author
John Dutton Wright
1866–1952
A pioneering educator of deaf children, he founded the Wright Oral School in New York City and wrote practical books to help families and teachers support speech training. His work reflects an energetic belief that deaf children deserved skilled teaching, early attention, and every chance to communicate fully.
1 Audiobook
What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know
by John Dutton Wright
About the author
Born in Fredonia, New York, on July 20, 1866, he became an influential American teacher and advocate in the education of deaf children. Sources describing his life consistently note that he was a strong supporter of oral and acoustic training and that he devoted much of his career to helping deaf children develop speech and language skills.
He founded the Wright Oral School for the Deaf in New York City, a major part of the work for which he is remembered. He also developed correspondence lessons for parents of deaf children, extending his teaching beyond the classroom and into the home at a time when practical guidance was hard to find.
As an author, he wrote books including What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know and Speech Teaching to the Deaf: A Practical Handbook. Those titles capture his direct, helpful style: he wrote not just for specialists, but for the adults responsible for a child's daily growth. He died in New York City on January 19, 1952.