Peer Relationships of Children With Cochlear Implants

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Hey, RD!

I found you an article from 2007 in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Education on Social Integration in the mainstream.

The Marschark article I was thinking of addresses more of academic achievement issues, but is applicable as delays in academic funtioning correlate with delays in social development because of the language issues in both.

I can't provide a link to either article. I do, however, have electronic copies of both that I was able to obtain with my university library log in. If you will PM me, I will be happy to email you both in an attachment.
 
I will get back to answer your questions, RD..I have been busy and not feeling good. Will try to answer them as clearly as I can so nobody gets confused.

Have a good day!
 
JennyB said:
This is what I find funny, apperently the deaf people don't know whats best for the deaf people, and the hearing people don't know whats best for the deaf people, and the professionals don't know whats best for the deaf people....so who does?

I think the answer to my own question is the individual.

Rick, and whomever else is lurking here with children with CI's, if your child came to you and said they wanted to learn ASL, would you let them? If your child came to you and didn't want to use their CI everyday, would you let them?
If your child wanted to discover Deaf culture, would you let them?

Do not answer those questions with it won't happen either because I have friends who it has happened to. They all have perfectly amazing oral skills and can hear well enough to discriminate and understand speech with their CI's, but when they were about 16 they just stopped using them for one reason or another and by THEIR choice went and discovered their Deaf identities.

So as a parent, in that situation, what would you do?
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PRECISELY the reason my husband and I have given up on AVT (actually never covered our mouths anyway except during therapy once a week). Also why we are getting ready to take the leap and take ASL!

We were so gullible/vulnerable in the beginning.

Jenny, these exact questions/thoughts have been running through my head for quite awhile now. I want my daughter to be HAPPY and well adjusted. As the parent I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that. At least lay the foundation.

I would love to see her thrive with her implants. More importantly, I would love to see her feel comfortable and happy wherever ( the hearing or the deaf world - or BOTH) she may choose to be in the future.

The last thing in the world I would want is to not equip her to make that choice in the future.
 
PRECISELY the reason my husband and I have given up on AVT (actually never covered our mouths anyway except during therapy once a week). Also why we are getting ready to take the leap and take ASL!

We were so gullible/vulnerable in the beginning.

Jenny, these exact questions/thoughts have been running through my head for quite awhile now. I want my daughter to be HAPPY and well adjusted. As the parent I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that. At least lay the foundation.

I would love to see her thrive with her implants. More importantly, I would love to see her feel comfortable and happy wherever ( the hearing or the deaf world - or BOTH) she may choose to be in the future.

The last thing in the world I would want is to not equip her to make that choice in the future.
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EXCELLENT POST!!!! I really do find it ....odd that a lot of the hardcore pro-oralists tend to kind of sweep under the rug emotional social adjustment. They make it sound like oral skills are the magic bullet that will allow dhh kids to magically integrate into the hearing world, including socially and emotionally. The reason why SO many ex oral kids I know speak out, is because we KNOW the social-emotional toll that oral only takes on kids. I mean HOW the hell can you develop good self esteem when you're constantly being criticized/corrected on your speech, yelled at because you're not correctly modulating your voice, made fun of because of your voice, not being understood b/c of your deaf accent (and that happened to ME, and not that long ago either!) etc!
 
oh, and it 's awesome that you've given up AVT! I think it's a good supplementary therapy, but it's too much like therapy 24/7. It seems to be mostly for the types of families who have to get their kids into the RIGHT preschool so they can go to Harvard and become some wall street rich asshole.
 
samanthasmom said:
PRECISELY the reason my husband and I have given up on AVT (actually never covered our mouths anyway except during therapy once a week). Also why we are getting ready to take the leap and take ASL!

We were so gullible/vulnerable in the beginning.

Jenny, these exact questions/thoughts have been running through my head for quite awhile now. I want my daughter to be HAPPY and well adjusted. As the parent I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that. At least lay the foundation.

I would love to see her thrive with her implants. More importantly, I would love to see her feel comfortable and happy wherever ( the hearing or the deaf world - or BOTH) she may choose to be in the future.

The last thing in the world I would want is to not equip her to make that choice in the future.
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:gpost:
 
samanthasmom said:
PRECISELY the reason my husband and I have given up on AVT (actually never covered our mouths anyway except during therapy once a week). Also why we are getting ready to take the leap and take ASL!

We were so gullible/vulnerable in the beginning.

Jenny, these exact questions/thoughts have been running through my head for quite awhile now. I want my daughter to be HAPPY and well adjusted. As the parent I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that. At least lay the foundation.

I would love to see her thrive with her implants. More importantly, I would love to see her feel comfortable and happy wherever ( the hearing or the deaf world - or BOTH) she may choose to be in the future.

The last thing in the world I would want is to not equip her to make that choice in the future.
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Wow. At least I am glad that you and your husband realize that AVT is a waste time for your child. I applaud that you both are willing to use other method of communication... ASL! Not that many hearing parents are willing to learn ASL. :D
 
samanthasmom said:
PRECISELY the reason my husband and I have given up on AVT (actually never covered our mouths anyway except during therapy once a week). Also why we are getting ready to take the leap and take ASL!

We were so gullible/vulnerable in the beginning.

Jenny, these exact questions/thoughts have been running through my head for quite awhile now. I want my daughter to be HAPPY and well adjusted. As the parent I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that. At least lay the foundation.

I would love to see her thrive with her implants. More importantly, I would love to see her feel comfortable and happy wherever ( the hearing or the deaf world - or BOTH) she may choose to be in the future.

The last thing in the world I would want is to not equip her to make that choice in the future.
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I am sorry that u are finding the truth now. That is what Jillo and I, along with a few others fight for...the deaf children's rights to sign language because it is fully accessible to them.

Trust me, u are not the only one who has experienced this so pls dont feel bad. I have seen so many families go thru the same thing in my years of teaching deaf children.

:hug:
 
shel90 said:
I am sorry that u are finding the truth now. That is what Jillo and I, along with a few others fight for...the deaf children's rights to sign language because it is fully accessible to them.

Trust me, u are not the only one who has experienced this so pls dont feel bad. I have seen so many families go thru the same thing in my years of teaching deaf children.

:hug:
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I agree, Shel. Many parents are confused and vunerable when their child is diagnosed with a hearing loss, because they have never encountered deafness before. They think that the professionals they are dealing with truly has their child's best interest at heart, because it is all they have to rely on. Later on, they find out that these so called professionals did not inform them of all their options, and were more interested in promoting their own philosophy than in the child's best interest. Then the parents must deal with guilt feelings on top of everything else, because they feel that they should have known to look farther.

This is not the parents' fault. It is not wrong to assume that a professional will give you all the information you will need. What is wrong is that these professionals are not doing that, and are giving parents a one sided picture and denying them choice in making decisions regarding their own child.

The important thing is that smanthasmom now realizes that the professionals are only giving her a one sided picture, and she has now started to look at all her options. Good for her.
 
rockdrummer said:
Sorry for my ignorance, but what is AVT?
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Auditory Verbal Therapy. Includes techniques that force a deaf child to relay on aided hearing and voice alone, without any visual cues, including speech reading.
 
jillio said:
Auditory Verbal Therapy. Includes techniques that force a deaf child to relay on aided hearing and voice alone, without any visual cues, including speech reading.
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and I do not support it at all..the idea of taking away visual cues is just plain cruel. I cant imagine why would anyone do that to a small child who is in need for language access. It is a screwed up concept.
 
shel90 said:
and I do not support it at all..the idea of taking away visual cues is just plain cruel. I cant imagine why would anyone do that to a small child who is in need for language access. It is a screwed up concept.
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Shel, a question: Isn't AVT, by and large, visual? I don't know but I'm guessing it only (or it should) becomes non-visual for short periods of time wherein the instructor is testing, establishing baseline data, trying to see how far the student has progressed, etc, no?
 
shel90 said:
*gasp!* Really?
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parents will always be under the illusion that ha's and ci's will cure their child's deafness.

It pains a lot of hearing parents that their child is deaf. So much so that they will be denial of the situation. Its not a big deal to be deaf. It is a big deal when the deaf child is denied any access to language.

The results are obvious. Look at a foreigner trying to learn a language. The younger they are when they learn it, the less of an accent they have.

Or how bout this analogy. Teach a hearing person a foreign langauge, while they wear ear plugs. Then dont allow them to use their native language to explain the foriegn langauge. Like "DOS" means two and etc. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible task.

This is whats is like for a deaf person to learn a language that doesnt know sign. Teaching a young child how sign will be more of a benefit than ha's or ci's. But having learned sign and developing that part of the brain, ha's and ci's will be so much more helpfull when they get them.

back on topic. For some reason, even with my ha's I always felt isolated and lonely in school. I hope its not like that with kids with ci's. The isolation and lonelyness is brutal
 
Tousi said:
Shel, a question: Isn't AVT, by and large, visual? I don't know but I'm guessing it only (or it should) becomes non-visual for short periods of time wherein the instructor is testing, establishing baseline data, trying to see how far the student has progressed, etc, no?
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No, it is not. It is the complete dependence on using auditory input to acquire language. Visual cues are removed...I was raised with the other method of oralism..with listening and speechreading (a visual cue). AVT offers no visual cues to help the children fill in the gaps. Not that speechreading is a great way to fill in all the gaps but it is better than nothing.

For adults who already have a strong language foundation and got CIs, AVT would be great for them but for little ones who are in their critical years of language development, I think that is a very very bad idea.
 
Doug5 said:
parents will always be under the illusion that ha's and ci's will cure their child's deafness.

It pains a lot of hearing parents that their child is deaf. So much so that they will be denial of the situation. Its not a big deal to be deaf. It is a big deal when the deaf child is denied any access to language.

The results are obvious. Look at a foreigner trying to learn a language. The younger they are when they learn it, the less of an accent they have.

Or how bout this analogy. Teach a hearing person a foreign langauge, while they wear ear plugs. Then dont allow them to use their native language to explain the foriegn langauge. Like "DOS" means two and etc. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible task.

This is whats is like for a deaf person to learn a language that doesnt know sign. Teaching a young child how sign will be more of a benefit than ha's or ci's. But having learned sign and developing that part of the brain, ha's and ci's will be so much more helpfull when they get them.

back on topic. For some reason, even with my ha's I always felt isolated and lonely in school. I hope its not like that with kids with ci's. The isolation and lonelyness is brutal
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and I have seen proof of that numerous times with our students who start with our programs as infants..they were able to develop oral skills after acquiring a L1 language thru ASL. Not only that, many of my friends IRL who were raised with sign language have pretty decent oral skills.

I believe in using sign language for language acquisition and learning concepts/skills in the educational setting and learing oral skills for communication with those who dont know sign language and a few other situations, depending on the child's skills in speech.
 
Doug5 said:
parents will always be under the illusion that ha's and ci's will cure their child's deafness.

It pains a lot of hearing parents that their child is deaf. So much so that they will be denial of the situation. Its not a big deal to be deaf. It is a big deal when the deaf child is denied any access to language.

The results are obvious. Look at a foreigner trying to learn a language. The younger they are when they learn it, the less of an accent they have.

Or how bout this analogy. Teach a hearing person a foreign langauge, while they wear ear plugs. Then dont allow them to use their native language to explain the foriegn langauge. Like "DOS" means two and etc. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible task.

This is whats is like for a deaf person to learn a language that doesnt know sign. Teaching a young child how sign will be more of a benefit than ha's or ci's. But having learned sign and developing that part of the brain, ha's and ci's will be so much more helpfull when they get them.

back on topic. For some reason, even with my ha's I always felt isolated and lonely in school. I hope its not like that with kids with ci's. The isolation and lonelyness is brutal
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Yes, it is brutal which is why I dont support the idea of mainstreaming deaf children as the only deaf child out of the whole school especially during middle and high schools. Mental health issues are also important to consider.
 
shel90 said:
No, it is not. It is the complete dependence on using auditory input to acquire language. Visual cues are removed...I was raised with the other method of oralism..with listening and speechreading (a visual cue). AVT offers no visual cues to help the children fill in the gaps. Not that speechreading is a great way to fill in all the gaps but it is better than nothing.

For adults who already have a strong language foundation and got CIs, AVT would be great for them but for little ones who are in their critical years of language development, I think that is a very very bad idea.
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I see, well, then what does the "V" in AVT stand for?
 
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