Should ASL be Banned from Deaf Ed programs?

[Cheri]

First of all, the question was not addressed to you. It was directed at a specific comment in the post to which I replied..

This is a public board anyone can reply to your post, isn't that what you said to me too? Hypocrite.

 

[AlleyCat]

This is a public board anyone can reply to your post, isn't that what you said to me too? Hypocrite.

 

[jillio]

This is a public board anyone can reply to your post, isn't that what you said to me too? Hypocrite.

Oh, that's great, Cheri. You can respond to posts directed to other people just to give yourself an opportunity to engage in juvenile name calling, but you can't manage to respond to direct questions that have been addressed to you.:roll:

 

[jillio]

Perhaps you would like to respond to the question in post 279.

 

[AlleyCat]

Perhaps you would like to respond to the question in post 279.

Post 279? I have not added anything to my posts regarding literacy rates and overall functioning rates because I don't look at statistics, like you do. My posts are directly about first-hand experience, and about my belief (as I've stated many times already) that what applies to a group (statistics-wise) does not necessarily apply for an individual. Have you forgotten that each deaf child is an individual and needs their own individual plan to help them succeed? While I am not, in any way whatsoever, promoting that a parent have their child be sign-only (or vice versa, e.g. oral-only,) maybe for that child it was what worked best. Statistics and rates do not tell all.

 

[sirena rossa]

And what is it you are armed with, my dear? I'd like to see evidence of you being armed with anything valid.

what am i armed with? EXPERIENCE! my LIFE. my own deafness. and observations of myself, my therapist, my family and my friends (both deaf and hearing). everything I have been posting. this is all valid!
if u are insinuating that this isn't valid, i find that very offensive.

when someone shares a personal experience of theirs, and u throw facts in their faces that's contradictory, its hard to not take it personally. and that is why i (and probably quite a few others on here, not that i'm trying to speak for others) feel insulted.

 

[AlleyCat]

what am i armed with? EXPERIENCE! my LIFE. my own deafness. and observations of myself, my therapist, my family and my friends (both deaf and hearing). everything I have been posting. this is all valid!
if u are insinuating that this isn't valid, i find that very offensive.

when someone shares a personal experience of theirs, and u throw facts in their faces that's contradictory, its hard to not take it personally. and that is why i (and probably quite a few others on here, not that i'm trying to speak for others) feel insulted.

 

[sirena rossa]

More absurdity in an attempt to deflect. Your bra size has virtually nothing to do with the fact that deaf children are being undereducated.

Yet u just compared deafness to cancer in an earlier post. cancer too, has virtually nothing to with deafness.

 

[jillio]

Post 279? I have not added anything to my posts regarding literacy rates and overall functioning rates because I don't look at statistics, like you do. My posts are directly about first-hand experience, and about my belief (as I've stated many times already) that what applies to a group (statistics-wise) does not necessarily apply for an individual. Have you forgotten that each deaf child is an individual and needs their own individual plan to help them succeed? While I am not, in any way whatsoever, promoting that a parent have their child be sign-only (or vice versa, e.g. oral-only,) maybe for that child it was what worked best. Statistics and rates do not tell all.

I see. So in a discussion of whether ASL should be banned in education, you cannot discuss education of deaf children?

Deaf children are educated as a group. That is what you are failing to recognize. Hearing children, as well, are educated as a group. Policy is set accordingly. Hearing children are no less individuals than deaf children are, but we don't set educational policy for hearing children based on the experience of little Johhnie. We set policy based on what has been shown top be effective for the group. The same happens in deaf education. So while stories about little Johnnies individuality might make for entertaining anecdote, they do absolutely nothing to correct the widespread deficiencies in the education of deaf children as a population.

 

[jillio]

what am i armed with? EXPERIENCE! my LIFE. my own deafness. and observations of myself, my therapist, my family and my friends (both deaf and hearing). everything I have been posting. this is all valid!
if u are insinuating that this isn't valid, i find that very offensive.

when someone shares a personal experience of theirs, and u throw facts in their faces that's contradictory, its hard to not take it personally. and that is why i (and probably quite a few others on here, not that i'm trying to speak for others) feel insulted.

And that is applicable to you only. It is valid to you. It is not valid when discussing educational policies for deaf children as a whole. Unless, of course, you can extrapolate your experience to the whole population. That cannot be done unless your experience mirrors the experience of the majority in the population. Unfortunately, it doesn't. It would certainly be much easier if all we had to do was force oral language on the deaf population in order to increase academic functioning. We've tried it. It didn't work. So just because it works for one individual is no indication that we should adopt that policy for the majority. We tried it. As a result, deaf children are woefully undereducated as a population, and are woefully uinprepared, as a result of that undereduction, to live their lives as productively and successfully as their innate capabilities would determine.

 

[Cheri]

Oh, that's great, Cheri. You can respond to posts directed to other people just to give yourself an opportunity to engage in juvenile name calling, but you can't manage to respond to direct questions that have been addressed to you.:roll:

 

[jillio]

Yet u just compared deafness to cancer in an earlier post. cancer too, has virtually nothing to with deafness.

You need to go back and read the post. I did not compare cancer to deafness. I compared the decision to accept that treatment which has been shown to benefit the majority over that which has been shown to benefit a singular individual with adopting the oral only policy that has been shown to benefit a few with the all inclusive approach that has been shown to benefit the majority. It was a comparison of choice, not a comparison of deafness and hearing. :roll:

 

[jillio]

Post 279. Direct question to you regarding the topic. You failed to answer it.

 

[sirena rossa]

How about first-hand experience? That's something you do not have, you have to take excerpts from research and second-hand experience in what you saw/experienced through your son. Don't knock us for firmly believing in what we can do, see, and experience because we've been there and done that, our very personal selves. You can't say that for yourself. In these past several pages, many of us deaf people have made excellent and valid points that you simply just cannot refute, statistics or not (and you will try, I know, but you will not succeed.)

 

[jillio]

You have still failed to understand that singular experience is not valid for setting educational policy for the group. Step outside yourself.

 

[Daredevel7]

You have still failed to understand that singular experience is not valid for setting educational policy for the group. Step outside yourself.

Here is my problem with statistics. You don't get the FULL picture when you do statistics, you do when you listen to someone with one on one experience. For example, let's say you start an extensive study/poll in a deaf university and you ask them the usual "What method, what age did you develop literacy skills, what age did you develop speech skills, on a scale of 1-10 are you happy with the method?"


You come up with the conclusion: "Bi-Bi environment shows the best success rate for the deaf who have obtained college level education"

You forgot to do one thing. You forgot to ask the deaf people OUTSIDE of the college. You forgot those who didn't have the developmental skills to go to college. You forgot those who didn't go to a deaf school.

I prefer a handful of full experiences over statistics that can be interpreted in different ways and/or forgot to account for everything.

 

[loml]

This is a public board anyone can reply to your post, isn't that what you said to me too? Hypocrite.

 

[Angel]

You remark concerning Shel and I is totally uncalled for..

Alleycat already acknowledged her mistake and she apologized, but was it really neccessary to start flaming her for it? I think not.

 

[jillio]

Here is my problem with statistics. You don't get the FULL picture when you do statistics, you do when you listen to someone with one on one experience. For example, let's say you start an extensive study/poll in a deaf university and you ask them the usual "What method, what age did you develop literacy skills, what age did you develop speech skills, on a scale of 1-10 are you happy with the method?"


You come up with the conclusion: "Bi-Bi environment shows the best success rate for the deaf who have obtained college level education"

You forgot to do one thing. You forgot to ask the deaf people OUTSIDE of the college. You forgot those who didn't have the developmental skills to go to college. You forgot those who didn't go to a deaf school.

I prefer a handful of full experiences over statistics that can be interpreted in different ways and/or forgot to account for everything.

Here is the problem with your logic.

Listening to singular anecdote provides you with nothing more than what has occurred in that singular situation.

Data collected from a randomly selected, randomly assigned group of participants provides data that parrallels the population as a whole of the particular group being studied.

In other words, the experience of one versus the experience of many that represent the population as a whole.

Extraneous variables are not controlled for in anecdotal experience. Extraneous variables are controlled for when data is collected from a representative sample. Therefore, one cannot reasonably say that the variable under scrutiny is responsible for the results seen in the individual anecdote, but one can say, within a reasonable and significant margin, that the varible under scrutiny is responsible for the results seen using a representative sample.

And, in a representative sample, deaf individuals of both gender, varied ages, and various educational levels are utilized to obtain a representative sample.

However, in anecdotal, singular experience, you have the demographics of only one. Therefore, you cannot exptrapolate any findings to any other demographics. It is true for than individual only, and cannot be said to be true for anyone that falls in any way outside that individual's gender, eductional level, communicative experience, family experience, or immediate environment.

It is tatamount to saying, "This one individual had a life threatening reaction to penicillin, therefore, penicllin is bad." When the cummulative evidence shows that, for the vast majority of people who have an infection that is readily treated with peniciliin, it has indeed proved to be a life saving medication. The fact is, while penicillin may have been bad for that one individual, in in no way negates the tremendous benefits it has provided to the population as a whole.

Oral education certainly has its success stories. However, in proportion, it has had far more failures. Penicillin has had its failures, However, it has had far more success stories. Do we deny those that can benefit from penicillin its cure based on the evidence of what happened to the individual? I think not. Do we deny the majority of deaf children the benefits of a bilingual-bicultural environment based on the fact that a few have succeeded without it? I think not. Particularly when those who have been prevented from living up to their potential far outnumber those who have not.

 

[jillio]

Alleycat already acknowledged her mistake and she apologized, but was it really neccessary to start flaming her for it? I think not.

She apologized to shel. Long after I read the post in question. It was not flaming. It was defense.

Would you care to comment on the topic?