jillio
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- Jun 14, 2006
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loml said:jillio
If a children have access to complete language there would be ongoing communication and a deaf child would/could be raised similiar to their siblings or friends. If the deaf child has complete access to language within the family unit then the child themselves will tell you what they think.
Granted there are shared experiences amongest deaf people, but to entrust decions for your child to other people because they are deaf, is very strange to me.
I did not entrust the decisions for my child to anyone else. I made my own decisions. But I was only able to make informed because the Deaf community provided me with information that was being withheld by the auditory verbal nazis I came in contact with. It was my experience that the so called experts wanted me to abdicate my decisions to them. They presented an attitude of "We know what's best for your child. Just do what we tell you and don't ask questions."
And yes, I relied on the shared experiences of the Deaf community. Those were the experiences I needed to know about in order to make good decisions. I had never been a deaf child, but the adults in the Deaf community had that experience. They could explain it to me and open my mind to new ways of thinking. As a consequence, my decisions took all points into consideration.
My son is deaf, I am hearing. I could not provide him complete access to language, until I learned sign. Even then, I was learning along with him. Only native signers could give him the same kind of exposure to language that hearing children get from hearing parents on a daily constant basis. I needed the deaf community for that. They are the true experts. What they have to offer does not come out of a book or a classroom. It is life experience, and more valuable than other tools available to hearies who have deaf kids.
And by the way, I have read the research.