It is thought that the first deaf associations were established in France. In the 1830s, a community was founded in Paris, which arranged annual festive dinners that attracted deaf people even from outside France. Gradually, deaf associations began to emerge in the course of the 19th century. In Finland, deaf people set up associations in the late 19th century and an umbrella organisation, the Finnish Association for the Deaf, was founded in 1905.

The goal of these associations was to improve the social situation of their members, but they also served as a place where deaf people could freely communicate in sign language. In the course of its century-long history, the Finnish Association for the Deaf has developed into a strong expert and advocacy organisation. It has carried out important work for equality and strengthening the status of sign language.

The central goal of the movement was equality and it wanted deaf people to be given the same rights, responsibilities and value as everyone else. For deaf identity, sign language played a central role and the movement wanted it to be recognised by the wider society. According to the movement, deaf people should be proud of their language, and they should feel as valuable as any other member of the society.

Deaf awareness highlighted matters that had already been discussed within the community but now these matters were formulated more clearly and presented in a more emphatic manner. The movement offered a new perspective from which all areas of life could be viewed, and the Association for the Deaf considered this when it set its goals. Deaf Awareness revolutionised the way deaf people saw themselves and their community because it focused on the deaf people and their needs rather than the demands of the surrounding society.

It can also be said that the Deaf Awareness movement has its roots within the international deaf community. For decades, deaf people had understood that they had their own culture because they had succeeded in maintaining their own language throughout the reign of oralism. As the attitudes of the hearing majority gradually changed, deaf people had more opportunities for developing their language and culture and promoting equality.

The Deaf Awareness movement also wanted to make it possible for deaf people to develop their knowledge of their identity. Therefore, the central ideas of the Deaf Awareness movement were that deaf people should learn to demand equal treatment and to develop into individuals who had a positive self-image and identity.

The Deaf Awareness movement had grown more popular in the Nordic countries and the first deaf culture festival arranged in Aalborg, Denmark in 1978 marked an important milestone. At the festival, Swedish participants discussed deaf self-esteem and Lars-Åke Wikström, a deaf sign language researcher, gave a talk on the topic. Having learned about the Deaf Awareness movement in the US, he stated that a deaf-aware deaf person was not ashamed of his or her deafness but was proud of it and used sign language. Wikström discussed linguistic disability, which could also pertain to a hearing person in a situation where he or she tries to communicate in a group of deaf people who use sign language. Wikström stressed that to be able to participate in decision-making in matters related to deafness, deaf people should obtain information and education. It was also important that deaf people could convey their own personal experience of deafness because this was the only way to have influence.

The term deaf awareness was used in Finland in 1978 at the latest. Raija Nieminen, the head of the cultural centre of the Association for the Deaf, wrote about it in the Kuurojen Lehti magazine in 1979. In the article, she stated how important it was for deaf people to be able to be deaf and feel valuable as they were. Improving self-esteem was only possibly if sign language was recognised as a language and deaf people were allowed to use it as their mother tongue. Comparing the Deaf Awareness movements in the US and the Nordic countries, Nieminen noted that they differed in their focus: the American movement emphasised work with families and education whereas in the Nordic countries the focus was on influencing the entire society. In the 1970s, the Deaf Awareness movement had spread the widest in the US and the Nordic countries. In these regions, the status of sign language was better than elsewhere.

In Finland, the concept of deaf awareness was given a definition in 1979. According to this definition, deaf awareness refers to the idea that deaf people should see themselves as people with equal rights in society. They must find their own identity, and know themselves, their language and the value of the sign language culture. The goal was to promote the rights of deaf people to ensure that they enjoy full equality. The right to sign language and its approval as a teaching language in schools were at the heart of the movement. A Nordic Deaf Awareness seminar, which was arranged later, emphasised that, as advocacy groups, deaf associations had to be deaf-aware and had to define the areas where changes were needed.

Finland’s first Deaf Awareness seminar was arranged in the Malminharju training centre at the beginning of 1980. The event attracted 50 participants, many of whom were young. The seminar emphasised the equal status of deaf people in society and the significance of deaf culture in fostering self-esteem. A deaf-aware person is aware of his or her rights, responsibilities and possibilities and tries to influence matters.

In 1982, the Association for the Deaf began to arrange discussions for its employees on ways to spread deaf awareness. Materials on deaf awareness were also needed and the work to prepare them began. Training on the topic was also arranged. It was important to reach as many deaf people as possible in all age groups, as well as relatives of deaf people and people who interacted with deaf people because of their work.

The first deaf awareness course was held in 1983. The training was arranged in short courses spread over a two-year period. People who were active in associations and other suitable people were chosen to participate. They mainly represented the younger generations and went on to spread the word about deaf awareness. Later, the courses formed a complete training programme aimed at instilling a positive self-image among deaf people and giving them tools for influencing their own lives.

The courses provided information on deafness, deaf history and oralism, the development of a deaf child, language acquisition and family life. In addition, the participants learned about deaf culture, the legal position of deaf people, ethical questions and the status of sign language. Finally, the participants learned about means of promoting the goals of the Deaf Awareness movement. The Association for the Deaf adopted deaf awareness as part of its strategy and wanted to attract young people to participate in its operations and share the responsibility. Many of the people who attended the course ended up holding notable positions in the community.

At their best, the courses empowered individual deaf people and offered them an opportunity to learn about themselves. The courses also included philosophical discussions on topics that were not touched upon in schools for the deaf or at association events. The courses changed the values of many participants, making the language and community even more important to them.

In 1983, a document called Kuuron ihmiskuva (deaf self-image) was prepared and it formed the basis for the operations of the Association for the Deaf. In the document, the identity of a deaf person is described and the ways to achieve an equal status in society are discussed. The document stated that the views held by parties responsible for rehabilitation and education were not based on an understanding of deaf people or their situation, language and culture. Therefore, decisions on matters related to deaf people were made without giving them a say, and this patronising attitude prevented deaf people from becoming fully functioning members of society. For decision-makers, the document offered information on the views of deaf people concerning their situation and why they had to be involved in the development of services.

By 1984, the Deaf Awareness movement had left its mark on the discussion within the community, irrespective of whether the topic was the status of sign language, attitudes towards it or aids for deaf people. In sign language work, offering tuition in sign language, making its status official and starting research on it were set as the goals. Deaf awareness also affected the community’s cultural activities, and at the national cultural events it was clear for everyone to see how the performers’ self-confidence improved and the scripts now depicted the writers’ own experiences, in their own language.

In the 2000s, new concepts emerged alongside deaf awareness and people talked about empowerment of the community. The deaf researcher Paddy Ladd introduced a cultural concept Deafhood to complement the old Deafness concept. Deafness was linked to a lack of hearing. In contrast, deafhood means

choosing a positive, life-enriching attitude to deafness. In this ideology, sign languages are seen as a richness, similarly to global citizenship and international connections of the deaf community. Deafness is seen as a meaningful characteristic and not as a flaw. The central idea is that sign languages also enrich the hearing society and that deaf people have the right to the experience of deafness.

The Deaf Gain concept is close to Deafhood and it, too, considers deafness as a resource. The basic idea is that deafness involves large quantities of silent information and therefore only deaf people can know what it is like to be deaf. It emphasises the positive aspects of deafness and the positive impacts it brings to deaf people’s lives, such as easy communications in sign language. Deaf Gain promotes cultural and linguistic diversity and emphasises that deaf people have a lot to offer to society. As a whole, sign languages have changed our view of language and human creativity.

Whether we talk about deaf awareness, Deaf Gain or empowerment, ultimately we are talking about the same thing. Deaf people must have a right to their own culture and language.

Oralism as a concept emerged in the field of deaf education where it referred to a teaching method in which deaf pupils are taught using speech and lipreading is emphasised. Deaf people regard it as an approach that does not acknowledge the role of sign language in their lives.

The oral teaching method was formulated in the 18th century, but it was influenced by earlier texts on the topic. Oralism was based on assumptions on the nature of spoken and signed languages. It influenced deaf education and was one of the reasons behind the ban on sign language in the 19th and 20th centuries. Based on assumptions on the nature of spoken and signed language, the method was applied in a very similar manner in different parts of the world.

Starting from the mid-18th century, deaf education was shaped by two different schools of thought. The French method emphasised sign language whereas the German method focused on the use of speech. While schools were founded in Europe by the advocates of both methods, oralism became the prevalent method at the end of the 19th century, and it was used in Finland for a century. The popularity of oralism has been explained with several factors, such as industrialisation, nationalism, Darwinian linguistics and eugenics.

The era of oralism is generally thought to have ended in the late 1960s, early 1970s when sign language was gradually reinstated in schools.

The view of the church in the Middle Ages was based on Paul the Apostle’s statement, whereby faith develops through hearing, and on a misinterpretation of Saint Augustine’s words. This gave rise to the idea that deaf people were not able to express themselves. During the Renaissance, views of the connection between deafness and mutism gradually changed.

The Benedictine monk, Pedro Ponce de León, is thought to be the first teacher to teach his pupils to speak and write. In a monastery in Oña, he tutored two deaf brothers. It is believed that he was used to signing in his classes because Benedictine monks, for whom silence is an important aspect of monastic life, had developed signs and finger spelling systems for communication. It is also generally thought that Pedro Ponce de León’s pupils already used a language based on signs to communicate with one another.

After this, the main goal in deaf education was considered to be learning speech. Johann Konrad Amman, a Swiss physician and teacher, appealed to the Bible, saying that God had created people in his image and therefore people should also speak in his manner. Amman was influential particularly in Germany, where using speech in tuition became the dominant teaching method.

The first schools for the deaf were founded in Europe in the 18th century. From the perspective of teaching methods, the most important of these were the school for the deaf in Paris, founded by the Catholic theologian and lawyer Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Épée in the 1760s and the school in Leipzig, which was founded by the German organ player and teacher Samuel Heinicke.

Abbé de l’Épée used a combination of speech, lipreading and finger alphabets in his teaching. In addition, he used signs. During L’Épée’s period, the French deaf community already used French sign language but L’Épée began to develop signs that could be used to teach French grammar, for example. L’Épée’s goal was to teach his pupils to become bilingual in written French and French sign language. For L’Épée, speech was just one of the ways to communicate thoughts.

Heinicke made two inventions related to teaching of speech. One of these was the ‘language machine’, a model of the tongue and throat that could be used to demonstrate how various sounds were produced. The machine could be both looked at and touched. A similar idea was later utilised in teaching with pupils touching their own throat and their teacher’s throat to understand how sounds were formed. In his other invention, Heinicke utilised the sense of taste with different flavours representing various letters. For example, the flavour of pure water signified the letter ‘a’, sugar water represented the letter ‘o’ and olive oil was the letter ‘u’. Liquid representing a certain letter was placed on a student’s tongue with a feather. These two methos helped students become aware of spoken language. According to Heinicke, they produced excellent results.

In the early 19th century, Abbé de l’Épée’s French teaching method, which utilised sign language, seemed to be gaining the upper hand. However, thanks to the influence of Friedrich Moritz Hill, the German oral method began to gain popularity once again. Hill acted as the head of the deaf teacher seminary and in 1840 published a book on teaching deaf children.

He believed that it was important to focus on the teaching of natural everyday language to deaf children, ensuring that speech became a part of their day-to-day lives. It was important that speech could be used to express thoughts. Hill’s basic idea was that deaf children should learn spoken language the way hearing children did — through tuition given in spoken language. He agreed with Heinicke that spoken language had to be used both in tuition and during leisure. As an educator and the head of the teacher seminary, Hill held sway and his thoughts spread far, all the way to the Nordic countries.

When state-run schools for the deaf were established in Finland, decisions on deaf education were increasingly made by hearing people. As a result, oralism gained a stronger foothold. The main influence in the field was the head of the Turku school, Carl Henrik Alopaeus. At first, he was in favour of teaching speech but had reservations about using speech to teach.

Alopaeus changed his mind later. Apparently, he thought that better results could be achieved with the oral method, particularly with regard to learning to speak and write. At the time, he thought that tuition of speech should only be given to those students who had some speech and hearing left. However, later his views became stricter and in 1875 he stated that the oral method helped deaf pupils develop their knowledge of concepts and ability to express themselves. The shift to the oral method resulted in the need to have separate schools for children from Finnish- and Swedish-speaking families and deaf people could no longer work as teachers. However, the oral method would only benefit the hard of hearing and pupils who lost their hearing later in life.

Uno Cygnaeus, the father of the Finnish public school system, also influenced the teaching methods used for deaf pupils. He prepared plans for for the public school system, visiting the Weissenfels school for the deaf in Prussia where the oral method was used. Cygnaeus was taken with this method and began to think the goal in deaf education should be learning to speak.

The first school in Finland to use the oral method was the Kuopio school for the deaf. In 1874, G. K. Hendell, who had learned about the Weissenfels school and schools in Norway and Sweden, became its head teacher. Hendell was convinced of the benefits of the oral method and began to use it with his pupils.

He said the method was practical and the goal was to equip the pupils with skills required for day-to-day activities. The idea was to eliminate obstacles that deaf students faced in the hearing world and to enable them to get along with others. Hendell also believed that education enabled deaf people to be useful members of society. Therefore, deaf education should focus on everyday skills and be simple and practical by nature. This was the approach typically adopted by Finnish oralists.

Hendell regarded tuition given in sign language as complicated and strange. He did not reject sign language totally but thought that ‘natural signs’ and written language could be resorted to when the oral method was not feasible. In contrast, he did not accept the use of a manual alphabet at all. Hendell admitted studying with the oral method was extremely tedious, but he insisted that the results were worth the effort.

In 1874, Hendell published an article on deaf education, giving his reasons for favouring oralism and presenting the oral method process. Hendell had the same basic idea as Heinicke: deaf people had to be led out of the darkness and taught to speak.

Of the early oralists, only Alopaeus could sign so they were unaware of the possibilities offered by sign languages even though they admitted sign language was important to deaf people.