Pedro Ponce de León
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(Detail of a monument in Madrid, Spain.)
deaf
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Biography
Ponce de Leon established a school for the deaf at the
San Salvador Monastery in Oña. His students were almost all children of wealthy aristocrats
who could afford private tutoring. His work with deaf children focused on helping them to learn how to speak language audibly. He also instructed children in writing and in simple gestures.
Ponce de Leon is not known to have developed a working
manual alphabet which would allow a student who mastered it to spell out (letter by letter) any word. This alphabet was based, in whole or in part, on the simple hand gestures used by monks living in silence.[1][2]
Ponce de Leon's work with the deaf was considered bold by contemporaries, as the prevailing opinion among most Europeans in the 16th century was that the deaf were incapable of being educated. Many laymen even believed that the deaf were too simple-minded to be eligible for salvation under Christian doctrine.[citation needed]
In Ponce, Puerto Rico, there is a school for deaf children named Colegio Fray Pedro Ponce de León. It is located in Urbanización La Rambla.[3][4]
References
- ISBN 978-0897895002.
- ISBN 978-080702204-7.
- ^ Reinaldo Millan (2014-02-05). "Profundiza diferencias el cierre de Urbanizacion Ponceña". La Rambla (in Spanish). Ponce, Puerto Rico: La Perla del Sur. p. 16. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
- ^ Reinaldo Millan (2014-02-05). "Agudiza diferencias cierre de La Rambla". La Perla del Sur (in Spanish). Ponce, Puerto Rico. p. 16. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pedro Ponce de León.
- A brief article (scroll to the bottom of the page) detailing recent research on de Leon
- The "Education of the Deaf and Dumb" article from the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), which mentions de Leon's work, among others
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