AUDISM FREE AMERICA: AFA: Hearing Mother of Deaf child speaks out!
Also, because I have made the decision to NOT implant Lily with a Cochlear Implant, The doctors have made me feel like I am committing child abuse. They have told me so,I am abusing my child because I opted NOT to have her implanted with a cochlear implant. I am happy to say we don’t see those doctors anymore.
Here is my issue with the Cochlear Implants and Lily. She is responding at 30 dbs with her hearing aides she is maximizing on her residual hearing but yet they want to implant her. Lily has a medical condition that will one day make her profoundly Deaf so they want to implant her now under that assumption. They are so eager to implant her… yet I resist this major brain operation…. This intrusive, invasive, brain surgery… I cherish my child as a whole being… I chose ASL instead. My daughter is bright, she’s brilliant, she’s capable of so much…. But those who don’t recognize ASL while never know.
My comments: I am very proud of the parents for resisting the insane CI hype! For the amount of residual hearing she has, CI is experimental and not FDA approved. You need 90db HL across the audiogram and her loss is much less than that. It's no surprise she benefits from HAs as much as others do with CI. When Lily's hearing gets down to 90db or worse, then the decision for CI(or some other technology) can be decided by Lily herself as she will be much older by then.
The doctors want to make lots of money implanting as many deaf people with CI. It's disgusting that greed has clouded their judgement. Many who get CI could have gotten plenty of benefits from HAs as is. I had a severe-profound HL since birth and I got plenty of benefits from HAs back then and there wasn't even digital HAs! The good thing is there wasn't any complicated programming so no worries about improperly programmed HAs, such as insufficient gain or too much SPL or some useless feature that gets in the way. My old analog HAs were great out of the box, I simply turned the volume dial as high as it would go without feedback. Today's digitals, if programmed properly would give another 15db more gain than the analogs I wore as a kid.
Any deaf children my brother, sister and cousins have, ill recommend an experienced audiologist who will fit the best HAs programmed to maximum gains so the deaf child can get access to sounds at 30db or better as long as the residual hearing does not exceed 100db HL. Ill explain to the parents that I did great with HAs and they should also do great with proper HAs and proper speech training. Ill also explain the importance of lip reading that can let the child understand most speech. Any doc who says it's child abuse is crazy and should be avoided like the plague! Those docs are terrible audists! There is nothing wrong with being deaf and we are just as capable of learning.
Also, because I have made the decision to NOT implant Lily with a Cochlear Implant, The doctors have made me feel like I am committing child abuse. They have told me so,I am abusing my child because I opted NOT to have her implanted with a cochlear implant. I am happy to say we don’t see those doctors anymore.
Here is my issue with the Cochlear Implants and Lily. She is responding at 30 dbs with her hearing aides she is maximizing on her residual hearing but yet they want to implant her. Lily has a medical condition that will one day make her profoundly Deaf so they want to implant her now under that assumption. They are so eager to implant her… yet I resist this major brain operation…. This intrusive, invasive, brain surgery… I cherish my child as a whole being… I chose ASL instead. My daughter is bright, she’s brilliant, she’s capable of so much…. But those who don’t recognize ASL while never know.
My comments: I am very proud of the parents for resisting the insane CI hype! For the amount of residual hearing she has, CI is experimental and not FDA approved. You need 90db HL across the audiogram and her loss is much less than that. It's no surprise she benefits from HAs as much as others do with CI. When Lily's hearing gets down to 90db or worse, then the decision for CI(or some other technology) can be decided by Lily herself as she will be much older by then.
The doctors want to make lots of money implanting as many deaf people with CI. It's disgusting that greed has clouded their judgement. Many who get CI could have gotten plenty of benefits from HAs as is. I had a severe-profound HL since birth and I got plenty of benefits from HAs back then and there wasn't even digital HAs! The good thing is there wasn't any complicated programming so no worries about improperly programmed HAs, such as insufficient gain or too much SPL or some useless feature that gets in the way. My old analog HAs were great out of the box, I simply turned the volume dial as high as it would go without feedback. Today's digitals, if programmed properly would give another 15db more gain than the analogs I wore as a kid.
Any deaf children my brother, sister and cousins have, ill recommend an experienced audiologist who will fit the best HAs programmed to maximum gains so the deaf child can get access to sounds at 30db or better as long as the residual hearing does not exceed 100db HL. Ill explain to the parents that I did great with HAs and they should also do great with proper HAs and proper speech training. Ill also explain the importance of lip reading that can let the child understand most speech. Any doc who says it's child abuse is crazy and should be avoided like the plague! Those docs are terrible audists! There is nothing wrong with being deaf and we are just as capable of learning.
I agree with alicia! He is in denial being deaf. He rather call hearing impaired himself. He don't know sign language. He must be OCD.
