Music For The Deaf: A Qualitative Approach


ABSTRACT: This case study, employing qualitative research methods, examines from a teacher's perspective the way music is used in one classroom at a southeastern school for the deaf. The findings suggest that if music is presented in a meaningful context, it can play a very important role in improving deaf (and multi-handicapped) children's learning abilities and social skills.

INTRODUCTION
The literature in music and deafness reveals that deaf individuals' experience with music has not yet received much attention. For many years deaf people were not allowed to participate in any form of musical activity as a consequence of their hearing impairment. 'Music as something that deaf people can not do' is a common belief which many people have repeated throughout the years, without really reflecting upon the veracity of this statement. It became an ideologic concept which was either imposed (through hegemonic relationship) upon those with hearing impairment or was learned (by deaf people) as a means of cultural identity, or both. All of this is based upon the "scientific" or medical fact that without the auditorial skills music could not be experienced.
There are cases of deaf individuals, however, who have overcome the ideologic "barrier," and have had successful experiences with music (see Edwards, 1974; Kapla, 1975; Robbins, 1980; Darrow, 1985). In order to address issues directly associated with ideological concepts in music and deafness, this study follows the theoretical framework of critical theory, because it is believed that the deaf community has a disadvantageous position in relation to the hearing society. The hearing society, underestimating the capacity of deaf people, reduces their opportunity to be exposed to music by claiming that without the sense of hearing music is an invalid experience.
The present case study was conducted at a southeastern school for the deaf at the middle school level, taking specifically into consideration the instructional techniques employed and the teacher's perspectives. The study was designed to address and better understand the phenomenon of deaf people successfully engaged in music activities.


A SYNOPSIS OF RELEVANT LITERATURE
According to the literature in music and deafness, teaching the whole body through body movements in order to perceive musical vibrations, rhythms, musical dynamics or any musical element is a way of helping a deaf individual to construct his/her own concepts of music and consequently to understand them. Robbins and Robbins (1980) state that all children, including deaf children, benefit from activities in which movement is necessary. Movement and music used together to motivate and help a child to control his/her own body can be a particularly valuable means of expression for a deaf child (Robbins and Robbins, 1980).
Research has shown that there are no significant differences between normally hearing and deaf children with respect to music caused solely by limitations in auditory skills (Edwards, 1975). In this context it is important to note that deaf individuals always have some residual hearing and that only approximately 10% of the deaf population is considered to be "completely" deaf (Robbins and Robbins, 1980). Therefore, it is important to provide deaf individuals with the opportunity to use their residual hearing in the appreciation and understanding of music.
There are some deaf individuals who, because of the nature of their hearing loss, are able to appreciate the lower sounds better. Therefore, if the musical stimuli are accentuated in the frequency range in which the deaf individual is most sensitive, along with providing the opportunity to experience music in a concrete way, the process of learning and appreciating music might become more meaningful.
In the case of music instruction, Robbins and Robbins (1980) state that music should be used not solely to support body movements but as a meaningful part of the activity. The way music becomes meaningful to some deaf individuals still has to be explored in depth. Exposure and experience cause the child to build musical concepts and to express them, which might consequently result in understanding and appreciating music. Edwards (1975) emphasizes that understanding, as a means of gaining concepts in music, is crucial for deaf children engaged in musical activities. Thus, without the opportunity to experience music, deaf children are not able to make music a meaningful experience.
A meaningful and effective experience with music is largely affected by the qualification of the professionals involved. A special qualification for educators attempting to provide music for the deaf is necessary and requires expertise in aspects of both music and special education (Kapla, 1975; Darrow, 1991).
The teacher, specifically, plays an important role in devising methods which can provide deaf children with meaningful musical experiences. Methods which involve the principle of 'learning-by-doing' with emphasis on extensive sensory experience (Shehan, 1986) are crucial to the development of deaf children's neuromuscular feeling for music. As a result of the exposure to concrete experiences with music (learning-by-doing), children can develop feelings and construct images in their minds in which an "understanding" of music concepts might occur (Shehan, 1986).
Normally hearing people tend to view music as a phenomenon which must be experienced primarily auditorially. Therefore, to experience music without the ability to hear is considered a difficult if not impossible task. For these reasons, some people still think negatively about the possibility of having deaf people experiencing and making music (Edwards, 1975). Ignoring these prejudices, some educators have used music with deaf children (Darrow, 1985).
A hegemonic relationship appears to be established between normally hearing people and deaf people based on auditorial skills. This hegemonic relationship appears to limit deaf people's opportunity to be exposed to music by suggesting that without normal hearing music is an invalid experience. As Gibson (1986) notes in describing the critical theory of Gramsci (1971), hegemony is fabricated through ideology; through ideology the dominant class [hearing community] shapes the beliefs of the subordinate class [deaf community] to the extent that the subordinate class starts to accept its own oppression. Thus, the deaf community has learned to accept the belief promulgated by the hearing community of its "inability" to understand or experience music.

METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION AND DATA ANALYSIS
This study is based on three sources of qualitative data reflecting the teacher perspective in applying music for the deaf: 1) 15 hours of participant-observation were conducted for the purpose of watching the classroom teacher develop music activities in her classroom; 2) informal conversations with the teacher were carried out focusing on the applicability of music for deaf children (included in this category are deaf children with multiple handicaps); 3) a ninety minute tape-recorded interview was conducted, particularly scrutinizing how music has been used in the classroom context and what reasons have led a teacher to devote time to music activities for the deaf. The tape-recorded interview took place in the participant's classroom during the time the students were involved in an outside-the-classroom activity under the supervision of the teacher's assistant.
The analysis of the information was based on the following procedures: 1) the notes taken during the participant-observation and the notes obtained from the informal conversations were read; 2) the tape-recorded interview was transcribed, and it was read several times. Rereading the notes and the interview transcription allowed the researcher to organize the collected information into categories. Once the categories were established, the next phase involved the identification of patterns and themes. These patterns were used in developing the study's interpretation. The interpretation was constructed by finding linkages and relationships among the patterns which emerged from the analysis.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTICIPANT
Susan Cox: the teacher

Susan Cox, a middle school teacher, was selected as the participant for this case study. The selection was based on the participant's involvement with deaf education, shown through discussions on a computer network.
Susan Cox has worked in deaf education for twenty-nine years. Her academic background includes a master's degree in special education with a concentration in learning disabilities. In the field of music, the participant possesses, what she calls, "a basic elementary music [education]" with knowledge of musical reading and rhythms. Susan learned how to play percussion instruments and started to take accordion lessons as well. Further, as part of her education in music, Susan has sung in choirs and has attended workshops in music.
Susan's work experience includes teaching auditory training for seven years. This was how (and when) she started to use music for the deaf. Since then, Susan has applied music as a daily activity in the classroom. Presently, she teaches a class of profoundly deaf children with multiple handicaps using music.

Susan Cox's students
Susan has a group of six profoundly deaf students with multiple handicaps (e.g., physical handicaps, mental retardation, learning disabilities). A few of them possess some behavioral problems, making the whole process of teaching even more difficult. The participant states: "...in my room are the students that nobody else wants. They have so many things wrong with them, that it is very difficult to teach them."
The students' mental age varies from two or two and half to six or seven years. Their chronological age is between eleven and fifteen years.
The students seem not to have received proper education/attention throughout the years; consequently, they seem to exhibit some odd behaviors that usually are not very well accepted by our society. Susan says:
...some of their behavior are weird or odd, ...I think that back in the old days, they [people in general] are used to put kids into institutions, because they don't know how to work with them. They don't have patience. It takes a lot o patience, a lot!

DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION
The analysis revealed that Susan Cox had a set of beliefs or guiding principles about teaching, learning, and students' performance that were related to the process of making music part of the deaf children's daily activities in school. Several patterns or themes emerged in the analysis of her beliefs or guiding principles. Although they are interwoven with one another, these themes (and subthemes) can be listed separately: 1) independent exposure to music through multi-media; 2) aspects of teaching music for deaf children; 3) benefits related to exposure to music; 4) problems: outside environment (practical and conceptual), inside environment (the students and the teachers).
Independent exposure to music through multi-media

Music has become more popular among deaf children in the last five years because of the influence of the media. Television, specifically, has shaped many of the attitudes of deaf children toward music. Currently, the influence of the multi-media is greater because all media sources have become more accessible to the population, including the deaf population. Susan Cox states,
...before not everybody had television, and not everybody could go to movies. ...recently, the media exposes everything. They [deaf children] see, they want to be the same as everybody else, even the severely [handicapped] kids. They know that there is something else out there.

While deaf children may not understand the message that the media brings, media sources have made them aware of information that is not a natural part of their environment. Some decades ago, music was considered a "hearing person's thing." Therefore, music was not part of deaf children's lives. However, exposure to a variety of multi-media seems to be changing that.

Aspects of teaching music for deaf children
To teach music to the deaf has become easier because of the exposure to the media discussed earlier. Consequently, deaf individuals show more interest and involvement in music activities in the classroom.
Music activities in the classroom are not restricted to helping deaf students learn only music concepts. Deaf students participate in singing activities or even in musical instrument performance. Again, the television influences greatly the way they react to these activities. The teacher participant, Susan Cox, says: "If I give him [deaf student] this playdrum, he pretends like he is on the television. He sits in there and he just pounds on that, like he is on television."
In musical activities such as singing, the students use sign language to sign the songs. Sometimes they will also, as Susan notes, "have the intonation and the rhythm to go up and down [with their voices]." To conduct the singing activity, Susan uses her hands to indicate high/low sounds, so that the deaf students' voices (pitch) go up and down.
To keep the students interested and involved in the activities with music, Susan is constantly looking for new ways to approach the (same) musical concepts. She goes from playing the drum, to playing the tambourine, to "listening" to the radio, to moving the body according to the music, etc. The reason for changing the activities is that the majority of the students have short attention spans. Further, to keep their positive attitude toward music, it is necessary either to keep changing the activity constantly or to stop when they are still interested. In this way the students will not become tired or bored. According to the participant, it is also very important to observe their mood. The students are not always inclined to receive musical instructions. Susan states: "If they are accepting [the musical activity], do it; if they are not, change it."
Musical instruments are not only a tool for increasing the children's motivation, they are also a tool for supporting music instruction. Susan introduces the concept of low, medium and high sounds by using instruments such as the drum (low sound), the triangle (medium sound), and some bells (high sound). While Susan plays the instrument, the students are supposed to have their backs to her. When she finishes playing, the students have to turn back to her and identify which instrument was played. The entire activity is approached as a "game" by the teacher and her students. If the students are not able to identify the musical instrument played, Susan helps them by moving the instrument from one place to another. In this way, the students notice that an instrument has been moved and that it probably was the one previously played. To be successful is very important for these children because it improves their self-image, while helping them to better enjoy musical activities. This is one reason why Susan helps them to succeed. She says, "I make them to succeed, so that they will want to do..."
In teaching music to the deaf, Susan employs many techniques. The use of balloons is one of them. With the balloons, deaf children can feel the vibrations caused by a musical instrument being played because their fingertips are very sensitive.
Some musical activities approached in class are related to Susan's past experience in teaching auditory training. She uses syllables (one, two or three syllables) to introduce some musical concepts such as beat and measurement.
Effective music instruction for the deaf necessitates good physical conditions such as a wooden floor and good acoustics. A variety of musical instruments is important as well as current information on advances in technology. The amount of computer software in music has significantly increased. Such software provides visual clues for some musical sounds. Therefore, Susan states, "if they can't hear [the musical sound], they can look at [the computer screen] and follow it."
According to the teacher, any special education music teacher has to be constantly attentive to the way his/her students learn music. Each deaf child learns music in his/her own way. "Some learn better through feeling, some learn better just through vision, and some just have the skill or talent to pick that [music] up and be able to get it." Sometimes in teaching music "things [new techniques] are discovered just by accident, and you [teacher] say: oh! that works," said Susan. Thus, what is really important, Susan continues, is that "there is always a way to show them [deaf students] what to do, whether it is to teach them a musical beat, or to perform on a musical instrument."
Susan believes that music for the deaf goes beyond music instruction in the classroom. She believes that deaf students can become professionals in music. She says,

I met [deaf] people, ... I met a girl that plays and plays professionally in a big huge orchestra in Connecticut. She is totally deaf and she plays the flute. ...I know some few other people that play, but they play other visual [instruments], like drums. I have seen someone [a deaf person] playing the piano before. ...I did see a deaf man playing xylophone, and he played exquisitely perfect.

Thus, for the participant, the process of teaching music to the deaf may awaken an inherited talent for music which can lead more deaf individuals to become professionals in music. Susan also believes that music should be available to everybody. She states:
We all enjoy music. I enjoy music, it is uplifting. Sometimes it makes me cry, sometimes it makes me feel good, sometimes it is just real romantic... if it is all that for me, why not for them [deaf students]?"
Benefits related to exposure to music
In order to be more effective and successful in our society, the participant in this study believes that "we need to be social." This socialization however, is limited for deaf students because they are still victimized by ignorance about their needs. Susan states,
The way they handle handicapped children at home is sticking them in front of the television and leaving them alone. Therefore, music for the deaf is also an opportunity for social training. Music is one way to help them [deaf children] to perform physical things, related to fine and gross motor activities that are fun... Music makes them to feel good about themselves. They want to be the same as everybody else. It just gives them a more positive self-image.

Thus, through music, deaf students might improve their self-image. By participating in musical performances, they feel themselves more productive and engaged within society. Susan says: "in front of people, they are as everybody else performing on stage." Susan also states that some of the benefits of exposure to music carry over to reading and writing performance. This happens because she relates music activities to language, and she asks the students to talk and to write about their experiences with music.
Problems
In using music with the deaf, Susan faced some problems:
1- Outside environment
The problems coming from outside of the participants' environment were divided into problems of a practical and conceptual nature.
a) Practical: Normally hearing teachers, who work close to the participants' classroom, complain about the noise generated by the musical activities. Susan states,

I am flexible, I go with the flow... I wait until the teachers go to PE [physical education], her whole class goes to PE; then I have music. So I just change my schedule. I don't have to have music at 'that' time. I just change my music time.

These teachers also think that the musical activities which Susan conducts are 'just' games, and that instead of teaching she just spends time playing with her students.
b) Conceptual: According to Susan, the major reason that more teachers do not use music with deaf children is their conceptual understanding about the application of music in the class. The teachers don't interrelate music with the other class activities. Susan states,
they [teachers] think [about music] as a separated entity. ...I think that it is not that they really don't want to do. I think that someone has to show them how it [music] can fit in. How it can be a part of the everyday activities, and not as separate entities.
2- Inside environment - the students
In her classroom, Susan also faces some problems concerning the students' involvement in musical activities. She confessed having heard from deaf students statements such as: "I can't hear, do you remember? What do you want me to do music for?" However, she also says that these problems have been reduced because of their exposure to multi-media.
3- Inside environment - the teacher
Susan pointed out that, although she has never felt frustrated with the difficulties or with the results obtained in teaching music to the deaf, frustration might constitute a problem for many teachers. This can cause them to stop looking for alternative pathways to teaching music to the deaf. Susan also pointed out that the results in this field of instruction are slow and that it requires a lot of patience. However, there is always a way to teach those special kids. She states: "There has to be a way to get through... it might take me a year or two..."

PERSONAL REACTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The study data suggest that Susan has been providing a good level of education to her students by using music as a vehicle of instruction. Although her students have other disabilities in addition to deafness, they don't appear to have affected her commitment to using music. She also does not demonstrate frustration with the results that surface in very slow increments.
Indeed, from the perspective of the critical theory there are additional problems to be overcome. These problems involve the power difference between the normal and hearing community (dominant class) and the deaf community (subordinate and oppressed class) in relation to music. A specific example of hegemonic relationship, in this study, is provided by the reactions and attitudes of some of Susan's colleagues. These colleagues regard music activity for the deaf simply as a waste of time, because the students are unable to hear musical sounds.
Even though Susan belongs to the normally hearing community, she does not seem to underestimate the capacity and musical skills of deaf people. Susan works to provide her deaf students with positive feedback. Her teaching philosophy puts emphasis on the "ability" and not on the "inability" of her students. Consequently, this fosters a more positive attitude towards musical experiences in her students.
For this reason, the study has implications for how music may be used as an instructional tool in schools for the deaf, and how the teachers (in schools for the deaf) who have used music in their classrooms are viewed by others, including colleagues, students and supervisors.
This study showed that an educator of the deaf should also be prepared to work with deaf children with additional disabilities, such as learning disabilities and mental retardation. The results of this study suggest that music can play a very important role for improving deaf (and multi-handicapped) children's learning ability as well as their social skills. To be effective, music activities for the deaf must be viewed as serious academic exercises and not just as games. However, to keep the students' interest in these activities, they must also be fun. Thus, musical activities for the deaf can be fun and effective, if they are presented in a meaningful and motivational context.
REFERENCES
DARROW, Alice-Ann (1991). "A Study of Public School Music Programs Mainstreaming Hearing Impaired Students." Journal of Music Therapy, (28), 1, 23-29.
_______. (1985). "Music for the Deaf." Music Educators Journal, (71), 6, 33-35.
EDWARDS, Eleanor M. (1975). "Music and the Hearing Impaired." IN: Music for the Exceptional Child. R. M. Graham, (ed.), Virginia: Music Educators National Conference.
_______. Music Education for the Deaf. Maine: Merrian-Eddy Company, 1974.
GIBSON, Rex. Critical Theory and Education. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986.
GRAMSCI, A. Selections from Prison Notebooks. Quinton Hoare and Geoffrey Smith (eds.), NY: International Publishers, 1971.
KAPLA, P. S. (1975). "Music and the Hearing Handicapped Child." IN: Music for the Exceptional Child. R. M. Graham, (ed.), Virginia: Music Educators National Conference.
ROBBINS, Carol and Clive Robbins. Music for The Hearing Impaired: A Resource Manual and Curriculum Guide. Missouri: Magnamusic-Baton, 1980.
SHEHAN, Patricia K. (1986). "Major Approaches to Music Education: An Account of Method." Music Educators Journal, (72), 6, 26-31.
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