Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard

Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard was a French abbé and a pioneer in the teaching of the deaf. He was born in Le Fousseret, near Toulouse, in 1742 and educated as a priest. He became interested in deaf education after meeting a deaf man who could not communicate with others. He studied the methods of Abbé de l'Epée, who had founded a school for the deaf in Paris, and became his successor in 1789. Sicard developed his own system of sign language, which he taught to his students along with writing and reading. He also wrote several books on deaf education, such as Elements of General Grammar (1799), Course of Instruction for a Deaf-Mute from Birth (1800), and Treatise on Signs for the Instruction of Deaf-Mutes (1808). Sicard was a member of the Institute of France and the Académie Française. He traveled to England and met Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who later founded the first school for the deaf in America. Sicard died in Paris in 1822 and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery. He is remembered as one of the most influential figures in the history of deaf education.