Doctors againsts ASL

faire_jour said:
Out of curiousity, do you wear your HA's anymore? If you woke up tomorrow and lost your residual hearing, would it bother you?
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Shel has given an answer to this previously in other threads. I know I have, but here's mine again - since it did happen to me and so far not to her.

I did lose my residual hearing. It did bother me for a little bit (maybe a week or so, since I knew it was going to happen) and then I got over it. I am happy and fine with no hearing at all. I am learning ASL and life is generally pretty good. Yes, there are crappy days and yes, there are times when I wished I could hear again, but for the most part, I am happy with the way that I am.
 
I agree with Ron on this one. I never had experience with doctors telling me just to get CI only and all that. I am just lucky that they have given me and my parents the choices available. My doctor was the one that told my mom to get me hearing aid since CI at the time was not the best and she helped my mom put me in speech therapy and go to mainstreaming school that has the deaf program. My doctor told my parents to take sign language class that was free at the community college and encouraged me to learn sign language along with oral. I had the best of both worlds and I don't regret it. I consider myself lucky that the doctors and audiologists never pressured me to do anything I didn't want to do.
 
shel90 said:
I am talking about how doctors apply it to the WHOLE population. This is not about just me only. If I wear HAs, it doesnt mean that other deaf people should wear HAs. My brother doesnt wear them so should he have to because I like them? That's the whole point and doctors and audis keep doing that.
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:gpost:
 
shel90 said:
I was never never against CIs or deaf people wanting to hear. I am against the view of oral-only that that ASL should never be exposed at all or used as a last resort.

It just seems like that view comes strongly with CIs and i just want to change that. Get the CIs if they want but expose the child to both worlds and languages.
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Agreed!! Sign is important, I think everybody should know it. We're teaching our foster child some basic signs, we don't ask him to sign this or that. He just automatically comes out with it. Even myself, I want to learn more sign, since I am a deaf person and want to communicate better with my friends. I sign sometimes at home and my mum is usually asking what is the sign for this or that. This shows she is interested and is not against me using sign language
 
Who has said it shouldn't be exposed and if someone did who would listen? When and where did a doctor even suggest that?
 
I just wonder where most parents got the INSANE idea that signing is bad the child's speaking development? If it is a conclusion they came up with on their own, then doctors should have put that myth down. But most just walk away and say, well that's your choice. But they won't walk away without say "that's a midwife tale, it isn't true " when it came to taping a quarter on the baby's bellybutton to prevent hernia. (my grandma told me to do this, my son's doctor told me not to do it when I told him about it)
 
Lissa said:
Agreed!! Sign is important, I think everybody should know it. We're teaching our foster child some basic signs, we don't ask him to sign this or that. He just automatically comes out with it. Even myself, I want to learn more sign, since I am a deaf person and want to communicate better with my friends. I sign sometimes at home and my mum is usually asking what is the sign for this or that. This shows she is interested and is not against me using sign language
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most parents don't care if their kid take up sign language after the kid turn teen age. It was my mom's belief that I can always learn sign language later but I MUST learn to speak now.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
most parents don't care if their kid take up sign language after the kid turn teen age. It was my mom's belief that I can always learn sign language later but I MUST learn to speak now.
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She was willing to use sign with me at 5, she took a sign language class and became BSL level 1 qualified to communicate with me. I believe the early age of sign aided my spoken language as I grew since I attended a school which used sign and spoken language. I was in a oral class but still sign was used sometimes
 
yes, like I said, most people have well adjusted life when they are exposed to both. you were exposed to sign language. Me, I never had sign language once. I remember my preschool and I don't remember any sign language whatsoever.
 
Of course this would be true as doctors have a pathalogical view on everything. They don't view deafness as cultural. They veiw it as something that needs to be fixed.
 
Wow dang.. I never experienced it. I had the best of both worlds.. I had speech therapy until high school but since pre-school I learned sign language so I am grateful that we had doctor and audiologists encouraging my parents to learn sign language and gave me all the tools in life that I needed in the real world.

Lighthouse77 said:
yes, like I said, most people have well adjusted life when they are exposed to both. you were exposed to sign language. Me, I never had sign language once. I remember my preschool and I don't remember any sign language whatsoever.
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Well - the doctors are the ones that told my father to NOT have me learn ASL or be any part of the "so-called deaf culture". These were doctors from the Florida Speech and Hearing Center and the Watson Clinic in Lakland, Fl sometime around 1970 and 1971. My mother left it all up to my dad since he also had a hearing loss. She was working full time and he was not and therefore he had more time to take me to all the appointments. The main thing I remember from the visits is that all of the hearing tests (since they never explained them to me) was that it left me with nightmares that still plague me to this day. I understand what went on, but I can't get rid of the nightmares.

Later in the 90's, when I contacted the Speech & Hearing Center again and asked why they had that view 20 years earlier, they claimed that was the "social norms" for the times. They no longer feel that way now.
 
Yea, there have been many changes since those days. Still got a long way to go of course and the world isn't perfect. But things are a little better today then back then for us.

Why would anyone discuss ASL with a doctor in the first place? What do they have to do with anything related to it? That's the point I was trying to make.

Physicians have absolutely nothing to do with peoples decision to learn or not learn ASL. So don't look to them for it. Don't care what they think about it. Don't even bring it up with them. If you want to learn ASL then learn it. It don't matter if you're deaf or hearing. It don't matter what a physicians opinion is on it.

An audiologist on the other hand is someone you might talk to about this issue. For they likely have resources and connection to that field. In other words if you ask them about ASL they could likely show you where to look into it. But even their opinion is irrelevant to your decision to learn ASL.

ASL can be an advantage to anyone. But it has nothing to do with "hearing" or "deaf". It's not a choice just deaf people can make to learn or not learn. Especially based on a doctors opinion. It's a personal choice and has advantages. Especially at an early age because it encourages language skills earlier then spoken language is possible.
 
I do understand that as an adult, you go to a doctor for a specific reason.. to get an implant. And that you wouldn't want a doctor to discourage you from making that decision. It's the same as an adult making a decision to get a breast reduction or implant because she is not happy. But when a parent of a deaf child go, she doesn't always know what to do. So she will ask a doctor what she should do. A doctor may suggest CI but neglect to tell her the benefit of sign languages. A doctor will tell her to do a hearing aid trial, but still neglect to tell her what she do to communicate with her child while her child is adjusting.
 
RonJaxon said:
Yea, there have been many changes since those days. Still got a long way to go of course and the world isn't perfect. But things are a little better today then back then for us.

Why would anyone discuss ASL with a doctor in the first place? What do they have to do with anything related to it? That's the point I was trying to make.

Physicians have absolutely nothing to do with peoples decision to learn or not learn ASL. So don't look to them for it. Don't care what they think about it. Don't even bring it up with them. If you want to learn ASL then learn it. It don't matter if you're deaf or hearing. It don't matter what a physicians opinion is on it.

An audiologist on the other hand is someone you might talk to about this issue. For they likely have resources and connection to that field. In other words if you ask them about ASL they could likely show you where to look into it. But even their opinion is irrelevant to your decision to learn ASL.

ASL can be an advantage to anyone. But it has nothing to do with "hearing" or "deaf". It's not a choice just deaf people can make to learn or not learn. Especially based on a doctors opinion. It's a personal choice and has advantages. Especially at an early age because it encourages language skills earlier then spoken language is possible.
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For me it was the audiologists and the speech therapists who advised my father to no ASL and nothing deaf related except my hearing aid. My pediatrician felt it was the wrong way to go, but as the audiologists were supposed to know better, he went with their opinion.
 
Yeah Doctor did recommended oral but my mom didn't feel comfortable about their recommendation while she did send me to that school, before school changed their mind and allowed for kids to sign there.
 
I was mainstreamed and I find out that there was a special school (private), within 20 miles of where we lived.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
are you a parent of deaf child?
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No, I'm deaf myself. I had hearing aids since I was in 4th grade and my hearing decreased to deafness during my late teens and early 20's.

I grew up in main stream school. With upgraded hearing aids every few years or so as my hearing decreased I was able to go to "Normal" public schools and class rooms.

Keep in mind that I'm almost 39 years old. When I was a kid I was given lip reading lessons. I learned ASL when it was evident that my hearing was approaching the level of deafness. I never became fluent at it though. I didn't know many people who knew ASL so for me it was just mainly a back up method. When I couldn't pick something up with lip reading it was signed to me (Mainly just finger spell a key word or two).

So, I'm an example of a guy who spent almost 20 years deaf without knowing much ASL. If you asked if I want to learn more ASL my answer would be yes. I love the language. But for me it isn't all that useful unless people around me know it too.

Ron Jaxon
 
RonJaxon said:
No, I'm deaf myself. I had hearing aids since I was in 4th grade and my hearing decreased to deafness during my late teens and early 20's.

I grew up in main stream school. With upgraded hearing aids every few years or so as my hearing decreased I was able to go to "Normal" public schools and class rooms.

Keep in mind that I'm almost 39 years old. When I was a kid I was given lip reading lessons. I learned ASL when it was evident that my hearing was approaching the level of deafness. I never became fluent at it though. I didn't know many people who knew ASL so for me it was just mainly a back up method. When I couldn't pick something up with lip reading it was signed to me (Mainly just finger spell a key word or two).

So, I'm an example of a guy who spent almost 20 years deaf without knowing much ASL. If you asked if I want to learn more ASL my answer would be yes. I love the language. But for me it isn't all that useful unless people around me know it too.

Ron Jaxon
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I'm in the same situation, and the only person that know ASL is my sister and she is FAR away from me. So are my other siblings (live far away) but I don't think they are interested in ASL. My younger sister might though.
 
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