland George Dalgarno (1626–87) of Aberdeen, who published in 1661 *Ars signorum* and in 1680 *Didascalocophus or Deaf and dumb man’s tutor*, inventing a twofold manual alphabet; for the Netherlands, G. B. von Helmont (1618–99) with his dissertation published in 1682, *Surdos loquens*; and Giovanni Corrado Amman (1669–1724), a Swiss by origin, who in 1700 published *Dissertatio de loquela*, a work occupying one of the foremost places in the didactic literature on deaf-muteness.

Germany, in this field, created nothing original but translated several of the aforementioned works and put them into effective practice. Particularly distinguished here was Samuel Heinicke (1729–90), called the great champion of the oral method (as opposed to the sign method of the Abbé de l’Épée), who founded in Leipzig in 1778 the first public institute for the deaf-mute in Germany and gave a more logical application to the principles established by Bonet.

Wallis and dall’Amman. Preceding them in this arena were Guglielmo Kerger (1620–85), Giorgio Raphel (1673–1740), and Ferdinando Arnoldi (1737–83). Following them was instead Federico Maurizio Hill (1805–74), regarded as the true founder of the so-called “German method,” in contrast to the “French method.”

The latter was proclaimed and disseminated by Abbé Carlo Michele de l’Épée (1712–89). Moved by compassion for the sad condition of the deaf, he sought to remedy II. Observing that, even before receiving any instruction, they communicated among themselves in play and other activities through a kind of pantomime, using natural gestures to signify objects and their qualities and powers, he fixed upon the idea of employing sign language as a means of instruction. If words are conventional signs of ideas, why could not natural gestures serve the same purpose? He therefore familiarized himself with the few gestures he observed, added others of his own invention, and in 1760 opened in Paris the first school for the deaf, which he ran until his death. He left as his successor Abbé Ambroise Sicard (1742–1822), who introduced important improvements, though his work diverged from that of his predecessor.

The Paris school soon gained European and worldwide fame, both because the sign method was easier and more adaptable to a larger number of deaf students, and because educators from every nation were invited there. These educators then prompted their respective governments or benefactors to establish other schools in various countries, applying the methods learned at the schools of de l’Épée and Sicard. Thus, from Rome came the priest Tommaso Silvestri, who, in 1784 through the efforts of the lawyer [...], founded in Rome the first Italian institute for the deaf.

From Austria came the priests F. Stork and G. May, who later opened an institute in Vienna in 1779; from Switzerland, the parish priest Keller (1728–1802). Nor did America lag behind in this movement. Already, the institute for the deaf founded in Edinburgh in 1760 by Thomas Braidwood had attempted in 1812 to establish other schools in Virginia, New York, and Baltimore, but with no success. However, the priest Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was sent to Europe, where he met Abbé Sicard, visited his school in Paris, studied its methods, and obtained as an assistant for his future endeavor the best of Sicard’s pupils, Laurent Clerc. Returning to America, he founded in 1817 at Hartford, Connecticut, the first American institute for the deaf.

Thus, after a rather slow and arduous journey, one enters the nineteenth century, which may justly be called, for all civilized nations, the golden age of assistance for the hearing- and speech-impaired. This was due both to the number of institutions established and to the decisions taken at various congresses in favor of the oral method and the integration of the deaf into ordinary social life.

Nor should it be forgotten that this progress was due in a very special way to the initiatives and efforts of the secular and regular clergy and of numerous women’s religious congregations. These devoted themselves, among other works, to the comprehensive education of the deaf, guiding them both toward the acquisition of speech through increasingly refined scientific methods and apparatus, and toward learning a trade for life through vocational schools.

In Italy, the flowering was truly remarkable. According to the *Guida D. Ammirio della Scuola e della cultura*, published by the National Didactic Center of Florence (Florence-Rome 1951, pp. 788–97), the following institutes existed:

a) State-run institutes – Rome, State Institute for the Deaf, founded in 1841 by the papal government; Milan, National State Institute for the Deaf, which began in 1805 as a private school through the efforts of the Lyonnais Antonio Eyraud and was declared a government institute by imperial decree in 1818; Palermo, State Institute for the Deaf of Sicily, founded in 1834 by King Ferdinand II of Bourbon.

b) Institutes run by religious orders – Rome, Institute “Lorenzo Prinotti,” founded in 1881 through the initiative of Fr. L. Prinotti; Trent, Institute for the Deaf, founded in 1853 by Bishop Giovanni de Tschiderer; Trieste, Provincial School for the Deaf, established in 1882 by the teacher Federico Camus; Verona, “Provolo” Institute, founded in 1829 by Fr. Antonio Provolo, who introduced—with satisfactory results—singing among the subjects taught.

c) Private institutes not recognized by the state – Chiavari (Genoa), “Ottavio Assarotti” Institute, founded in 1878 by the Piarist G. B. Ottavio Assarotti; Piacenza, “Madonna della Bomba” Institute for the Deaf, established in 1903 through the initiative of Canon Francesco Torta; “Scalabrini” Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, founded in 1880 by Bishop Mons. G. B. Scalabrini; Salerno, “Filippo Smaldone” Institute, opened in 1908 by the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts, founded by Fr. F. Smaldone.

As this brief list shows, of the 54 institutes mentioned, the great majority were founded and are run by clergy or nuns.

d) Training schools for teachers – For the preparation of specialized teachers of the deaf: Milan, “Girolamo Cardano” Method School, attached to the State Institute for the Deaf; Rome, “Tommaso Silvestri” Method School; Siena, “Tommaso Pendola” Method School.

2. Methods and congresses

The nineteenth century saw not only the rapid flourishing of institutes for the hearing- and speech-impaired, but also the reasoned triumph of the oral method over the sign method—that is, of the so-called German school over the French. This resulted from the heated controversies that had arisen from the outset between Samuel Heinicke, promoter of the ancient method of spoken language, and Abbé de l’Épée, creator of the mimetic or sign method, which had spread almost everywhere outside Germany. The latter, while simpler and quicker for teaching a greater number of representative signs for things and actions (in grammar: nouns and verbs), tended toward a kind of agrammatism, since it neglected the parts of speech that represent the logical connections of thought. Lacking thorough instruction through discursive and conversational practice, the deaf tended toward the least effort—that is, the quickest expression of thought, for which nouns and verbs sufficed. The other method, however, trained the deaf to perceive spoken, written, and lip-read words with such speed that they could follow an entire discourse with their eyes as if they were hearing II. A common effort thus arose to revise the methods, fomented by David Hirsch, director of the Rotterdam Institute, and later by Maurice Hill, and in Italy by Prof. Pasquale Fornari of the Royal Institute of Milan, and even more by Fr. Giulio Tarra—all in favor of a return to the oral method.

Among the many national and international congresses convened to discuss the problems of the new direction, the one of historical importance was the International Congress held in Milan in 1880, presided over by Tarra, where the return to the method of spoken language was decided upon and this decision was favorably received by all nations. From then on, the aim was not only to make the method increasingly practical, but also to keep it continually updated with scientific advances. Moreover, efforts were made to study means of solving old and new problems concerning the medical, pedagogical, and social assistance of the deaf, as well as their civil and legal status in relation to the legislation of individual states and their entry into the common rights of all citizens.

### 3. The New Vibratory Method
Observing the joy of the deaf in perceiving vibrations within themselves and their greater ease in reading the lips of teachers when they simultaneously perceive vibrations through a conductive medium, Prof. T. Rutten of the University of Nijmegen introduced music and dance accompanied by the organ into his schools for the deaf. This enabled the deaf to associate different vibrations felt within themselves with different notes, tones, and even subtle nuances with different colors and various positions of limbs and body, allowing them to perform the most harmonious dances (cf. U. Piazza, *Musica per ricostruire la vita*, in *Ecclesia*, 10 [1951], pp. 94-96).

### 4. Deaf-Blind Deaf
The theory of the vicarious perception of speech stimuli has made it possible to develop methods for the education of deaf-blind individuals. The initiative for these procedures is owed to the founder of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, S. G. Howe (1801-76), who achieved full success in assisting the deaf-blind student Laura Bridgman. Howe’s techniques and practices led to similar achievements with Helen A. Keller, who was educated by Anna Sullivan, herself blind and educated in Boston; Keller went on to attend university courses and learn foreign languages, as well as with Clarence Selby, a poet and writer educated by Sister Dositea of the Congregation of St. Mary; and Lottie Sullivan, educated by Mrs. G. W. Veditz, among others (cf. *American annals of the deaf*, ed. E. A. Fay, Washington, June 1900). Fundamentally, the method relies on the sense of touch in its two perceptual forms: contact-pressure and form-movement. Through these procedures, the sense of touch becomes so refined that, as in the case of E. Keller, it can detect the speech of someone pronouncing words by lightly placing the three fingers of the right hand on the speaker’s face.

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II. THE ETHICAL PROBLEM

In the ethical sphere, the primary concern is the moral and legal capacity of the deaf. 1) Regarding imputability, the *Codex Iuris Canonici* (CIC) contains no specific norms, as the general principles of human acts apply, as reiterated in canon 2201, which addresses the incapacity for delict when there is a total lack of the use of reason or a proportional diminution in cases of partial lack. The deaf are certainly not as responsible as those who are not deaf; even if fully educated, their psychological conditions may result in a diminished imputability, to be assessed by experts on a case-by-case basis. 2) The Italian Penal Code (arts. 96, 141, 219, 222) excludes all imputability for deaf individuals incapable of understanding or willing; it admits diminished imputability in cases of lesser infirmity, which is prosecutable but requires commitment to care facilities. The Civil Code, however (arts. 415), admits legal capacity if the deaf individual has received sufficient education; with particular safeguards, they may make a will (arts. 603-605) and testify in court (Code of Civil Procedure, art. 124). 3) Regarding the Sacraments, the general norms on the capacity to understand apply; in cases of total or near-total incapacity, they are to be treated as infants (Baptism and Confirmation). If capable of at least venial sins or in doubt, they may receive (under condition) Extreme Unction and absolution in danger of death; while for Communion and Confession in a state of health, a certain capacity to understand the value of the Sacrament is required. If psychological capacity is established, e.g., through education, they may access the Sacraments as others, with the exception of Holy Orders due to irregularity *ex defectu* (can. 984, n. 2); for marriage, the principles governing defects of consent and ignorance apply (can. 1081 ff.), so that if the deaf individual is incapable of consent or lacks essential knowledge for the validity of the act (can. 1082), the marriage is null. For Confession in particular, see **CONFESSION**. Canon 936, derogating from canon 934, facilitates the acquisition of indulgences even for the deaf, as it suffices that, in reciting prescribed prayers, they unite internally with others or manifest them privately.