Deaf children and hearing parents...why don't the parents learn sl?

[loml]

i was not made aware that his daughter knew 3 languages, please don't accuse me of being insensitive when it is really just a lack of knowledge. I don't have time to read up on everyone's blogs before I post a response.

Holly - It comes down to asking questions. There is never a wrong question.
One should never assume.

 

[Holly]

originally posted by loml






jillio - Not your definition of bi-bi. The users of CS are not looking for an excuse. Cuers are seeking literacy, language and inclusion for their deaf/hoh children through the language that they can accurately model. The Deaf community could provide for these same families an accurate and fluent role model of ASL.

Few hearing people, interpreters included, sign as fluently as native ASL users. I have "heard" on many an occasion, "they he/she signs like a hearing person."

Parents are the best role models for their children for their familial language and their familial customs/culture. A child should be provided every opportunity to engage with its own nuclear family. Not providing the child the tools to be proficient in their familial language, and insisting that they use a foreign language, singles them out, identifying them as "different". What child does not want/need to be an integral part of their family first and foremost?

I just can't imagine going through life not having at least one form of solid fool proof communication with my family. So much conversation and information is missed by the deaf person who is oral. At least sign language could be used as a sort of universal language between family members. If there is an emergency, or we dont have time to repeat ourselves, we'll use maybe even a mixture of sign and oral so all bases are covered and no one is left out or missing some vital information.

 

[loml]

I just can't imagine going through life not having at least one form of solid fool proof communication with my family. So much conversation and information is missed by the deaf person who is oral. At least sign language could be used as a sort of universal language between family members. If there is an emergency, or we dont have time to repeat ourselves, we'll use maybe even a mixture of sign and oral so all bases are covered and no one is left out or missing some vital information.

Holly - Are you familiar with Cued Speech?

 

[deafbajagal]

I don't know if he was anti-oral or not...but he does sound like a moron if he said she would never learn to hear or speak... "experts" should not predict a child's future abilities without letting her try first. The only one who should have a crystal ball is the fortune teller.

I'm glad you feel confident in your decision as a parent...that's important. I'm glad you and your wife have the education, resources, and the means to be able to do your research and make the decisions on what is best for your child and your family. I sincerely respect you for doing just that - making choices based on full research and what is best for your child.

My statement is a personal one based on my personal experiences as a child who was born profoundly deaf, grew up using the auditory-oral approach, and finally ended up learning sign language. I do not blame my parents, though I did for a long time. They did everything they knew to do, including flying out of the country just to meet with specialists.

Really and truly, I don't care about blame. The past is past. I'm thankful I'm able to find the place I am now.

 

[deafbajagal]

ooops...the above post is replying to Rick's post earlier...I forgot to quote it.

 

[Holly]

Holly - Are you familiar with Cued Speech?

yes I am. While I don't know a ton about it, I know it can be used in conjuntion with many other communication methods (including signed). I know it also helps with literacy.
Sorry, it may have appeared that I was disagreeing with your post, but actually I was just posting my own response.

 

[loml]

I just can't imagine going through life not having at least one form of solid fool proof communication with my family.

Holly - Do you seriously think that sign language in a hearing family, is fool proof?

So much conversation and information is missed by the deaf person who is oral.
Holly -I do not doubt that this has been the experience for some strictly oral children, in hearing families, but certainly not all. Each family deserves respect for the agonizing decisions that they have to make in the name of their family, in meeting the needs of their family. .

At least sign language could be used as a sort of universal language between family members.

Holly - The universal language for each family is whatever language is their familial language.

If there is an emergency, or we dont have time to repeat ourselves, we'll use maybe even a mixture of sign and oral so all bases are covered and no one is left out or missing some vital information.

Holly - In an emergency, you may have time for nothing.

 

[Bebonang]

All the threads that you were talking about why don't the parents learn sign language to communicate with deaf/Deaf/HOH children. You, hearies, sound like coming out of the T.V. series "Star Trek/The Next Generation" where there is a Bork when they want to wipe them out so they can be like them. Well, like the series, hearing parents want to abolish and destroy our ASL as it is fertile and not worthy for us to communicate with ASL, whether we have hearing aid or CI. We are struggling to understand with lipreading, hear and talk like the hearing people. I am very sick of Audists doing that to us especially with AGBell. We are arguing with no avail trying to make them understand with our experience as deaf people. They think they have the experience to help us hear when we are having trouble struggle understanding within the classroom environment without interpreter, notetaking, and ASL. As for cued speech, it just make it all the more worse trying to talk with our voice not clear and almost not understandable to hearing people. So why we fight so much to struggle for the sake of hearing people, to please them. That is why it is not fair for hearing parents not being able to learn ASL to communicate with them and it is more easier to understand that lipreading and talking. So hearies, get a life and start communicate with your children in ASL, please.

 

[Holly]

Holly - Do you seriously think that sign language in a hearing family, is fool proof?
_____
Isn't it better than watching someone's mouth move and never being sure if you caught everything they said?
_____
Holly -I do not doubt that this has been the experience for some strictly oral children, in hearing families, but certainly not all. Each family deserves respect for the agonizing decisions that they have to make in the name of their family, in meeting the needs of their family. .
_____
I never said families didn't deserve respect did I? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, including you and I.
_____
Holly - The universal language for each family is whatever language is their familial language.
_____
yes...and when you have a child whose language skills need to be adapted, the new language skills should become the family language, at least in the home. Of course it will not be easy, and you may have siblings that don't want to learn these new skills, but there are good ways of introducing it that make it fun so it doesn't appear to be a chore.
Let me put it this way, if you adopted a child from another country who only spoke that foreign language when they first came to your home (in other words, they had no real "usable" language skills in the family) wouldn't it be in your best interest to learn some of their language so communication is still possible while they are learning yours?
I understand that it is a little different with a child who was born deaf, as ideally the training would've started as soon as the parent found out. Since sign language is the natural language of the deaf (most deaf people will tell you that) why isn't it a good idea to reach a happy medium and meet eachother in the middle by incorporating sign with oral training? Why is incorporation of sign such a big no no? Because it makes it harder for the parent because they have to learn something new? Children have a world of new things to learn from the senses they have, why force them to rely completely on learning from a sense that has been diminished?
When you have a child it isn't about what's easiest for you anymore. I understand that many parents are told that oral is the best way and choose that because it seemed the only option. But if you look at it from a childs perspective...its a big scary world out there, they are going to have a tough life anyway (hearing or not), as parents our goal should be to make sure our child can use all of their skills to understand their world.
_____
Holly - In an emergency, you may have time for nothing.
_____
Right, in that case no one would've talked and the lack of communication would be equal. At least then the deaf person wouldn't be any less understanding of the situation than others were.

But if I could also point out the obvious...in many emergencies you do have time to talk...

 

[Holly]

All the threads that you were talking about why don't the parents learn sign language to communicate with deaf/Deaf/HOH children. You, hearies, sound like coming out of the T.V. series "Star Trek/The Next Generation" where there is a Bork when they want to wipe them out so they can be like them. Well, like the series, hearing parents want to abolish and destroy our ASL as it is fertile and not worthy for us to communicate with ASL, whether we have hearing aid or CI. We are struggling to understand with lipreading, hear and talk like the hearing people. I am very sick of Audists doing that to us especially with AGBell. We are arguing with no avail trying to make them understand with our experience as deaf people. They think they have the experience to help us hear when we are having trouble struggle understanding within the classroom environment without interpreter, notetaking, and ASL. As for cued speech, it just make it all the more worse trying to talk with our voice not clear and almost not understandable to hearing people. So why we fight so much to struggle for the sake of hearing people, to please them. That is why it is not fair for hearing parents not being able to learn ASL to communicate with them and it is more easier to understand that lipreading and talking. So hearies, get a life and start communicate with your children in ASL, please.

parents of deaf children need to read this and realize that deaf people are the best source of information on how to raise your deaf children.

 

[flip]

All the threads that you were talking about why don't the parents learn sign language to communicate with deaf/Deaf/HOH children. You, hearies, sound like coming out of the T.V. series "Star Trek/The Next Generation" where there is a Bork when they want to wipe them out so they can be like them. Well, like the series, hearing parents want to abolish and destroy our ASL as it is fertile and not worthy for us to communicate with ASL, whether we have hearing aid or CI. We are struggling to understand with lipreading, hear and talk like the hearing people. I am very sick of Audists doing that to us especially with AGBell. We are arguing with no avail trying to make them understand with our experience as deaf people. They think they have the experience to help us hear when we are having trouble struggle understanding within the classroom environment without interpreter, notetaking, and ASL. As for cued speech, it just make it all the more worse trying to talk with our voice not clear and almost not understandable to hearing people. So why we fight so much to struggle for the sake of hearing people, to please them. That is why it is not fair for hearing parents not being able to learn ASL to communicate with them and it is more easier to understand that lipreading and talking. So hearies, get a life and start communicate with your children in ASL, please.

The bests posts are those coming straight from the heart, good post!

Audists are so sick, they are the ugliest people on this earth.:thumbd:

 

[shel90]

I don't know if he was anti-oral or not...but he does sound like a moron if he said she would never learn to hear or speak... "experts" should not predict a child's future abilities without letting her try first. The only one who should have a crystal ball is the fortune teller.

I'm glad you feel confident in your decision as a parent...that's important. I'm glad you and your wife have the education, resources, and the means to be able to do your research and make the decisions on what is best for your child and your family. I sincerely respect you for doing just that - making choices based on full research and what is best for your child.

My statement is a personal one based on my personal experiences as a child who was born profoundly deaf, grew up using the auditory-oral approach, and finally ended up learning sign language. I do not blame my parents, though I did for a long time. They did everything they knew to do, including flying out of the country just to meet with specialists.

Really and truly, I don't care about blame. The past is past. I'm thankful I'm able to find the place I am now.

I am glad you are happy where you are at. I still have to interpret for my brother at family gatherings and I dont like it at all. I am tired of seeing my family just say "hi and how are u" to my brother but never go any further.

Also, I still miss out on a lot at family gatherings too..all I just ask from them is to realize my brother and I are missing out on a lot and please to take the time to fill us in instead of leaving us completely out of the conversations. I am usually the one who has to push myself into the conversations and demand everyone to repeat what everyone is saying. It gets tiresome.

That's why I feel much more at home with my signing friends.

 

[shel90]

originally posted by loml






jillio - Not your definition of bi-bi. The users of CS are not looking for an excuse. Cuers are seeking literacy, language and inclusion for their deaf/hoh children through the language that they can accurately model. The Deaf community could provide for these same families an accurate and fluent role model of ASL.

Few hearing people, interpreters included, sign as fluently as native ASL users. I have "heard" on many an occasion, "they he/she signs like a hearing person."

Parents are the best role models for their children for their familial language and their familial customs/culture. A child should be provided every opportunity to engage with its own nuclear family. Not providing the child the tools to be proficient in their familial language, and insisting that they use a foreign language, singles them out, identifying them as "different". What child does not want/need to be an integral part of their family first and foremost?

Parents are the best role models? Sometimes not always.

 

[jillio]

I have posted so many times how my brother was first placed in an oral only program for 5 years but couldnt develop adequate readiness skills to survive kindergarden at my school. How my brother couldnt communicate with anyone at all at the school. It was the school that recommended my brother to go to the deaf school cuz in their words, he was an "oral failure".Yes, I blame the oralists. If they had told my parents the importance of ASL, I am sure things would be a lot different. My mom told me over and over again that she was pressured by them not to expose me to sign language cuz I was doing so well with the oral only approach and that if I learn it, I would stop speaking. Signing is still speaking anyway. Did u read my thread about my dad? U dont have to believe me..I really dont care but yes, I will always blame those stupid so-called experts who fed my parents lies about ASL and the Deaf community.

Exactly, shel, and your and your brother's stroy are not unique. We still have parents today, and many have stated so on this board, that they are being told not to use sign or the child will never make the effort to use spoken language. And what the select few are failing to recognize, that by following this advice, even is sign is added later, we end up with children that are language delayed and have been denied the opportunity to develop fluency in any language. These few also seem to fail to recognize that just because spoken language may be the child's only language does not mean that they are fluent in that language. Nor do they think about the years missed in interacting with their child and the child with their parents, or the interaction that is missed with the rest of the world. They fail to recognize the psychological impact of language delays as well as the social impact. All in the name of making a child appear to be more like a hearing child. While they may accomplish their goal to some extent with these methods (i.e. end up with a child that can speak well) the negative impact of such a practice is disregarded.

 

[jillio]

i was not made aware that his daughter knew 3 languages, please don't accuse me of being insensitive when it is really just a lack of knowledge. I don't have time to read up on everyone's blogs before I post a response.

Actually, what they are not telling you, either, Holly, is at last report, Lotte was also still 2 years delayed in her home language, which will translate to even greater delays in any subsequent language. It does not surprise me that this information was excluded, however. These supporters of oral only are failing to recognize that simply because spoken language is the only language a child uses does not indicate that they are able to use it with fluency.

 

[jillio]

Magie60 - Parents are happy to learn to communicate with their children. Signing is not the only communication option, nor is it the only visual communication option.

It is always easy to say what a person would do with their child; it can be quite a different story once a person actually has children.

It is the only system whose syntax and vocabulary are designed to address the needs of visually perceived communication. The visual system and the auditory system perceive stimuli in very different ways, and process it to comprehension in very different ways. Spoken langauge is linear in construction, visual language is time oriented and spatial in construction. Simply adding visual cues to a language meant to be processed through the auditory system does not make it any easier to comprehend. The brain still has to gothrough a translation process, and much is meaning is lost.

Your explanations regarding CS are flawed at this most basic cognitive level.

 

[jillio]

I blame the so-called experts, too. My parents didn't know what to do - they trusted the people with the framed certificates on the wall.

And the irony is, how many of those so called experts were deaf, or had any connection, at a personal level, to the deaf community? The only contact any of them have with the deaf is is a relationship of power over them, and from a decidedly hearing perspective at that. They should be blamed. It is their lack of comprehensive information and their willingness to protray themselves as expert in an area where their expertise is decidedly one sided that created the problem.

 

[jillio]

Holly - Are you familiar with Cued Speech?

With Holly's grasp of the issues we are discussing, I would say that she is, indeed, familiar with CS. She seems to understand that MCE's still present information in a way that is intended for the ear, and not the eye.

"We are, always and forever, a people of the eye." George Veditz, 1920.

You need to get a grasp on cognitive processing issues, loml. That is where your precious CS is full of holes.

 

[jillio]

I don't know if he was anti-oral or not...but he does sound like a moron if he said she would never learn to hear or speak... "experts" should not predict a child's future abilities without letting her try first. The only one who should have a crystal ball is the fortune teller.

I'm glad you feel confident in your decision as a parent...that's important. I'm glad you and your wife have the education, resources, and the means to be able to do your research and make the decisions on what is best for your child and your family. I sincerely respect you for doing just that - making choices based on full research and what is best for your child.

My statement is a personal one based on my personal experiences as a child who was born profoundly deaf, grew up using the auditory-oral approach, and finally ended up learning sign language. I do not blame my parents, though I did for a long time. They did everything they knew to do, including flying out of the country just to meet with specialists.

Really and truly, I don't care about blame. The past is past. I'm thankful I'm able to find the place I am now.

I am happy that you have found your place of comfort. It is only unfortunate, that so many deaf chidlren raised in an oral environment must reach adulthood before they are able to accomplish that.

And yes, the past is past. But if we don't learn from it all is naught. The oralists of today don't seem to be capable of doing that. They muxh prefer to pretend those past experiences do not exist, by using the age old justification "My child is different. That will never happen to him/her because we are good parents who are involved with our child." Pffft.

 

[jillio]

All the threads that you were talking about why don't the parents learn sign language to communicate with deaf/Deaf/HOH children. You, hearies, sound like coming out of the T.V. series "Star Trek/The Next Generation" where there is a Bork when they want to wipe them out so they can be like them. Well, like the series, hearing parents want to abolish and destroy our ASL as it is fertile and not worthy for us to communicate with ASL, whether we have hearing aid or CI. We are struggling to understand with lipreading, hear and talk like the hearing people. I am very sick of Audists doing that to us especially with AGBell. We are arguing with no avail trying to make them understand with our experience as deaf people. They think they have the experience to help us hear when we are having trouble struggle understanding within the classroom environment without interpreter, notetaking, and ASL. As for cued speech, it just make it all the more worse trying to talk with our voice not clear and almost not understandable to hearing people. So why we fight so much to struggle for the sake of hearing people, to please them. That is why it is not fair for hearing parents not being able to learn ASL to communicate with them and it is more easier to understand that lipreading and talking. So hearies, get a life and start communicate with your children in ASL, please.

Very well put, but I am afraid that your eloquent words fall upon the "deaf" ears of the hearing. One is not so deaf as one who will not hear. Some people can't hear.....some just refuse to hear. It is the second category that has such a negative impact on the first.