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How Did Abbe De L Epee Contribute To The Spread Of Sign Language?

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Abbe de l’Epee was an immense contributor to the spread of sign language. By the year of 1771, l’Epee had founded the first free educational institution for deaf individuals in France. After starting the Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris (The Royal Institution of Deaf Mutes), l’Epee started reshaping the Old French Sign Language. l’Epee transformed it into a system of communicating in specific words, like a spoken language. In the 1880’s there were only a few thousand individuals in the United States who were deaf. American Sign Language (ASL) was not recognized as a language until 1814 when deaf education was recognized in the United States. L´Epee´s work would later go on to influence Gallaudet.

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was born was born on December 10th, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Soon after his birth his family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where Gallaudet attended school in Hartford. Gallaudet had health problems that he suffered from since a young age, mainly involving his lungs. Gallaudet enrolled at Yale University at the age of 14. Gallaudet earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1805, at the top of his class. In 1810 Gallaudet received his Master’s degree, he was an over achiever in all of his classes and was revered by …show more content…

Soon after Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc arrived back in America they used their newly raised funds to open a new school in Hartford, Connecticut to help educate deaf children. The school was founded on April 15, 1817. This school was named American Asylum for Deaf-Mutes and has changed through the years and is now called The American School for the Deaf. For the first 14 years the school’s Principal was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. There were only seven students that first enrolled in the school, one of the seven deaf students was Alice Cogswell. After Gallaudet's 14 years of authority, he resigned and started writing children's

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