Peer Relationships of Children With Cochlear Implants

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rockdrummer

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Link to full article: Peer Relationships of Children With Cochlear Implants -- Bat-Chava and Deignan 6 (3): 186 -- The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Empirical Article


Peer Relationships of Children With Cochlear Implants
Yael Bat-Chava and Elizabeth Deignan
League for the Hard of Hearing

Previous research on children with cochlear implants has focused mostly on their speech perception and production. With the growing numbers of children who use the implant, it is important to assess other aspects of these children's functioning. This article offers a qualitative and quantitative analysis of interviews with parents who described their children's communication skills and peer relationships before they had the implant and afterward. Results show that the implant has the potential to improve deaf children's relationships with hearing peers. Nonetheless, children with implants still face communication obstacles, which impede their social relationships with hearing peers. Results are discussed in light of the different points of view of various "stake holders" regarding cochlear implants in children.

e-mail: ybat-chava@lhh.org

Received April 3, 2000; revised December 27, 2000; accepted January 5, 2000
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Thanks Rock drummer! I've read this before and I think parents will find this a good, informative read.
 
Results show that the implant has the potential to improve deaf children's relationships with hearing peers. Nonetheless, children with implants still face communication obstacles, which impede their social relationships with hearing peers.
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Just like as we've seen with kids who are hoh with HAs! History is repeating itself!
 
I found this quote fromt he article quite interesting and wonder if there are any current studies that address the questions below.

As children get older, social relationships become more important (Steinberg, 1999). Deaf children and adolescents whose ability to interact with hearing peers is compromised may become increasingly frustrated. Previous research with prelingually deaf adults found that many of those who grew up orally were frustrated with oral communication (Bat-Chava, 2000; Foster, 1988). In adolescence or early adulthood, some of them learned sign language and became part of the signing deaf community (Bat-Chava, 2000). Many of these people perceived their parents’ insistence on oral communication as harmful to their social relationships and identity development.
It is impossible to know what would have happened to people who were educated in the oral tradition if cochlear implants had been available to them.Would they have found oral communication less frustrating and would not have sought out other deaf people and sign language? Or would they have stopped using their implants, just as the children in Rose et al.’s and Holden- Pitt’s studies did? Until children who are implanted early become old enough to make their own judgment about the implant and tell us about it, we will not know how beneficial the implants are to them.
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This is addressed to the article..

Why is that important? Why do deaf children need to be with only hearing children? What's wrong with meeting other deaf children?

It seems to me that sign language or deaf peers is to be avoided or something?

One thing the article is right...I felt that by forcing me to grow up orally did a lot of emotional harm to me which is why I feel that ASL practically saved my life. If I was still oral today, I would probably be very very unhappy and seriously depressed.
 
rockdrummer said:
I found this quote fromt he article quite interesting and wonder if there are any current studies that address the questions below.
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Rockdrummer,

It would indeed be interesting to see these studies updated as the first wave of children implanted at the then minimum age of 2 are now in college and some just graduated. I think, not surprisingly, the results regarding peer interaction will be tied into the level of oral communication skills. As to frustrations learing oral skills, I would think that the cochlear implant has lessened them. For many of these kids who were implanted at the age of 2 or 3, they really have no experience of a life without the cochlear implant.
Rick
 
~♥~Pinky~♥~ said:
This is old news.
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Correct, the article is old but gathering updated information is what my point is about. Do the frustrations and problems with peer interactions exist for those that have benefited from their CI's. That is the point of my post.
 
rick48 said:
Rockdrummer,

It would indeed be interesting to see these studies updated as the first wave of children implanted at the then minimum age of 2 are now in college and some just graduated. I think, not surprisingly, the results regarding peer interaction will be tied into the level of oral communication skills. As to frustrations learing oral skills, I would think that the cochlear implant has lessened them. For many of these kids who were implanted at the age of 2 or 3, they really have no experience of a life without the cochlear implant.
Rick
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Agreed!
 
shel90 said:
This is addressed to the article..

Why is that important? Why do deaf children need to be with only hearing children? What's wrong with meeting other deaf children?

It seems to me that sign language or deaf peers is to be avoided or something?

One thing the article is right...I felt that by forcing me to grow up orally did a lot of emotional harm to me which is why I feel that ASL practically saved my life. If I was still oral today, I would probably be very very unhappy and seriously depressed.
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Sorry Shel, I am not following you.
What is addressed in the article?
Why is what important?
I am not suggesting that deaf children be only around hearing children. I don't think anybody said it's wrong for deaf children to meet other deaf children. The point of my post is that it would be interesting to see an updated study and if the frustrations and problems with peer interactions still exist with those kids that benefited fromt their CI's and are now grown and can share their experiences.
 
I've read this article before. One of the problems with some of the data collected is that it is based on parental report, not report from the child themselves. That tends to make the data questionable. Also, we have long known that children in the elementary grades have an easier time with peer relationships when mainstreamed. The pproblems begin to become evident at around the 4th or 5th grade, and worsen from there.
 
Rockdrummer,

Why don't you try Pubmed? I did see some abstracts there that addressed self esteem and peer relationships. You can use them to get hold of the full reports if you have journal subcription access. The only thing is I'm not sure if they are only for people raised orally, as some CI users are educated bilingually for example.

Also a while back, I posted a thread about a survey of teenagers with CIs, which is also listed in pubmed and which is available for parents in a plain English format. It was a really interesting read. If you want help finding it send me a PM. These teenagers were a mix of oral and signers if I remember correctly.
 
R2D2 said:
Rockdrummer,

Why don't you try Pubmed? I did see some abstracts there that addressed self esteem and peer relationships. You can use them to get hold of the full reports if you have journal subcription access. The only thing is I'm not sure if they are only for people raised orally, as some CI users are educated bilingually for example.

Also a while back, I posted a thread about a survey of teenagers with CIs, which is also listed in pubmed and which is available for parents in a plain English format. It was a really interesting read. If you want help finding it send me a PM. These teenagers were a mix of oral and signers if I remember correctly.
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I remember this study. And it was a mix of signers and oral.
 
I met an EA the other day who is working in a mainstream class with a boy who is deaf and was implanted at age 12. The doctors told the parents to take away sign langauge and make him speak but he can't understand what he hears and is now behind. He is also miserable at his school as he can't communicate with the other kids on his own.
 
JennyB said:
I met an EA the other day who is working in a mainstream class with a boy who is deaf and was implanted at age 12. The doctors told the parents to take away sign langauge and make him speak but he can't understand what he hears and is now behind. He is also miserable at his school as he can't communicate with the other kids on his own.
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Stories like these is what drives my anger and parents here wonder why I am so angered at the stupid f**&^cing audist.

Come on...STOP with forcing deaf kids to act like hearing kids cuz they ARE NOT hearing! Geez! (not at u, Jenny).

See RD...why study to see how deaf kids with CI interact with hearing kids? Why cant they learn from the past when deaf kids are put in in an all hearing environment day in and day out? Stop experimenting with these kids and just accept that they are deaf and expose all of them to both worlds!
 
shel90 said:
Stories like these is what drives my anger and parents here wonder why I am so angered at the stupid f**&^cing audist.

Come on...STOP with forcing deaf kids to act like hearing kids cuz they ARE NOT hearing! Geez! (not at u, Jenny).

See RD...why study to see how deaf kids with CI interact with hearing kids? Why cant they learn from the past when deaf kids are put in in an all hearing environment day in and day out? Stop experimenting with these kids and just accept that they are deaf and expose all of them to both worlds!
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I agree, I find this one size fits all philosophy to be damaging for everyone.

I spent my summer working as a support worker with a local agency. The agency had very strong no-label, integration/inclusion only, people first language practices. As a result people ignored the fact that I was deaf and wouldn't put a 'label' one me. My coordinators weren't made aware at first and made voice calls to me many times.

Throughout the summer I was in situations that I found to be challenging because my deafness was ignored. Training day I was told it would be a small group and I should be fine without an interpreter. I showed up to find close to 20 people there!

I found it very difficult when they would go on about the monster that segregation is and tried to point out that it isn't always bad. They then asked me "What if you could only have deaf friends?" They just couldn't get it. I want to have friends and be with people like me.

I was the only staff in the agency with any kind of disability and it was a little frustrating fighting with these completely 'typical' people about what a person with a disability may want. Especially when it came to what I wanted. I know what I want, and they can't tell me otherwise. Though they tried at first.
 
JennyB said:
I agree, I find this one size fits all philosophy to be damaging for everyone.

I spent my summer working as a support worker with a local agency. The agency had very strong no-label, integration/inclusion only, people first language practices. As a result people ignored the fact that I was deaf and wouldn't put a 'label' one me. My coordinators weren't made aware at first and made voice calls to me many times.

Throughout the summer I was in situations that I found to be challenging because my deafness was ignored. Training day I was told it would be a small group and I should be fine without an interpreter. I showed up to find close to 20 people there!

I found it very difficult when they would go on about the monster that segregation is and tried to point out that it isn't always bad. They then asked me "What if you could only have deaf friends?" They just couldn't get it. I want to have friends and be with people like me.

I was the only staff in the agency with any kind of disability and it was a little frustrating fighting with these completely 'typical' people about what a person with a disability may want. Especially when it came to what I wanted. I know what I want, and they can't tell me otherwise. Though they tried at first.
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See, right there is what I will never ever understand. Most hearing people are friends with only hearing people so why is it so wrong if some deaf people are friends with only deaf people? So what if people choose to be friends with people like them?

As for children, expose them to all kinds of people whether deaf, blind, immobile, white, black, Chinese, Spanish, and so forth but when they are adults, they have every right to choose who their friends are.

I hate it when hearing people say that deaf children arent good enough for each other. It is ridiculous!
 
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