Klaus Schulte

Klaus Schulte (born January 26, 1930 in Bochum ; † July 4, 2016 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German linguist and representative of German deaf education .

Life

Klaus Schulte spent his childhood in Bochum and graduated from high school in Soest / Westf. In 1950. He then studied at the Pedagogical Academy in Oberhausen until 1952 and took his first teacher examination. From 1952 to 1954 Schulte was a teacher at the school for the hearing impaired and speech healing school in Essen, from 1954 he worked as an assistant teacher for the deaf and dumb at the school for the deaf in Wuppertal. In addition to his job, he continued to study at the curative education seminar of the Pedagogical Academy in Essen-Kupferdreh. 1954 took place his second teacher examination; Auxiliary school teacher examination, hearing impaired teacher examination, speech therapy teacher examination.

From 1955 to 1957 Klaus Schulte studied at the University of Bonn , followed by the qualification as deaf-mute senior teacher at the deaf school in Euskirchen. Then Schulte worked as a senior teacher for the deaf and dumb at the Cologne School for the Deaf and as a speech therapist at the Rhenish State Language Center in Bad Oeynhausen. From 1958 to 1964 Klaus Schulte worked as a teacher for the deaf and dumb at the Essen School for the Deaf (secondary school, vocational school for the deaf). From here he built up early support for hearing-impaired toddlers in the western Ruhr area and the Lower Rhine region.

From 1959 Klaus Schulte completed an extra-occupational doctorate at the University of Bonn. 1962 PhD with Leo Weisgerber in the subjects of linguistics , phonetics and audiology . From the winter semester 1964/1965 he was a lecturer at the “Institute for Hearing, Speech and Visually Impaired Pedagogy in Connection with the University of Heidelberg” and from 1966 until his retirement in 1995 C4 professor for “General and Applied Linguistics, including Phonetics and Language Education” in the department VI Special Education at the Heidelberg University of Education .

In 1965, Klaus Schulte founded the “Research Center for Applied Linguistics for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled Heidelberg” (FST) in order to facilitate interpersonal communication for severely physically handicapped deaf-blind thalidomide children. Together with the Siemens company , he developed devices (phonators) that convert the sound waves of speech into tangible vibrations. Klaus Schulte (together with Christa Schlenker-Schulte) also achieved recognition with 142 speaking teaching videos and the phoneme-specific manual system .

In 1997 Klaus Schulte moved to Halle (Saale) , where his wife Christa Schlenker-Schulte took over the professorship for education for the speech-impaired . The "FST" moved to Halle and has been working since 1998 under the direction of Christa Schlenker-Schulte as an affiliated institute "Research center for the rehabilitation of people with communicative disabilities at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg".

Klaus Schulte has published 150 articles in specialist journals and monographs. In the series “Scientific contributions from research, teaching and practice for the rehabilitation of people with disabilities” published by him (from 2000 together with Christa Schlenker-Schulte) at Neckar-Verlag, 50 books have been published.

From 1966 to 2003 he was a member of the board of trustees of Aktion Mensch (formerly Aktion Sorgekind).

Research and Development

Through the Research Center (FST) founded in 1965, Klaus Schulte carried out 30 research projects lasting several years; the third-party funding came from various federal ministries, the German Research Foundation and various foundations. Overcoming communication barriers and the aim of enabling everyone to participate on an equal basis was central to all research projects. In the beginning, the thalidomide children with severe and multiple disabilities were the focus of research interest. Later on, the focus was on speech / language initiation for children with hearing and speech disabilities. Since the 1990s, hearing impaired people have increasingly been the focus of research projects in the context of vocational training and work.

Phonators

The initial spark for the FST was the Thalidomide scandal , as a result of which many severely multi-handicapped dysmelia children were born. In the first project, the FST was commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Youth, Family and Health (BMJFG) to develop methods and devices that should enable communication even for deaf-blind children without arms or legs. Together with Siemens , Klaus Schulte's FST team developed the so-called Fonatoren. The phonators made the spoken language tangible by converting the sound waves of the spoken word into language-specific vibrations. Since deaf children could feel the spoken language with the phonators, the phonators were mainly used as "hearing-speaking trainers" for the initiation of spoken language. By the mid-1980s, the following came on the market: Mono-Fonator, Poly-Fonator, stereo individual trainer, Fonator-speaking trainer, Fonator-speaking trainer and mini-Fonator. The mini phonator could be worn on the wrist like a wristwatch. The history of the development of the phonators ended with him. Fonatoren are still listed in aid and aid regulations of the federal and state governments.

Acoustics - Phonetics - Speaking

At the Institute for Scientific Film , 142 speech and teaching films were published in which speech therapy was conveyed in a clear and practical way. B. on sigmatism, on the articulation of the hearing impaired or on Stammler therapy. Especially for deaf children, Klaus Schulte and his staff developed the phoneme-specific manual system (PMS) . In the PMS, each sound is represented by a specific hand movement. The hand movements visualize the place of articulation as well as the lip, jaw and tongue position when a sound is formed. The hand movements of the PMS are based on detailed acoustic-phonetic analyzes.

Participation in working life

From the end of the 1980s, Klaus Schulte implemented projects at FST on participation in working life. In 1991, research began on the (re-) formulation of vocational exams in plain language for apprentices with hearing impairments. The text-optimized (TOP) exams were developed together with RWB Essen , the IHK Essen and the Düsseldorf Chamber of Crafts. Nowadays they are often used to compensate for disadvantages, including for hearing and speech impaired test subjects.

With the Virtual Technical Schools at RWB Essen - also together with RWB Essen - the first opportunity in Germany for higher professional qualifications was developed that takes the needs of hearing impaired people into account.

After his retirement, Klaus Schulte supported the FST research projects (headed by Christa Schlenker-Schulte since 1998) in an advisory capacity.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Research center for the rehabilitation of people with communicative disabilities at the Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg (affiliated institute), accessed on April 27, 2015.
2. ↑ Selection of FST projects , accessed on April 27, 2015.
3. ↑ Fonator project FON , accessed April 20, 2015.
4. ↑ Information sheet on the eligibility of medically prescribed aids, devices for self-treatment and self-control as well as body replacements including accessories according to Appendix 4 to Section 21 of the Thuringian State Aid Ordinance, accessed on April 27, 2015.
5. ↑ Attachment 4 Bavarian State Aid Regulations, PDF, 35kb ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 27, 2015. 
6. ↑ Overview of the speaking and teaching films , accessed on April 28, 2015.
7. ↑ Klaus Schulte: Phoneme-specific manual system (PMS). Research results and consequences for the articulation of hearing impaired children. WB XII. Neckar-Verlag, Villingen 1974.
8. ↑ Text-optimized exams , accessed on April 22, 2015.
9. ↑ Virtual Technical Schools at RWB Essen , accessed on April 28, 2015.