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The declaration of the teachers of the deaf at the Milan Congress in the 1880 became deep- rooted in the habilitation and education of deaf children. The first Croatian teacher of the deaf was Adalbert Lampe, deaf himself, educated in Viena, Austria. He started with one deaf boy in 1885 establishing a private deaf school. In 1891 the first public residential school for the deaf was opened. We don’t know what happened with Adalbert but surly we know that he was not employed in the public school. They promote oral method as Milan Congress suggested. For many years it was the only deaf school in Croatia. Many famous deaf Croatians attended that school and contributed to the Croatian Deaf culture. Another famous year in deaf education was 1960 when Petar Guberina established an oral method known as verbo-tonal method in habilitation and education of deaf and hard of hearing children. Today it is the Policlinic for speech and hearing rehabilitation – SUVAG. (Re)habilitation and education of deaf children in Croatia proceed with a predominantly auditory-speech approach (spoken Croatian only). It represents the modern oral approach by application of phonetic rhythmic: movement stimulation and musical stimulation, developing sophisticated technique support for hearing stimulation and amplification technology. In 1996 the Center for cochlear implant and new technologies was opened to support children with CI and their parents. In 2002 newborn hearing screening test was established in every delivery hospital. So, Croatia is one of the rear European countries that has hearing screening test for every newborn baby. In the residential school for the deaf besides verbotonal procedure teachers use simultaneous communication (SC) in the classrooms as well as in everyday communication with deaf students. There are no bilingual- bicultural educational programs in Croatia ; Croatian Sign Language (HZJ) is not recognized as an efficient tool for literacy development, and development of others academic and psycho- social abilities in deaf children. But, there are more and more cases of education interpreting to young deaf students in regular schools, and preschool children in kindergarten. We are aware that such a situation is not specific only for Croatia, that there are many deaf communities, parents of the deaf children, and professionals who encounter the same or similar problems in European countries, and in other countries all around the world. On the other hand there are countries that, following the principle of meeting the needs of deaf children and their parents as well, and the needs of the deaf community, created a deaf education policy and practice in accordance with the attitudes of acceptance of diversity and supporting the deaf persons’ right to the complete and intelligible information on all the segments of life. They emphasize the necessity to create a deaf- friendly atmosphere for deaf children in schools. Supported by researches, and following the recommendations and resolutions of World and European educational policy makers (UN 1994 ; UNESCO 1994 ; Council of Europe 2003) as well as the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) Croatia will have to accept challenges in changing: o the procedure and methods of early intervention, o the way parents of deaf children are informed on deafness, and o the deaf education policy. This implies the changing of attitudes of some professionals towards different means of communication at disposal to the families with deaf children, and towards bilingual and bicultural habilitation and education. It implies, as well, changing attitudes of hearing parents of deaf child toward sign language communication. |
