cochlear implants

[highlands]

Hmmm....I thought this thread was about " Cochlear Implants " but seems it's heading to a totally different direction, to the point where I'm totally lost here...


Yike!

Yep, you're right.. From CI to arguments between extremists..

 

[Cloggy]

I wouldnt call the parents stupid at all but they are just ignorant and innocent people. They believe in Medical Professionals too much. That is what it ticks me off that they are disadvantage of parent s decision. All I can say they lied and cover up the negative sides of deafness all along for years that I stood up for their d/Deaf chlldren. Thats very unthoughtful and wrongdoing. They dont know nothing about our different of deafness that is not gonna to make it successful. That's the problem, they do not get full details 100 percent on both sides.. Now I am very glad to be here to educate new parents because I care for their d/Deaf children s right to freedom.

I actually feel bad for the parents. You can tell Medical professionals and audiologist people stupid first before the parents.. Think twice before you blame on the parent only.

Oh well, it s a real shyte happens that doesnt have to be this way on purpose for them to make the decision. Now you can see why I totally disagree with the parent who have the right decision for their d/Deaf children s deafness.

Sighs! it s totally waste the money to force on d/Deaf children s untrue identity and destroy d/Deaf children s right to freedom.

"Tell the mothers I said, "Don't try to change your child; you are the adult, you bear the burden of change" - Harlan Lane ] Thats what it needs to get through parent's head.

Thanks!
Sweetmind

Sweetmind,
It's amazing how easily you can insult people that do not share your idea's. And then you wonder why people do not respect you.

I have forgotten more about CI that you ever knew. And what you know now is only what is true according to your world.
You know more about being deaf than me, but that doesn't mean I do not know anything. Unlike you, I actually get information from both sides.

Harlan Lanes quote "Tell the mothers I said, "Don't try to change your child; you are the adult, you bear the burden of change" just shows the ignorence you have towards todays standars. The quote is from a book 15 to 20 years ago. Development of CI went as fast as development of the computer. Can you remember your PC 20 years ago.... exactly... it was poor compared to todays standard.....

"Tell the mothers I said, "Help your child to get the most from life; you are the adult, you bear the burden of responsibility" - Cloggy ]

By witholding valuable information regarding CI and thereby preventing parents of deaf children to make an objective choice, you are WORSE than doctors witholding information regarding deafness. When the time comes to make their own choice, the CI child can choose for deafness. The deaf child will not be able to reach the same level as the child implanted early.

So please.... DO NOT HELP DEAF CHIULDREN.... YOU ARE DESTROYING THEIR FREEDOM OF CHOICE..

 

[Cloggy]

Oh, Sweetmind,

Congratulations on you wonderful spelling and choice of words. Your development is truly amazing...

 

[Malfoyish]

Hmmm....I thought this thread was about " Cochlear Implants " but seems it's heading to a totally different direction, to the point where I'm totally lost here...


Yike!

What some people fail to keep in mind is that cochlear implants ARE indeed a very controversial subject among the deaf/HOH communities. Far as I can see, this IS mostly about cochlear implants and what the initial post in this thread was about.

Other people, though, like to spin all sorts of wild theories out of a simple comment.

There's just SO much that surrounds one particular topic.

 

[Malfoyish]

Oh, Sweetmind,

Congratulations on you wonderful spelling and choice of words. Your development is truly amazing...

So right you are, Clogs.

 

[catzia]

sorry .. it seem every time i read somethng being posted... Sweetmind is not bashing anyone she just stated how hearing people treat deaf people also goes for deaf treat hearing people..
but hey most of time it make me so mad becauyse parents normally didnt think twice before they assemble innocent children who just born that wat or whateve rhappened to children which caused their hearing loss.. for example parents said to themselves OH NO I DONT LIKE this child being deaf okay let have him or her gettint choclear implants without giving them some chances to MAKE CHOICES on their own.. children are smart in their ways if you understand what i am saying.. i dont care if adults get their own CI it dont bother me..
its like revoked children s rights to make choices without giving them chances to know what they want...

 

[Cousin Vinny]

By witholding valuable information regarding CI and thereby preventing parents of deaf children to make an objective choice, you are WORSE than doctors witholding information regarding deafness. When the time comes to make their own choice, the CI child can choose for deafness. The deaf child will not be able to reach the same level as the child implanted early.

Would you care to bet on this? Would you assert that a Deaf child of Deaf parents, would not be able to reach the same level as the child implanted early? At worse, this is a blanket statement; There's too many factors that influence a Deaf child's language development, and the inclusion of the CI is just one of those factors, nothing more or less. There will always be CI failures and as well as ASL successes and vice versa.

I humbly disagree with your characterization that it's worse to prevent parents from knowing valuable information about the CI. I'm all for fully informed choices by parents in deciding the best course for their Deaf children, and any omission of invaluable information, be it about the CI, about ASL, CS, etc. is just as equally bad.

You do make an excellent point about the state of computer technology. Twenty years ago, computers were just making headway into homes and had crude audio/video abilities along with limited productivity software. Now, I've got an Athlon 64 eMachines whizzing along at millions of colors and can surf the Internet, get entertaining multimedia content, and much more.

The same technological curve holds true for speech processors as used by the CI industry! Nowadays, the speech processors are very much advanced and can stimulate a whole lot more sounds in a wide spectrum, and have high bandwidth, than anyone would have envisioned 20 years ago. This translates into better results for CI recipients in speech discrimination, especially in very young children.

 

[deafdyke]

Passivist, things are totally different in the UK then in the US. The US is a LOT more accepting of differing hearing levels (NOT totally accepting.....but then again, you'll always have extremists)
I know b/c one of my friends lives in the UK. My comment may not have been true in the UK, but it is true in the US. I mean in the US we have folks who are Deaf, who have perfect hearing, but who use sign b/c of things like tracheostomies and apraxia.....I even know of a kid with UNILATERAL LOSS who is attending a school for the Deaf!
Things are slowly but surely changing.......check back in ten or twenty years.

 

[Cloggy]

sorry .. it seem every time i read somethng being posted... Sweetmind is not bashing anyone she just stated how hearing people treat deaf people also goes for deaf treat hearing people..

Actually, she describes how hearing people treat her, not ALL deaf people. And why would that be? As a hearing person I could be offended by allmost everything she writes, and that has nothing to do with difference of opinion, it has to do with being able to view someone else's point of view.

but hey most of time it make me so mad becauyse parents normally didnt think twice before they assemble innocent children who just born that wat or whateve rhappened to children which caused their hearing loss..

And there you go again, as if hearing parents would not love a child because it's deaf. You have no clue!! When you write this, how can I - parent of a child born deaf - not be offended. These kind of generalisations are very typical.
Please do not say this to a parent that has a deaf child.
The decision to have your child operated upon is NOT easy and a lot of thought is being done.

What you forget is that as a parent you have the RESPONSIBILITY to give your child the best options for life. With CI she can explore the hearing world in the best possible way. If she wants to, she can decide for herself to stop using it at later age. When the parents do not give that opportunity to the child and use the "it has to decide for itself" reasoning, the child will never have the same benefit of the CI.

for example parents said to themselves OH NO I DONT LIKE this child being deaf okay let have him or her gettint choclear implants without giving them some chances to MAKE CHOICES on their own.. children are smart in their ways if you understand what i am saying.. i dont care if adults get their own CI it dont bother me..
its like revoked children s rights to make choices without giving them chances to know what they want...

My daughter was born deaf. She learned to sign (as did we) and tried HA's. They didn't work for her, so she was a candidate for CI.
Now, 1-1/2 years after the implant/activation (she's 3-1/2 now) she understands speech, say's nursery rhimes by herself, signs with staff in the kindergarden, uses speech to us, whispers to us when we whisper, asks for the CI when she wakes up.

All this is NOT abnormal for a child that grows up with CI in a hearing environment.
I do see a child in the (deaf-)kindergarden that has CI and is exposed to a lot of sign. He doesn't develop speech as quick as my daughter since he's not exposed to speech a lot. So, it's difficult to compare the two.

 

[Cloggy]

Would you care to bet on this? Would you assert that a Deaf child of Deaf parents, would not be able to reach the same level as the child implanted early? At worse, this is a blanket statement; There's too many factors that influence a Deaf child's language development, and the inclusion of the CI is just one of those factors, nothing more or less. There will always be CI failures and as well as ASL successes and vice versa.

I do because I can see it around me. As stated in the previous answer, I see it happening. Of course there are other factors, but do you believe that you can learn to speak french in USA as fast as when you are in France? NO, because in USA you can still get around with english. In France you HAVE to use french so you will learn very quick and at a very high level.
When a child with CI is in a sign-environment, it will continue to use it AT THE EXPENSE of speech, since speech is not required. Also, a child with CI in a group with children without CI will be the odd one, so it will react to this and try to fit in.

My daughter has had her CI now for 1-1/2 years and learned to use it, and get used to sounds in a deaf/hearing environment. We wanted her to have this transition so that she would still be able to communicate in sign when needed.
But now we can see that she needs more challenges in speech, so we decided that she will go 60% to a only-hearing kindergarden in august and the other 40% in the current (sign/speech) kindergarden.


I humbly disagree with your characterization that it's worse to prevent parents from knowing valuable information about the CI. I'm all for fully informed choices by parents in deciding the best course for their Deaf children, and any omission of invaluable information, be it about the CI, about ASL, CS, etc. is just as equally bad.

Remember, I am a hearing parent from a hearing background with no familiarity to deafness prior to finding out that my child was deaf. I believe that ALL information should be given, both sides. My point is that speech is leaned best at young age. Postponing the possibility to hear will have an effect on speech develoment later on. So when a child has CI based on wrong information I believe that this is easier rectified that when a child is denied hearing based on wrong information. Both cases are wrong, but the future effect is quite different.

You do make an excellent point about the state of computer technology. Twenty years ago, computers were just making headway into homes and had crude audio/video abilities along with limited productivity software. Now, I've got an Athlon 64 eMachines whizzing along at millions of colors and can surf the Internet, get entertaining multimedia content, and much more.

The same technological curve holds true for speech processors as used by the CI industry! Nowadays, the speech processors are very much advanced and can stimulate a whole lot more sounds in a wide spectrum, and have high bandwidth, than anyone would have envisioned 20 years ago. This translates into better results for CI recipients in speech discrimination, especially in very young children.

So, to sum it up below your quote:
A language is best learned when submerged in it. Being French, Chinese Sign or Speech.
I feel that you cannot just take away the childs communication, so a transition where speech and sign are used should be there but when it is used to sound and speech, a full hearing environment is the best.
Sign can still be taught, but in a separate setting. Or later in life. Learning to speak later in life is much harder.

 

[Cloggy]

Hey, Malfy... sometimes things are all good and well when all options are presented... but it does seem a bit unfair to me that in Norway deaf children will get better care if they get CI (words of a mom who has a child with CI) than if they didn't get CI at all. I don't understand why some people are biased pretty when it comes to those things.. note I didn't say ALL people. *giggle*

Interesting.... where did you hear that?
Living in Norway myself I can tell you that this is not true. Rights of deaf people are very strong.
I do feel that children with CI get more follow-up since it's important to use it to it's full potential.
It's like giving a child a new car. You will need to spend time giving it driving lessons, otherwise the car is of no use. If you didn't choose for the car, you don't need driving lessons.

I can tell you that since CI is payed for by the state, the threshhold is very low. Which - I feel - is good. Money should not be part of the equasion.
So, more and more deaf people will choose for CI.

But deaf people still have all the rights to have education (which is free for deaf people) in their language. Sign or speech.

 

[sr171soars]

So, to sum it up below your quote:
A language is best learned when submerged in it. Being French, Chinese Sign or Speech.
I feel that you cannot just take away the childs communication, so a transition where speech and sign are used should be there but when it is used to sound and speech, a full hearing environment is the best.
Sign can still be taught, but in a separate setting. Or later in life. Learning to speak later in life is much harder.

Yes, that is a good summary. I would not have done so well with my hearing/speech communication using a HA (from the very beginning) without that immersion experience. There is an optimal time to learn this and later in life is not the time. I'm not saying it can't be done but from a language development viewpoint it is worlds easier when young (the brain is built for that and needs that stimulus young). It is the same for learning languages. In general, the best multi-lingual people are those that learned two or more languages very young.

This thing I had to learn growing up it is that it is more than just hearing and spitting words back. There are cues one has to pick up along the way and the "give and take" that occurs with normal speech. There are the "common" knowledge understandings (cultural assumptions) one hears around you. This last bit was probably the biggest problem for me. When you can't hear the ambeit "talk" around you, you aren't aware of what you are missing. It took me until I was in my early 20's before I could considered myself more or less like a normal hearing person (I'm not saying 100% folks just a close approximation here...to keep a war from starting again).

Fast forward to my CI, it was just the icing on the cake for me as I had already built up in my repository a linguistic bag of tricks. I was able to quite take advantage of the CI as I had everything I needed to make it a big success. I was told when I considered a CI that I should do extremely well for those reasons. It was that and more. Without those tricks, I know it would have been a real struggle but still doable.

 

[rockdrummer]

Oh, Sweetmind,

Congratulations on you wonderful spelling and choice of words. Your development is truly amazing...

:topic: I am sorry this is way off topic but I feel compelled to respond.

Might this be an example of an audist attitude? The comment really has no value to the conversation and is a personal attack. It's obvious by sweetminds writings that she is not proficient with proper English but she is clearly passionate about her view and is still able to get her point across. I have read the writings and conversations of many deaf people over that last few months and it's crystal clear to me when I am dealing with a deafie that has been educated on proper English and when I am not. That doesn't make one smarter than the other, or better than the other. What I can tell you is sweetmind is able to write in a manner that is easier for me to understand than others and I commend her for the accomplishments that she has learned on her own. And come on. To nit pick on somebody's spelling is very petty.

And remember, she has the right to express herself just like everyone else in here does weather you agree with her or not. And yes, if you believe she has made personal attacks, there is no value in that either. But two wrongs don't make a right.

You know it's funny. This new word to me "Audist". Folks here provided me with links to definitions of this word from what I would consider to be credible sources. I also see consistency in the definitions from the various sites. After reading the definitions, Audist is simply a new word for an old definition.
Why not just call it what it is. Bigotry, Prejudice and discrimination. There are examples of this type of hatred and fear throughout society. I have absolutely no patience or tolerance for any form of prejudice in my life. Who the hell are you to think you are better than anyone because of the color of your skin, your financial status, your heritage, how well you are with proper English or what level of hearing you may or may not have. Come on people, lets get out of the dark ages here. We should all treat each other equally not matter what.

 

[Cloggy]

:topic: I am sorry this is way off topic but I feel compelled to respond.

.............

You are absolutely right seeing it from your point of view.
From my point of view, I suspect that it is someone else writing her pieces, not Sweetmind. I have seen this before, and felt a strong urge to comment.

It's bad practice to have someone else write under your username.

I have no problem with someone using bad grammar of making typing mistakes. As a foreigner I will probably do the same. It is the message that counts.
The Sweetmind I got to know would never have used the language that I commented on.

So - absolutely, grammar and style are not to be picked upon. I fully agree.

BTW.. as a hearing person.... am I an audist?
Have to look that up.

 

[Cousin Vinny]

When a child with CI is in a sign-environment, it will continue to use it [SL] AT THE EXPENSE of speech, since speech is not required. Also, a child with CI in a group with children without CI will be the odd one, so it will react to this and try to fit in.

It is obvious that we both look at the CI issue for young children from different perspectives. You look at it from a speech development standpoint, whereas I look at it as a language development standpoint. What's the point of having a Deaf CI child speaking perfectly and not really knowing what he/she is saying, like a parrot?

Hence my question about a Deaf child of Deaf parents; More likely than not, from a language development standpoint, they usually outperform their Deaf peers, even those who have undergone the CI regimen.

I guess we can agree to disagree. The CI regimen, when intended for infants, should be geared towards language development as spoken in the family home. The natural consequence is, most hearing families do not know SL, and couple that with favorable CI results for implanted infants, is that these Deaf children acquire language skills they will need later in life. This wasn't true 20 years ago, even 10 years ago. It seems to be happening right now, thanks to the ever-increasing state of the art speech processor technology.

 

[rockdrummer]

BTW.. as a hearing person.... am I an audist?
Have to look that up.

Cloggy, that all depends. Read this from Tom Humphries. He is the one that coined the term Audism so if you want an accurate description, read this.

http://72.14.203.104/u/Gallaudet?q=....PDF+audist&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8

After you read it then you can decide if you are an audist. I don't know you well enough to draw that conclusion. To date I have not seen any definition of an audist that is positive. If anyone has one, I would be interested in seeing it and would challange it aginst the description above because after all Tom is the one that invented the word so if anyone knows the description, he would.

The interesting thing is that now that I have the true definition of audism, I see examples of it on both sides of this discussion. While you may feel this is off topic, it really isn't because from what I am learning, this audist attitude slithers it's way into most deaf issues including the CI debate.

 

[rockdrummer]

I suspect that it is someone else writing her pieces, not Sweetmind. I have seen this before, and felt a strong urge to comment.

It's bad practice to have someone else write under your username.

The Sweetmind I got to know would never have used the language that I commented on.

Hmmm. This is quite interesting. You are making some potentially serious accusations here and I would hope that nothing negative would result from your assumptions. I am no lawyer but you may want to be careful unless of course you have a way of proving those statements. I am not siding with anyone here but I know if someone were to accuse me of this, I would peruse legal action tenaciously. It could easily be construed as slander and/or deformation of character which could result in legal action. Again....sorry for being off topic but I find this compelling

 

[Eve]

BTW.. as a hearing person.... am I an audist?
Have to look that up.

Well, Cloggy, according to the Book of Sweetmind, an AUDIST is anyone who personally disagrees with Sweetmind on any issue relating to deafness.

 

[rockdrummer]

Well, Cloggy, according to the Book of Sweetmind, an AUDIST is anyone who personally disagrees with Sweetmind on any issue relating to deafness.

Tangent continues. Why is everyone bashing this sweetmind person? This is not the topic of discusson.

This Audism seems to be an issue so I decided to put up my first thread on the topic. please see it at http://www.alldeaf.com/showthread.php?t=26284

To get back to the CI discussion, I was wondering if anyone out there lost their hearing due to menengitis and has a CI. I would imagine the ossification that occurs would cause the CI to be less successful in those patients. Does anyone have experience in this area?

Thanks

 

[Roadrunner]

Mod Note:

Bearing in mind with the following quote:

Tangent continues. Why is everyone bashing this sweetmind person? This is not the topic of discusson

No one should be rambling on about any certain characteristic traits among members here in AD, such as it may be with their grammar, language...such tactics are not seen as being inconsiderate, but also is construed to be a form of belittling, insulting/bashing, etc., and needs to end now. Also, the mockery needs to stop as well.

Let's try to act like civilized consenting adults with the understanding that there are a few people who cannot write proficiently, although they also equally do have the rights to fully express their viewpoints, ideas here in AD as long as it stays within the guidelines/rules outlined herein for AD...bottom line, once again, the 'key' is respect, if that can't be done, either find some other site that will cater to those who adores belittling, insults, the lack of upholding respect, etc., or simply refrain from submitting such a post here in AD. Yet as hard as it may be to do sometimes, to 'agree to disagree' is a proper and appropriate manner to uphold (hence, common courtesy must be prevalent), which it can at least keep such negative attitudes and bashing in check. Otherwise, expect 'warnings', a temporary ban or even a permanent ban if it warrants it. Each one of us have the right to express an opinion, but doing so without pushing anyone else's buttons or starting some sort of bashing or making a mockery out of any member here in AD.

If anyone has a complaint or problems, please contact any one of the moderators here in AD (on the main page, scroll down and click on 'Forum Leaders' and you'll see the list of moderators) via PM....Thank you!

Now please stick to the topic for which this thread is concerned with--


~RR