oralism

[ awr-uh-liz-uhm, ohr- ]

noun

1. the theory, practice, or advocacy of education for the Deaf chiefly or exclusively through lipreading, training in speech production, and training of residual hearing. Compare manualism.

Word History and Origins

Origin of oralism¹

First recorded in 1880–85; oral + -ism

Example Sentences

But, starting in the early 1880s, oralism, the exclusive use of spoken language to teach deaf children, became widely accepted.

From Washington Post

Oralism is the name given to the practise of educating deaf people to use speech and lip-reading rather than sign language.

From BBC

"I got a lot of backlash from certain people in that community because I was promoting oralism."

From BBC

I didn’t even know that there was this controversy between people who signed and people who spoke because I was young, I wasn’t politically motivated, I had never been in that argument, I had never known there was oralism versus sign language.

From Slate

It’s a parallel with deaf education in the late 19th-century, when oralism was forced on deaf students in the belief that this would improve their education.

From The Guardian