A Deaf's View Regarding CI

It may be more realistic for hearing parents to tell their deaf kids they're lucky they can "hear" but it's not a healthy message.
 
DeafCaroline said:
It was founded by a missionary.
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I didn't like the idea of missonaries, until I discovered their bilingual deaf schools in the third world. The work they have done many places is amazing..

Good luck with your cambodia plans!
 
kokonut said:
You can throw away or put away your CI or HA. Nothing wrong with that.

Keep in mind, 90 percent of all deaf/hh kids are from hearing parents and because of the hearing culture, can you imagine all those parents telling their deaf/hh kids that they are lucky to have a hearing loss? Or it'd be more realistic for them to say that they are lucky that they can hear (from mild to profound, take your pick with hearing technology today).

I don't see it as "unhealthy" to say that they are lucky to be this or that. That depends on what they're talking about. Are you still talking about hearing?
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Good to know. As a kid, not much beat flushing HA's down the toilet :)

Saying to a kid "you lucky bastard, you can hear some" is just so weird, but I'm sure some families are into stuff like that. In families with hearing and deaf people, it's not uncommon to find deaf people who are more successful than the hearing or hard of hearing members. You would only depress the hearing abled kids if you told them they are lucky they can hear.

But, I still don't get your point with this. What are you trying to prove here?
 
flip said:
From what I've seen, some deaf people in the third world are really bad treated, and behaves like animals. Sometimes, people are too poor or misinformed to include disabled people. Oralism is still also very widespread in third world schools, and the overal iliteracy among hearing people influences the deaf population, too.

But, yeah, the lack of choices and also welfare, makes deaf people more indepedent. The most impressive deaf personalitites I've met have been in third world countries, some of them self made people running their own business, more wealthy than their neighbours. Don't see much of that in the west.
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Yeah, I guess it depends where you are talking about and if those Deaf children were sent to a Deaf school or not. The one I visited in Jamaica was beautiful and they were very rich with culture and language. The kids were really "with it" and all of them were signing and up to par with their hearing peers. It was really neat to see.

Thanks for the point. :)
 
missywinks said:
Yeah, I guess it depends where you are talking about and if those Deaf children were sent to a Deaf school or not. The one I visited in Jamaica was beautiful and they were very rich with culture and language. The kids were really "with it" and all of them were signing and up to par with their hearing peers. It was really neat to see.

Thanks for the point. :)
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I heard about that school! I really want to go there and check it out :)
 
DeafCaroline said:
I had no deaf friends at all growing up. My mother was told to keep me away from the deaf community so I would learn only speech because if I also learned ASL and had deaf friends, I wouldn't try as hard to speak well to fit in at the "normal" school.
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Moderation probably would have been the key there. Meeting other oral / mainstreamed children like yourself could have also helped.
 
Hohtopics said:
Moderation probably would have been the key there. Meeting other oral / mainstreamed children like yourself could have also helped.
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I did meet them but they were raised like me - so we never really socialized and became friends. I would go to these annual events like the Xmas party for parents of Oral Deaf kids which is where I would meet them and it was weird - none of us kids really mingled that much. I even remember how kids who had moderate or severe hearing loss and thus were able to hear better with hearing aids giving looks of disgust to profoundly Oral deaf when they were speaking because they didn't speak as well and would shun them or mock them.

It was too ingrained in our psyche to avoid people like ourselves. All the emphasis was on being with hearing people, hearing schools, etc.
 
That although "whether or not I had been implanted as a little child" hasn't really crossed my mind. However, there were times I did wonder "what if I had gone straight from the body aids to having a CI in at least one ear" when I was a teenager. Cause the BTE's weren't as good back then as they are now.

Young deaf adults or teenagers now have the option to hear better if they desire or wish. I didn't have that luxury back then.
 
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DeafCaroline said:
Well, to be fair, so far it appears many people like their CIs even though I'm seeing a lot of references to headaches and migraines.
Then there are some parents who are talking about how much their young kids hated the CIs and refused to wear them (maybe because of headaches/pain/not liking how the sound vibrated in their heads) and how they get so upset with their kids which made me wanna comment "well, maybe you should take that as a hint to stop forcing it".
I am more interested in their psychological well being years later than whether or not they like their CIs or the problems they had with their CIs...that's what I am trying to find out.
I was the poster child in Canada for the Oral Deaf back in the 70s and early 80s. I was on tv shows, magazines, the news, newspapers. I was considered a huge success. I spoke very well, lipread very well and did very well in school.
And because everyone made such a big deal out of how well I was doing, I didn't have the courage to tell them that I was utterly miserable.
So, GrendelQ, we're going to likely run across each other again here on AD - I am anti-Cis in babies and young kids. That's my personal view so you will probably find some posts of mine in the future that will clash with your views but keep in mind that I do acknowledge you are a mother who wants the best for her child so I do respect you for that and I'm glad you're giving your child both worlds.
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Wow...you and I need to meet! I was the poster child for oral sucess especially with having a profound bilateral loss of 110 dB. Like you, I never showed how unhappy I was because there were so much expectations put on me so I didnt want to disappoint anyone.
 
flip said:
Good to know. As a kid, not much beat flushing HA's down the toilet :)

Saying to a kid "you lucky bastard, you can hear some" is just so weird, but I'm sure some families are into stuff like that. In families with hearing and deaf people, it's not uncommon to find deaf people who are more successful than the hearing or hard of hearing members. You would only depress the hearing abled kids if you told them they are lucky they can hear.

But, I still don't get your point with this. What are you trying to prove here?
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Nothing to prove. Just saying it'd be realistic to expect hearing parents say something along the line to their children with useable hearing left that they're lucky to be able to hear vs saying they're lucky to be deaf.
 
I don't consider myself unlucky to be deaf.

Wouldn't take any offense if my parents told me I was lucky to be deaf.

After all, you can't miss what you never had.

When my SO was describing to me yesterday how he could actually pick out which tree in my backyard was making the most noise (because it was very windy) with the leaves -- it turned out to be the birch because the leaves are closer together -- I was amazed at how he could do that, but not one bit jealous that *I* couldn't do that.
 
she decides whether or not to wear her CIs on any given day, at any point in time. She spent the first 2 hours of the day today without CIs, and then at one point reached over and placed a CI on her head, choosing to switch from ASL to English and back again, repeatedly, and in the middle of a conversation, likely just because she could.

We made a decision early on so she has choices to decide between now and in the future. We have not limited her or closed doors in any way by making this decision.
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And that is AWESOME!!!!!!! She can function FULLY both with and without CIs. You can't say that for kids raised auditory verbally. Which brings me to my next point.
Meeting other oral / mainstreamed children like yourself could have also helped.

I did meet them but they were raised like me - so we never really socialized and became friends. I would go to these annual events like the Xmas party for parents of Oral Deaf kids which is where I would meet them and it was weird - none of us kids really mingled that much. I even remember how kids who had moderate or severe hearing loss and thus were able to hear better with hearing aids giving looks of disgust to profoundly Oral deaf when they were speaking because they didn't speak as well and would shun them or mock them.

It was too ingrained in our psyche to avoid people like ourselves. All the emphasis was on being with hearing people, hearing schools, etc.
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Agreed DeafCaroline!!!!!!!! Unfortunatly with oral only it seems like the unspoken attitude is The Best Thing In the World is to Assimulate into the Hearing World. Hearing and hearing schools and speech therapy is the BEST THING in the world! :roll: Which tends to produce a lot of major psychological problems....which people like Geers and Moog and Flexor tend to downplay.
 
deafdyke said:
ASL is going to be the Deaf Ed's Braille. Braille is highly identified with Blind Ed. Guess what? Using it is controversial. My friend Kevin went to Perkins (which really really really sucks....damn, if you think that the Deaf School system is bad...you need to look at Blind Ed. There's only one good blind school. A lot of states have closed their blind schools, enrollement is really dwindling etc) and he didn't even get to become fluent in Braille. Back when he was at Perkins, they were pushing books on tape. Back in the 60's 50% of blind kids learned Braille. Now it's only 10%. The kicker....unemployment in the blind community is sky high.....but of those who are Braille literate, they have a very high rate of employment!!!!! Makes you think!
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shocking but not surprising

1) schools for the blind pushing books on tape. The number 1 thing to remeber policies are often worded so the cheapest inventions are employed.with no thought to the student past 21. And sadly as adults workbridge(voc rehab in nz) dont fund training so we end up with equipment that would work great but we dont no how use it.

2) here you can be sitting with a self funded perkins brailler letters from CAPD specialists saying written transcripts,letters from the Irens diagnosis guy saying magnification and filters dont work the invention is red paper size 24 font black ink(the guy doesnt believe in non visual skills for accessing the world or learning) and the adult needs assister has written the report saying another magnification assessment and a talking book machine is needed

3)There is a reason why with family loans(which I am I paying over the next year) I funded all my braille equipment(top braille,brailler,early braille coursethe course is free) and in about 6 monthscomputer because I want a job
 
DeafCaroline said:
I did meet them but they were raised like me - so we never really socialized and became friends. I would go to these annual events like the Xmas party for parents of Oral Deaf kids which is where I would meet them and it was weird - none of us kids really mingled that much. I even remember how kids who had moderate or severe hearing loss and thus were able to hear better with hearing aids giving looks of disgust to profoundly Oral deaf when they were speaking because they didn't speak as well and would shun them or mock them.

It was too ingrained in our psyche to avoid people like ourselves. All the emphasis was on being with hearing people, hearing schools, etc.
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Correct....that was how it was with me and the few other oral deaf people that were in my life. Only one, I was really close to but the others, we couldnt connect because we were always misunderstanding each other.

When I learned ASL and became fluent in it, I felt more connected with the signing community. To this day, I still encounter deaf people who are oral only, like Jiro and TheWriteAlex but they are like me...want to learn ASL and be involved with the Deaf community. I can connect with them very well. It is the oral only deaf people who say they refuse to learn ASL and dont want to be a part of the Deaf community that I dont feel the connection with. It is because ASL and the Deaf community are very very important to me.
 
AlleyCat said:
I don't consider myself unlucky to be deaf.

Wouldn't take any offense if my parents told me I was lucky to be deaf.

After all, you can't miss what you never had.

When my SO was describing to me yesterday how he could actually pick out which tree in my backyard was making the most noise (because it was very windy) with the leaves -- it turned out to be the birch because the leaves are closer together -- I was amazed at how he could do that, but not one bit jealous that *I* couldn't do that.
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Yea, it is funny...I grew up being so jealous of my hearing friends for being able to hear but now, the jealousy radar is dead.
 
I noticed that some that are being kind of loud on that it's so good to be Deaf and all that are actually married to their hearing husbands. Just saying.

Sure, they're entitled to be married to whomever they wish, of course. But it's like "they want to have their cake and eat it too".
 
Oh my goodness. I can love a person regardless of their hearing status.
 
Furthermore, the majority of us who are deaf have hearing parents, siblings, children, and countless other loved ones. Hohtopics, would you prefer we "divorce" all our loved ones because they're not deaf? Communication is the key to any type of relationship.
 
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