Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard

Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard (September 20, 1742 to May 10, 1822) was a French Catholic priest and educator who specialized in the instruction of deaf students. Born in Le Fousseret in the former province of Languedoc, he was ordained a priest and in 1786 became principal of a school for deaf students in Bordeaux. In 1789, following the death of the Abbe de l'Epee, Sicard took over leadership of the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris, the Paris school for the deaf that l'Epee had founded, and led it through the political upheaval of the 1790s. He wrote several treatises on deaf education, including Cours d'instruction d'un sourd-muet de naissance in 1800 and Traite des signes pour l'instruction des sourds-muets in 1808, and he met and corresponded with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, inviting him to visit the Paris school, a visit that helped bring sign-language education to the United States. Sicard was elected to the Academie francaise in 1803 and died in Paris on May 10, 1822.