Pedro Ponce de León

Dom Pedro Ponce de Leon, O.S.B., (1520, Sahagún – 29 August 1584, Oña) was a Spanish Benedictine monk who is often credited as being "the first teacher for the deaf".

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 a language audibly. He also instructed children in writing and in simple gestures. His teaching was informed by his being a monk he claimed to be able to teach the Christian doctrine orally to his deaf students and that they confessed their sins orally too.

Ponce de Leon is not known to have developed a working sign language, but there is some indication from the writings of Juan Pablo Bonet — who never credited him for his method — that Ponce de Leon developed a double-handed 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, and is said to have been formalised by Saint Bonaventure.