Don’t rule out mainstream schools for deaf children

[jillio]

That was only part of the quote. The other part (I believe I posted it) was

And, if he is just now learning to speak, what exactly was his communication method prior. Likewise with learning to listen. Has he in fact, been deprived of language and communication prior to receiving the implant? Since the insistence in on an oral environment, it is doubtful that this child has been exposed to sign.

 

[jillio]

It just seems to me that if you opt for a CI then you are opting to gain some use of sounds. Otherwise why bother. If the students you know still rely on sign then perhaps the CI is not working as well for them as it may for others. If you are only using sign then there is no need to hear. Am I missing something?

Yes, you are. Even those that receive great benefit in sound perception, and the students I serve are among them, do not receive a great enough benefit to permit oral only communciaton, particularly receptively. Gaining some use of sound, and gaining full access to communicaton and language, are 2 separate things. Communication and access to classroom material, in particular, is dependent up on quite a bit more than having some access to sound. Under your reasoning, why bother with sign when a deaf individual is abel to gain some access to sound through HA. Some is not complete, nor is it enough to risk the developmental delays, the missed language acquisition, and the exclusion experienced in an oral only environment.

If you could only hear limited notes on a limited range, would you be able to play a complete melody that included notes out of the range of your perception without some added input to make up for that which you could not perceive?

 

[jillio]

And how does he compare to his hearing peers?

Good question.

 

[jillio]

I still rely on sign in some situations especially when I'm in a classroom full of hearing people discussing topics. The CI is very helpful in many situations but this is not one of them. CI isn't the same as having normal hearing otherwise many late deafened adults with CIs wouldn't be dependent on captioned shows even if they don't sign.

Thank you, deafskeptic. My son has 2 roommates, both of which have CIs. One of his roommates is able to hear and speak well with his implant, but he still requires a terp in classes, and in groups, or anything less than an ideal one-on-one situation, communicates through sign. The other is able to pick up environmental noises only, and even though he wears his CI on a consistent basis, does not have either speech, or the ability to discriminate spoken langauge. He is reliant on sign in all situations. My son, without CI, falls in the middle of the two, preferring sign and using a terp, but able to communicate, if he must, with spoken language and lipreading.

Just having a CI is no indication that visual input is not needed, and being able to speak is no indication that receptive communication is understood. Particularly in less than ideal situations.

 

[deafskeptic]

Thank you, deafskeptic. My son has 2 roommates, both of which have CIs. One of his roommates is able to hear and speak well with his implant, but he still requires a terp in classes, and in groups, or anything less than an ideal one-on-one situation, communicates through sign. The other is able to pick up environmental noises only, and even though he wears his CI on a consistent basis, does not have either speech, or the ability to discriminate spoken langauge. He is reliant on sign in all situations. My son, without CI, falls in the middle of the two, preferring sign and using a terp, but able to communicate, if he must, with spoken language and lipreading.

Just having a CI is no indication that visual input is not needed, and being able to speak is no indication that receptive communication is understood. Particularly in less than ideal situations.

I think I'm much closer to the first roomate that you mention. Your example, BTW, is why I recomend the Bi-Bi over oral only.

Heh, I'm a perfect exampe of someone who speaks well but I'm not so great in the receptive dept. Some speakers are harder for me to understand than others. I still can't talk to my brother on the phone as he's hard to understand though I can speak to the rest of my family on the phone.

 

[deafdyke]

I still rely on sign in some situations especially when I'm in a classroom full of hearing people discussing topics.

If I recall correctly, there's a significent population of orally trained kids who use Sign, in situtions where communication isn't one on one.
jillo, your son's experiance doesn't surprise me. Sure it's great that there are oral sucesses who really thrive in the mainstream,(eg honors and AP classes) with minimal accomondations, but on the other hand its a FACT that most mainstream sped teachers aren't trained to teach kids with classic disabilties. They get a token amount of training on how to educate kids like us. When we don't respond to minimal accomondations, we get lumped in with the "Ummmm who's President Bush?" types that seem to be LEGION in mainstream sped.

 

[Dixie]

Jillio,
the local school district policy is 5 years after graduation, student records are destroyed.
I think another reason why my parents didnt buck the system when the FM was taken away was because my dad was a high school science teacher in the same district (and still is to this day). He would have possibly lost his job if he had argued.

But my experience was so pitful at times that I begged my parents to at least allow me to transfer to another neighboring district. By senior high I was so sick of the place I seriously considered dropping out altogether, but I stuck with it anyway.

 

[jillio]

Jillio,
the local school district policy is 5 years after graduation, student records are destroyed.
I think another reason why my parents didnt buck the system when the FM was taken away was because my dad was a high school science teacher in the same district (and still is to this day). He would have possibly lost his job if he had argued.

But my experience was so pitful at times that I begged my parents to at least allow me to transfer to another neighboring district. By senior high I was so sick of the place I seriously considered dropping out altogether, but I stuck with it anyway.

I'm gald you stuck it out, Dixie.

 

[jillio]

I think I'm much closer to the first roomate that you mention. Your example, BTW, is why I recomend the Bi-Bi over oral only.

Heh, I'm a perfect exampe of someone who speaks well but I'm not so great in the receptive dept. Some speakers are harder for me to understand than others. I still can't talk to my brother on the phone as he's hard to understand though I can speak to the rest of my family on the phone.

And those examples, plus the examples of the students I deal with on a daily basis, is why I recommend Bi-Bi, as well. Thankfully, both of my son's roommates attended a school for the deaf that while not Bi-Bi was at least TC, and they had many deaf teachers and support for their use of ASL.

 

[jillio]

If I recall correctly, there's a significent population of orally trained kids who use Sign, in situtions where communication isn't one on one.
jillo, your son's experiance doesn't surprise me. Sure it's great that there are oral sucesses who really thrive in the mainstream,(eg honors and AP classes) with minimal accomondations, but on the other hand its a FACT that most mainstream sped teachers aren't trained to teach kids with classic disabilties. They get a token amount of training on how to educate kids like us. When we don't respond to minimal accomondations, we get lumped in with the "Ummmm who's President Bush?" types that seem to be LEGION in mainstream sped.

Yes. If these kids had not been in a TC environment and at a deaf school, I wonder if they would even be enrolled in college, much less succeeding.

 

[deafdyke]

I gotta say that I think initally(early grades like up to fourth grade) the gross majority of dhh kids should be dually enrolled at schools/programs for the Deaf and mainstream schools. Maybe a good idea might be to require that dhh kids be evaluated by someone who is VERY experianced with educating dhh kids.
I just see so many parents being subconsciously taught to idealize the educational placement of regular school, regular classes. Sure, it works out sometimes, but so often *shakes head*

 

[deafdyke]

I wish I could contact the parents who wrote in, and tell them about the downsides of oral only and mainstreaming. Too many parents are getting sucked into the public school trap.

 

[Buffalo]

Buffalo, with all due respect, think about what you are suggesting. Why would every hearing person need to learn sign language? Many will never encounter a deaf person in their entire life. Many will only encounter deaf folks on rare occasions. If they learn to sign and never use it then they wont remember how to sign and will have wasted their time learning it.

Also consider that not all deaf people know sign language either.

I do agree that those who have deaf people in their family and friend circle and those that work with deaf people should learn sign. It's the old "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Alot of schools teach spanish or french as forigen languages. It would be nice to see students taking sign language as a forigen language instead of French or Spanish. And I am not hating on the French or Spanish either so please don't bash me for saying that. It's just that I think it would be a good way to get sign language to more people.

My own family don't sign and I could eventually lose my eyesight. They do know about my eyesight problem for a year and yet they aren't even trying to learn sign language. I did learn to speak but did they return the favor by learning sign language? No.

Sterilization in the past were done on people with disabilities. They don't really care who will help them in their old age like grown children would help their aged parents. This tells me that hearing people really don't plan for the disabled people's future. All they care is their own needs. I often see hearing people (those who don't know sign language) as incredibly selflish.

Now they think CI is the miracle which it really is not. Just look at Shel90's remarks on how she had to get those new CI kids catch up with the class. The CI website actually suggest that parents not to use sign language when their kid has CI. Nevermind if the CI failed to work later on or didn't pan out. The child is the one who lose out big time.

The hearing people need to listen to us deaf people. They need to wake up and learn sign language for their deaf babies. Sign language helps hearing babies improve their language so why deny the deaf babies their own language. That is anathema to me.

A hearing person will be helping himself/herself by learning sign language. Suppose this person lost his/her hearing, this person is all set because s/he knows sign language and have friends that knows it, too. When this person became old, s/he lose some or most of hearing. No problem if the family know sign language.

The hearing people really don't know what is the best for us. We do. There are few hearing people (like Jillio) who did listen to the deaf people but they are few and far in between. To those hearing people who don't know sign language, I want you to quit getting in our way.

 

[rockdrummer]

And how does he compare to his hearing peers?

I have no idea. There was no mention of that.

 

[rockdrummer]

I still rely on sign in some situations especially when I'm in a classroom full of hearing people discussing topics. The CI is very helpful in many situations but this is not one of them. CI isn't the same as having normal hearing otherwise many late deafened adults with CIs wouldn't be dependent on captioned shows even if they don't sign.

I fully understand that a CI does not mimic natural hearing. I have said it many times. My point is that there are going to be some the will gain more use and have better results with their CI than others.

 

[rockdrummer]

And, if he is just now learning to speak, what exactly was his communication method prior. Likewise with learning to listen. Has he in fact, been deprived of language and communication prior to receiving the implant? Since the insistence in on an oral environment, it is doubtful that this child has been exposed to sign.

I can't answer those question without speculating. There was no mention of prior communication methods.

 

[rockdrummer]

Yes, you are. Even those that receive great benefit in sound perception, and the students I serve are among them, do not receive a great enough benefit to permit oral only communciaton, particularly receptively. Gaining some use of sound, and gaining full access to communicaton and language, are 2 separate things. Communication and access to classroom material, in particular, is dependent up on quite a bit more than having some access to sound. Under your reasoning, why bother with sign when a deaf individual is abel to gain some access to sound through HA. Some is not complete, nor is it enough to risk the developmental delays, the missed language acquisition, and the exclusion experienced in an oral only environment.

If you could only hear limited notes on a limited range, would you be able to play a complete melody that included notes out of the range of your perception without some added input to make up for that which you could not perceive?

I get all of that and I never said if someone gains some benefit to drop sign. I would never say that even if a deaf person has gained great benefit from assistive devices. My ony point was based on what the original post said about the CI and training that was giving this child the ability to hear sounds, to count and read. I can't comment on anything outside of that without speculating.

 

[deafskeptic]

I get all of that and I never said if someone gains some benefit to drop sign. I would never say that even if a deaf person has gained great benefit from assistive devices. My ony point was based on what the original post said about the CI and training that was giving this child the ability to hear sounds, to count and read. I can't comment on anything outside of that without speculating.

I haven't speculated either. I hope the child doesn't have language delays because it's clear his parents want him to be oral only. From what the first post said, it's possible that has happened. The CI isn't going to make up for language delays. I know of one CI guy whose name I won't mention who got implanted at age 4 and it's clear he has some language delays from his writings. I can think of several other examples as well.

Just being able to hear sounds doesn't mean that language delays won't happen; one of my classmates from the oral program could speak on the phone with his HA on so it came at a surprise to me that his English was so poor. This applies to CIs as well.

If he has language delays, he may learn to speak well but he's always going to stuggle with reading and writing.

 

[jillio]

I haven't speculated either. I hope the child doesn't have language delays because it's clear his parents want him to be oral only. From what the first post said, it's possible that has happened. The CI isn't going to make up for language delays. I know of one CI guy whose name I won't mention who got implanted at age 4 and it's clear he has some language delays from his writings. I can think of several other examples as well.

Just being able to hear sounds doesn't mean that language delays won't happen; one of my classmates from the oral program could speak on the phone with his HA on so it came at a surprise to me that his English was so poor. This applies to CIs as well.

If he has language delays, he may learn to speak well but he's always going to stuggle with reading and writing.

**nodding agreement** It seem to be a common error to equate ability to speak with overall language acquisition and development.

 

[rockdrummer]

**nodding agreement** It seem to be a common error to equate ability to speak with overall language acquisition and development.

I'm sorry but you misunderstood me if I gave you that impression. I don't equate them.