O sucesso dos alunos surdos no ensino superior

Abstract

The theme of this master’s dissertation is the education of the Deaf, with a special focus on their schooling path.
Our main goal is to identify the major problems, difficulties and obstacles that deaf people face in their academic path, from preschool to university educa-tion.
To accomplish this goal we have used two different methods, albeit com-plementary. On one hand, we have analyzed the biographical narratives of three persons suffering from congenital profound deafness, trying to detect their daily constraints. Two of them have outstanding places in the world of Art – Theatre and Cinema – and the third one is the very author of this disser-tation, who is also profoundly deaf. On the other hand, we have resorted to an enquiry directed to deaf people who are graduated or still university stu-dents.
The conclusions are enlightening. Because these Deaf underwent the transition from the oral methods of learning a spoken language, which was the teaching language, to the methods based on Sign Languages, now ac-cepted as natural and official languages of the Deaf, we can conclude that the schooling process of this minority group has changed radically for the better. Nowadays, we welcome deaf people in higher education in a natural way. How-ever, the empire of the oral methods has left traces that have not completely vanished yet.

Date of Award	16 Mar 2017
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Afonso Nunes Baptista (Supervisor)