Hearies view on a CI kid... its a bummer

[Angel]

And some people are willing to make a different life to provide what they beileve is right for their chidlren. Doesn't mean it is necesary to abandon one for the other. Just willingness to make a change.

!!

 

[Audiofuzzy]

No, of course its not a bad thing. It is a perfectly natural thing. Which is why, as Ihave said, I relocated in order that my son could attend a deaf school as a day student. He was home with me every evening.

Do you have a husband? was your husband able and willing to move as well?
Being a single mother is in some ways harder, in other easier to make certain decisions.

Not every married couple can afford to move to accomodate their child.


Fuzzy

 

[Angel]

so no CI for your kids from YOU either, huh Cheri? what happened to the "best of BOTH worlds"?

Her children are not deaf, I don't know why you're asking her this question...

 

[jillio]

Do you have a husband? was your husband able and willing to move as well?
Being a single mother is in some ways harder, in other easier to make certain decisions.

Not every married couple can afford to move to accomodate their child.


Fuzzy

I am a widow, and was a widow at the time that I chose to move. My husband died when my son was six years old. That certainly did nothing to reduce my financial risk in moving. I was the sole provider for my son, sothat there was not a partner who could perhaps find a job and keep the family afloat while the second partner secured work. However, had my husband been alive, I am certain, knowing the efforts he made to learn sign and expose himself to the deaf community just as I did, I have no doubt that it would of been his decision to move.

 

[jackiesolorzano]

Yes I agree that life is a risk. We risk our life everyday like that... only if we don't ignore the warning signs.... but... but... but... you can't compare surgery with Mother Nature.

All of that I accept your comparison and would like to ask you a question.

Would you accept to risk your life and continue to live at unsafety place when you know there're earthquakes, hurriance, etc comes time to time ?

I can't ignore the warning to risk my life and also my family's life but move away to safety place.

Yes I do accept the risk of life. I was born and raised in southern California. I lived through several severe earthquakes and thousands of small earthquake and I am still here in southern California. While we have many earthquakes we also have best weather in the world. We can go the beach in winter time and get in the water.
Everything in life is risk and I so happy we took the risk of the CI.

 

[jackiesolorzano]

That's good and everything but my question is..(I know u said your kids know some signs) if oral deaf kids dont know ASL, how can they communicate with ASL users? Doesnt that create a communication barrier between the oral deaf kids who dont know sign at all and the ASL users therefore dividing them?

Growing up, I didnt interact with anyone from the Deaf community because I couldnt communicate with them. I think that really sucks cuz I could have made lifelong friends.

I guess you are right it would divide the oral deaf kids from the ASL users especially since many ASL users do not treat non fluent ASL users kindly.

 

[deafskeptic]

I didn't mind being sent away to deaf school because I had problems with my family so I was glad I didn't have to deal with them every day.

 

[jackiesolorzano]

I'd like to ask a question - just WHY is it so vital that a deaf child communicate with other deaf children? Why is the assumption automatically made that the child will have ACCESS to other deaf children right off the bat?

Yes, I went deaf when I was 9 years old, and NO, I didn't meet any deaf children while I was a child! Did my parents "prevent me" from meeting any? Far from it- we lived in a location that was more than 500 miles from the nearest deaf community. Traveling that far was out of question just to meet deaf children. I did know several deaf adults - but they communicated like I did - orally/lipreading. I didn't meet any deaf "peers" until I was 22 and went to RIT/NTID. Does that mean I was deprived in any way? Far from it- I had an incredibly happy, full life. Just realize - While communication with the deaf community is a good thing for a child (and not in the whole "deaf pride" aspect either - but to allow the child to meet others like them,) a child's happiness and wholesomeness does NOT hinge on their talking to other deaf children.



Is it not possible to make lifelong hearing friends? I did. I don't base who I become friends with on their deafness or lack thereof. I don't know anybody who would.

GREAT POST, REALLY AGREE WITH YOU WHOLEHEARTLY

 

[jillio]

I guess you are right it would divide the oral deaf kids from the ASL users especially since many ASL users do not treat non fluent ASL users kindly.

I, as a hearing parent, have not had the experience of being treated unkindly when my ASL skills were less than fluent. I wa frequently teased for mistakes, but not in an unkind way. I found the adult native signers that I turned to for help more than willing to teach me as long as I was willing to learn, and they wer very patient with both myself and my child. But that is just my experience.

 

[jillio]

GREAT POST, REALLY AGREE WITH YOU WHOLEHEARTLY

As I explained before, it is a natural human need that is experienced on a universal level to seek out those which share our experience. It allows for the proper development of self concept, as wellas assists in completing developmental tasks.

Why do hearing parents of deaf children seek out association with other hearing parents of deaf children? Because by becoming the parent of a deaf child, their own identity has changed to the degree that their parenting experience is not the same as the parenting experience of a hearing parent with a hearing child. Therefore, they must adjust their self concept, and association with others who share this experience aids in that.

And that is also why providing a deaf child with associations with other deaf individuals is necessary.

 

[jackiesolorzano]

I agree.

That is why I am so opposed to the philosophy that denies a child who does not benefit from HAs a cochlear implant but would rather have them continue to pursue oral speech and language as the primary mode of communication without a cochlear implant and to struggle. It was one of the reasons why we chose the cochlear implant for our child. It is also one of the reasons we rejected AVT for our daughter.

I can tell you that the cochlear implant has had a tremendous impact upon my child's life and most definitely yes, it has made her life easier. For her, there was no struggle to learn to speak and/or hear.

DITTO with mine

 

[jillio]

I didn't mind being sent away to deaf school because I had problems with my family so I was glad I didn't have to deal with them every day.

And that is a situation I have heard related before, deafskeptic. The deaf school has often served as a respite.

 

[R2D2]

No not at all.

However, if the hearing parents refuse to send their child to stay in the dorms but at the same time dont learn ASL if that's the only language their child is able of communicating especially if the child is very young and isnt writing yet? What do u think if that?

I think that any parent that doesn't communicate with their children in whatever way that is useful to the child is not parenting in the most effective way. I just could not imagine parenting like that. I think in the past, such parents just use to pack the children off to the deaf school so that they wouldn't have to deal with it. I remember at school one little girl started one day who had been from a residential deaf school which had just closed down and I felt really sorry for her. she looked so unkempt as if her parents didn't care for her.

By the way, is your school a boarding school as well as a day school?

 

[R2D2]

I didn't mind being sent away to deaf school because I had problems with my family so I was glad I didn't have to deal with them every day.

Yeah well, I guess different family situations and all of that.

 

[jillio]

DITTO with mine

If I am not mistaken, I beleive we are discussing the perceptions of some hearing educators and professionals of the CI and the CI user. Benefits as applied to individuals is not really an issue.

 

[R2D2]

No, of course its not a bad thing. It is a perfectly natural thing. Which is why, as Ihave said, I relocated in order that my son could attend a deaf school as a day student. He was home with me every evening.

Not every hearing parent is able to do this though for a variety of factors relating to their personal commitments and circumstances. If my nephew's deaf school had been further away, it would have been quite hard for my sister because she was a single parent who had commitments to her ex partner and relied a great deal on my mother for babysitting her other children while she worked. The location of the deaf school and her family was quite independent of each other.

Just out of curiosity, do you feel though that it's better for a deaf child to go full time boarding at a deaf school away from their family in preference to mainstream or unit placement with other deaf children? Even if the child was able to sign at home with parents or at a youth group?

I'm just wondering how important it is to you that every deaf child attends a deaf school regardless of whether or not the family can move close. I know that you believe strongly in the concept of Bi Bi education, which isn't very widespread.

 

[deafskeptic]

Personally, I think the ideal setting for a deaf child is to be day school student - provided that the family is accepting of the child and that there are no family problems.

 

[jillio]

Not every hearing parent is able to do this though for a variety of factors relating to their personal commitments and circumstances. If my nephew's deaf school had been further away, it would have been quite hard for my sister because she was a single parent who had commitments to her ex partner and relied a great deal on my mother for babysitting her other children while she worked. The location of the deaf school and her family was quite independent of each other.

Just out of curiosity, do you feel though that it's better for a deaf child to go full time boarding at a deaf school away from their family in preference to mainstream or unit placement with other deaf children? Even if the child was able to sign at home with parents or at a youth group?

I'm just wondering how important it is to you that every deaf child attends a deaf school regardless of whether or not the family can move close. I know that you believe strongly in the concept of Bi Bi education, which isn't very widespread.

If, as in the situation you described, in which the deaf child is able to sign with parents and other deaf children in a youth group, I would say that , particularly for a very young child, a unit placement in a self contained program would be preferable to a deaf residential school.

I am a proponent of the Bi-Bi method, but the reality is that it isn't a practice as yet even within the deaf schools. The advantage that I see to a deaf school is the presence of deaf adults who can serve as mentors and examples to deaf children. That is generally not available to children in a self contained program, although some do include exposure to the deaf community, and link the kids up with deaf adults to serve as mentors. Those programs are few and far between. The most often encountered circumstance is the deaf child placed in a mainstream classroom where they quite often are not only the only deaf child in that particular classroom, but in that particular school, as well. Teachers more often than not, have had no education regarding the deaf child, nor have they ever been exposed to a deaf child. Administrators are often in the same position. IEPs are written using criteria for LD sutdents, not for deaf students. Those are the educational problems that I have seen. The socialization problems stem from being the only deaf child in a sea of hearing children and adults. The child does not know how to form reasonable expectations for themselves, as they are never exposed to another deaf individual on which to model. They know only that they are not quite like everyone else, and therefore are left searching for that place where they fit in. Often,the teachers' expectations for these students are lower than for their hearing peers simply because they are uninformed regarding the deaf students. Those lowered expectations are reflected in subtle ways in which the teacher treats them as compared to the way she treats the hearing students, and the deaf child is very quick to pick up on those subtle differences. It sets up a self fulfilling prophecy for that child, in which a cycle of demonstrated lowered expectations from a significant other becomes manifest as lowered expectations of self in the child.

It was important to me for my deaf child to attend a deaf school, as I personally saw many, many benefits to the school I chose for my son. I could not find a mainstreamed program that would provide him with the completeness in his education and socialization that the deaf school provided him. And, yes, I did search. I visited several deaf schools, as well as many mainstream programs, always with my son at my side so that I could witness not just classroom activity, but the way in which faculty, staff, and other students interacted with, and reacted to, my son. I believe I was very thorough in my investigation of the options.

But to address specifically your question regarding the importance for every deaf child to attend a deaf school....the most important thing for me is that every deaf child be served not just adequately, but completely and optimally, no matter what the setting. Unfortunately, at least in the U.S., the public schools are falling far short of adequate, much less optimal.

 

[jillio]

Personally, I think the ideal setting for a deaf child is to be day school student - provided that the family is accepting of the child and that there are no family problems.

And I would agree with that. And that is the setting I sought to provide for my son. However, I would also add, that even though my son attended as a day student, there were many residential students. Some were located close enough to go home for weekends. Others, (we had students from Africa and Iran, for example), spent many weekends with the families of day students and went home only for holidays.

 

[Audiofuzzy]

Her children are not deaf, I don't know why you're asking her this question...

OF COURSE you don't.

But I'll explain anyway- it's not the fact, it's the intention she have that matters.
And it was rethorical question.

I am a widow, and was a widow at the time that I chose to move. My husband died when my son was six years old. That certainly did nothing to reduce my financial risk in moving. I was the sole provider for my son, sothat there was not a partner who could perhaps find a job and keep the family afloat while the second partner secured work. However, had my husband been alive, I am certain, knowing the efforts he made to learn sign and expose himself to the deaf community just as I did, I have no doubt that it would of been his decision to move.

I am so very sorry about your husband. That must have been very difficult.
Nevertheless, you don't know how things would turn out if your husband was alive. I don't doubt he, like you, would be willing to go to a great lenghts to provide to your child best of everything, but sometimes circumstances arise that no matter what a person wishes to do, it simply can not be done.
You don't know what would happened if there was two of you.

Whatever the case,
in no way Neecy's parents were any less good parenst than you just because they decided to stay in the same place, and not go for School for the Deaf anywhere else, either. The outcome is, that after all Neecy is no less happy and succesful than your son is.


Fuzzy