Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bébian

Who was Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bébian?

Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bébian was one of the first hearing educators in France to achieve native-level fluency in French Sign Language. He wrote an important book titled "Mimographie," which was published in 1825, which utilized a method of writing signs.

From the Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe, his father sent him to live in France to obtain a high-school education under the auspices of his godfather, the Abbé Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard, who was the successor of the Abbé de l'Épée as the director of the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets de Paris. The Abbé Sicard sent him to live with the Abbé Jauffret. He completed high school at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris where he was regarded as a brilliant student, after which he dedicated himself to studying Deaf education.

He followed the advice of Abbé Sicard and began working with three Deaf teachers: Jean Massieu, Ferdinand Berthier and Laurent Clerc, at the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets de Paris, and wrote a book titled "Essai sur les sourds-muets et sur le langage naturel," which was published in 1817, that dealt with the educational philosophy and methods of the school, as well as the nature of French Sign Language.