Sound and Fury

faire_jour said:
Really? I have never met a parent who says that "I will make my child wear their the CI everyday until they turn 18, even if they beg me to stop". Every parent I talk to says that if the child wants to learn to sign, they will be fine.

Oh, and I am one of those parents who "forced" my child to get a CI.
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We know that and people only have to go read your blog to know you are now changing schools to go the oral route.
 
shel90 said:
U said learning to hear and speak...
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Yes I did. The ability to hear is linked with learn to speak with ease. Kids who hear well generally learn to speak easier and with less intervention (ie therapy) than those who hear less well. Therefore by choicing to not give your child a device to help them hear better you are closing the door to easier spoken language acqusition.
 
faire_jour said:
Yes I did. The ability to hear is linked with learn to speak with ease. Kids who hear well generally learn to speak easier and with less intervention (ie therapy) than those who hear less well. Therefore by choicing to not give your child a device to help them hear better you are closing the door to easier spoken language acqusition.
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Backpedaling. And shouldn't you change your title since you obviously could not bear to leave us?:lol:
 
Bottesini said:
Backpedaling. And shouldn't you change your title since you obviously could not bear to leave us?:lol:
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Not back pedaling simply explaining for the obviously ignorant. And no, because I'm sure I'll be gone again very soon. I simply came here to help another parent.
 
faire_jour said:
Yes I did. The ability to hear is linked with learn to speak with ease. Kids who hear well generally learn to speak easier and with less intervention (ie therapy) than those who hear less well. Therefore by choicing to not give your child a device to help them hear better you are closing the door to easier spoken language acqusition.
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:hmm:
 
To be honest, I can see both sides of the issue. My twin daughters were born 10 weeks premature. One of them has a foot that turns in as the result of possible mild cerebral palsey. Once we had exhausted all of the exercises that we told to do with her, we were told that the only option left to us was to have her leg surgically turned below the knee. In other words, cutting the leg bones below the knee and turning them to straighten her lower leg. By this time, she was nine or ten years old. My husband and I discussed it and decided that it was entirely too invasive a surgery for us to make for her at that time. It would have required a significant amount of recovery time and the end result really wouldn't make a huge difference in the long run. We did discuss it with her and told her that if she wanted the surgery, that we would go through with it, but that we felt she should wait. Wait she did and even though her foot still turns in at the age of 21, it isn't a really big deal. She may not be the fleetest of foot in a foot race, but on the other hand, is that a major deal.
 
faire_jour said:
Not back pedaling simply explaining for the obviously ignorant. And no, because I'm sure I'll be gone again very soon. I simply came here to help another parent.
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Your call..
 
dorothy5664 said:
To be honest, I can see both sides of the issue. My twin daughters were born 10 weeks premature. One of them has a foot that turns in as the result of possible mild cerebral palsey. Once we had exhausted all of the exercises that we told to do with her, we were told that the only option left to us was to have her leg surgically turned below the knee. In other words, cutting the leg bones below the knee and turning them to straighten her lower leg. By this time, she was nine or ten years old. My husband and I discussed it and decided that it was entirely too invasive a surgery for us to make for her at that time. It would have required a significant amount of recovery time and the end result really wouldn't make a huge difference in the long run. We did discuss it with her and told her that if she wanted the surgery, that we would go through with it, but that we felt she should wait. Wait she did and even though her foot still turns in at the age of 21, it isn't a really big deal. She may not be the fleetest of foot in a foot race, but on the other hand, is that a major deal.
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That's very interesting! Thanks for sharing!

Yea, there are always two sides to everything.
 
shel90 said:
Who is raised in an only ASL environment? Never met a person who was raised that way.
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There were a lot of deaf classmates that I grew up with that were like this. They were raised with only ASL. Even though the schools that they went to were mainstreamed, they spent 90% of their class time in deaf education classes. Their teachers would do half of their homework for them. They were given easy grades. Even if they failed, they were given passing grades.

The same with a lot of students at NTID. They say that ASL is the "deaf way" and that everyone else should allow them to use ASL when doing homework. What they don't realize is that America uses the English-based system. ASL is just another language, like every other foreign language. If a Spanish-speaking person has to learn English to get through school, then a deaf person who uses ASL should learn English to get through school as well.

Deaf people are asking to be treated as equal to hearing people. Well, they should learn English.
 
VamPyroX said:
There were a lot of deaf classmates that I grew up with that were like this. They were raised with only ASL. Even though the schools that they went to were mainstreamed, they spent 90% of their class time in deaf education classes. Their teachers would do half of their homework for them. They were given easy grades. Even if they failed, they were given passing grades.

The same with a lot of students at NTID. They say that ASL is the "deaf way" and that everyone else should allow them to use ASL when doing homework. What they don't realize is that America uses the English-based system. ASL is just another language, like every other foreign language. If a Spanish-speaking person has to learn English to get through school, then a deaf person who uses ASL should learn English to get through school as well.

Deaf people are asking to be treated as equal to hearing people. Well, they should learn English.
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I cant imagine a school never teaching English to any deaf child but nowadays all deaf schools and deaf programs teach English. It is the law. I dont know what happened 30 years ago but every deaf person I know who went to deaf schools or programs were taught to read and write English.

Most of the time those who werent able to master English were semilingual without a strong first language. A school and teachers can do all they can but if a child doesnt have a strong first language, mastering English will probably never happen. I wonder if that's what happened with those deaf people u meet cuz I cant imagine for the life of me a school not allowing deaf children be exposed to English.
 
In the grand scheme of things, I don't think that oral language should be pushed on a Deaf Student to the exclusion of ASL. The general population of American society needs to recognize the fact that ASL is the most comfortable language for conversing for Deaf People. However, learning proper written English grammar, syntax, spelling, etc. is also important for Deaf Children in order for them to be successful adults, able to obtain equal positions with those in the hearing community. Right or wrong, I am sure poor grammar, spelling skills, etc. have kept some very highly qualified Deaf applicants from obtaining positions they were fully capable of fulfilling.
 
I am the mother of the baby, Peter in the movie. The follow up does not feature my son at all- not because he's a "failure", but because he's older and has a twin brother and we didn't want him on camera again. If you have any questions, you a contact me.
 
Doubletrouble,

Thank you so much for chiming in. I have not seen the follow-up, so have no input of any kind in regards to that. One aspect that I was not aware of when I saw the original documentary was how long ago it had been taped. I am sure that with time there has been changes in opinions across the board regarding CI's. If you don't mind my asking (and please feel free to tell me to mind my own business), have your parents' opinions of your decision changed since Peter's implant? As Peter grows, are there any alterations/adaptations that need to be made to his CI?

Again, thank you for offering to answer questions.
 
That's a loaded question: til the day my mother died, she was against the implant. She really resented my son and did everything possible to point out to him how different he was. My dad, on the other hand, really came around. He truly has seen the benefits of the implant and is extremely proud of how well Peter is doing with them. Peter and my dad are extremely close and I couldn't ask for anything more. Peter knows that he is deaf- but it doesn't define who he is . He's very comfortable in his own skin - of which I am so very proud of. Peter was bi-laterally implanted in kindergarten and really has done well. He's in a mainstream program and reads above grade level (he's in fifth grade currently) and is in the top of his class. the others in the family have subsequently gotten implanted and are doing quite well.

He's been upgraded to the Freedom implants and he has had a failure regarding on implant. We told him if he didn't want to be reimplanted, we would support his decision (he's 11 after all). He said no- he wanted to hear out of both ears- and so he was recently operated and turned on. He's bouncing back quite nicely.
 
I am sorry to hear about the loss of your mother, but am glad to hear how well Peter and your dad's relationship has flourished.

I don't know if you read my earlier post that I also have twins (girls), so I do understand the added difficulty that can add to decisions. People would often ask me what did it matter if they were identical or not. I would explain that identical twins are perfect matches when considering organ donations. They were like, wow, you're so lucky that they have each other as resources if something should happen. I just said that I hoped that I would never be forced as a parent to make that decision. A lot of people couldn't understand what I meant. I would have to explain that if something like that ever happened, I prayed they were old enough to make the decision on their own.
 
Well then, you can totally appreciate this- we wound up having another set of twins 2 years later- but this time they were identicial. So I did have 4 in diapers all at once! Lucky me! :)....
 
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