Why - Why the Medical Society constantly pressure on the Parents?

[FreeThinker]

FreeThinker - If a child has been provided a fluent and accurate model of language then the child can/does learn that language, visually/auditorialy/kinesthtically and through touch. This holds true for ASL and English via cueing.

What correlations are you referring to? Is the child DOD, CODA, DOH, post lingual, prelingual, aided not aided? What age group are we talking here?

You post is very vague, could you expland more please.

Sorry, for not getting back to you sooner. I was tied up with something. I had to locate the journal article "A Study of the Relationship Between American Sign Language and English Literacy" By Michael Strong of University of California-San Francisco and Philip M. Prinz of San Francisco State University published in Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education - Winter 1997

Here is the link to the article - you need a PDF document reader to open: A Study of the Relationship Between American Sign Language and English Literacy -- Strong and Prinz 2 (1): 37 -- The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Here is the abstract: This article presents the findings of a study of the relationship between American Sign Language (ASL) skills and English literacy among 160 deaf children. Using a specially designed test of ASL to determine three levels of ASL ability, we found that deaf children who attained the higher two levels significantly outperformed children in the lowest ASL ability level in English literacy, regardless of age and IQ; Furthermore, although deaf children with deaf mothers outperformed deaf children of hearing mothers in both ASL and English literacy, when ASL level was held constant, there was no difference between these two groups, except in the lowest
level of ASL ability. The implication of this research is
straightforward and powerful: Deaf children's learning of English appears to benefit from the acquisition of even a moderate fluency in ASL.

Here is the first sentence of the the discussion section of the article - From the analysis and results presented in the previous section, a clear, consistent, and statistically significant relationship between ASL skill and English literacy is evident.

Ok back to your question about who was in the subject pool, They are divided in two groups: 1 group of subjects aged 8-11 years and another group in ages 12-15. Also, divided in categories of child with deaf mother and child with hearing mother. In the child with deaf mother category, 14 subjects aged 8 -11; 26 subjects aged 12-15. In the child with hearing mother, 42 subjects aged 8-11; 73 subjects aged 12-15. There were 40 subjects with deaf mother and 115 subjects with hearing mother altogether.

I hope I have answered your question. The link will lead you to very detailed information including how and what they were tested with. Be careful how you label children pre-lingual or post-lingual. For years in professional research, deaf children often were labeled as either pre-lingual or post-lingual when they are talking about auditory language acquisition. They have neglected the idea of using ASL as a full-fledged language. When a toddler is using ASL, he or she should be labeled as postlingual not prelingual. When this child grows up he or she is able to use his or her first language base (ASL) to learn a second language (English for us).

 

[FreeThinker]

Can I ask what are they comparing these students to? Students with strong and moderate English language skills would score higher on literacy tests than students with weak English language skills.

See post#350

 

[rick48]

I too would like more information about these children. Several that I have met do not sound significantly different than other children their age (implanted no later than 2 years old, at age 5). Others I have met that were implanted several years later than that do sound "different", but you can easily understand every word they say.

I think it is a fact that in successful CI implantations, the access to sound make an obvious and great difference in speech skills.

Me too, as my experience has been quite the opposite. the kids who are implanted early and get good S&L therapy from the start have no such issues and they are certainly understandable. To characterize these kids as "most" and evenually "almost all" having "cartoonish" voices is just not the case.
Rick

 

[rick48]

Drew's school district also currently sends 95% of its students to post-secondary education. I will look but I would guess that there are at least three other suburban, public schools in our city that send over 90%. I could be wrong.

Our SD is consistently above 90% and was at and above the 95% mark for the classes of 03 and 04. The SD where my wife teaches is consistently above 95% and in 2006 it was at 98%! The same year one of our boarding SDs was at 99%! In fact, all of the SDs that boarder on ours are above 95% and two of them are fixtures in the 100 top high schools list.

Additionally, all our local private and Catholic high schools are above the 90% mark.
Rick

 

[rick48]

Sorry, for not getting back to you sooner. I was tied up with something. I had to locate the journal article "A Study of the Relationship Between American Sign Language and English Literacy" By Michael Strong of University of California-San Francisco and Philip M. Prinz of San Francisco State University published in Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education - Winter 1997

Here is the link to the article - you need a PDF document reader to open: A Study of the Relationship Between American Sign Language and English Literacy -- Strong and Prinz 2 (1): 37 -- The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Here is the abstract: This article presents the findings of a study of the relationship between American Sign Language (ASL) skills and English literacy among 160 deaf children. Using a specially designed test of ASL to determine three levels of ASL ability, we found that deaf children who attained the higher two levels significantly outperformed children in the lowest ASL ability level in English literacy, regardless of age and IQ; Furthermore, although deaf children with deaf mothers outperformed deaf children of hearing mothers in both ASL and English literacy, when ASL level was held constant, there was no difference between these two groups, except in the lowest
level of ASL ability. The implication of this research is
straightforward and powerful: Deaf children's learning of English appears to benefit from the acquisition of even a moderate fluency in ASL.

Here is the first sentence of the the discussion section of the article - From the analysis and results presented in the previous section, a clear, consistent, and statistically significant relationship between ASL skill and English literacy is evident.

Ok back to your question about who was in the subject pool, They are divided in two groups: 1 group of subjects aged 8-11 years and another group in ages 12-15. Also, divided in categories of child with deaf mother and child with hearing mother. In the child with deaf mother category, 14 subjects aged 8 -11; 26 subjects aged 12-15. In the child with hearing mother, 42 subjects aged 8-11; 73 subjects aged 12-15. There were 40 subjects with deaf mother and 115 subjects with hearing mother altogether.

I hope I have answered your question. The link will lead you to very detailed information including how and what they were tested with. Be careful how you label children pre-lingual or post-lingual. For years in professional research, deaf children often were labeled as either pre-lingual or post-lingual when they are talking about auditory language acquisition. They have neglected the idea of using ASL as a full-fledged language. When a toddler is using ASL, he or she should be labeled as postlingual not prelingual. When this child grows up he or she is able to use his or her first language base (ASL) to learn a second language (English for us).

Thanks, I will definitely read it.
Rick

 

[jackiesolorzano]

I too would like more information about these children. Several that I have met do not sound significantly different than other children their age (implanted no later than 2 years old, at age 5). Others I have met that were implanted several years later than that do sound "different", but you can easily understand every word they say.

I think it is a fact that in successful CI implantations, the access to sound make an obvious and great difference in speech skills.

I agree with you 100%. The problem is that they give no real information about these CI kids they talk about their speech is not clear. I have met so many CI kids and there are couple that did have not very clear speech but it is because they were implanted after 6 years and that is the key. If you met my kids on the street you would never know that they were deaf since you cannot see their devices.

In the last 2 weeks, I have spent a lot of time at a very good oral school. This school has reverse mainstreaming and everytime I thought I knew who was the deaf and who was the hearing kid, I was wrong.
Again Kalista please provide more info on those kids with CIs. such as time of implant, program they are, and type of parents.

 

[rick48]

The school is TC, not Bi-Bi. Do the teachers sign SEE or PSE? If a teacher is poor at sign language, it can upset the students. It had happened to my class with a new teacher.
Shel90 had pointed out that it is hard for one to talk two languages at the same time as ASL is so different from English. To me, it is little like "pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time".[/QUOTE]


Good analogy! That's what it is like if I try to sign and talk at the same time so I cant imagine trying to do that while teaching complex lessons..it would be like I needed a 3rd arm to pat my butt while patting my head and rubbing my stomach. I just couldnt do it and it wouldnt be fair to the students.

If you are not speaking to your students while teaching them their lessons then how is that a TC program? Where, when and how do students get exposed to spoken language in an academic setting?

 

[shel90]

I agree with you 100%. The problem is that they give no real information about these CI kids they talk about their speech is not clear. I have met so many CI kids and there are couple that did have not very clear speech but it is because they were implanted after 6 years and that is the key. If you met my kids on the street you would never know that they were deaf since you cannot see their devices.

In the last 2 weeks, I have spent a lot of time at a very good oral school. This school has reverse mainstreaming and everytime I thought I knew who was the deaf and who was the hearing kid, I was wrong.
Again Kalista please provide more info on those kids with CIs. such as time of implant, program they are, and type of parents.

Kalista said it was her hearing sons who met them, not her. Besides, even if Kalista met them, she wouldnt know how they sounded cuz she is deaf so I doubt Kalista knows the answers to those people's history with their CIs.

*Kalista..u can correct me if I am wrong*

 

[shel90]

If you are not speaking to your students while teaching them their lessons then how is that a TC program? Where, when and how do students get exposed to spoken language in an academic setting?

Speech classes..

I am surprised by how many people think that teachers who teach using ASL use their voices as well. That is very interesting.

My student has a CI so she goes to speech classes and plus she gets the exposure to spoken language at her home. She has been exposed to the BiBi approach since she was a baby and she can easily use both languages in their communication mode.

I dont teach in a TC program..I teach in a BiBi program.

 

[jillio]

Our SD is consistently above 90% and was at and above the 95% mark for the classes of 03 and 04. The SD where my wife teaches is consistently above 95% and in 2006 it was at 98%! The same year one of our boarding SDs was at 99%! In fact, all of the SDs that boarder on ours are above 95% and two of them are fixtures in the 100 top high schools list.

Additionally, all our local private and Catholic high schools are above the 90% mark.
Rick

I find it odd that everyone is willing to say "my school" but unwilling to state which school that is. Private and parochial schools have historically had more graduates entering post-secondary education than have the public schools.

We also need to keep in mind, when speaking of mainstream placement, that 90% includes hearing students, as well. St. Rtia's statistics apply only to deaf and deaf/multi-disabled students. To compare those stats, and the stats of a public high school would require breaking the public school stats down to include number of deaf students, number of other students with disabilities, and number of hearing, non-disabled students.

 

[jillio]

If you are not speaking to your students while teaching them their lessons then how is that a TC program? Where, when and how do students get exposed to spoken language in an academic setting?

A TC program does not use ASL as the language of instruction. They use English, in spoken and signed form, as the language of instruction. Once can voice and sign one of the manual English systems, or PSE, at the same time because you are using the same syntax. Unfortunately, the kids end up getting poor models of both signed and spoken languages in many cases.

 

[LadySekhmet]

Speech classes..

I am surprised by how many people think that teachers who teach using ASL use their voices as well. That is very interesting.

My student has a CI so she goes to speech classes and plus she gets the exposure to spoken language at her home. She has been exposed to the BiBi approach since she was a baby and she can easily use both languages in their communication mode.

I dont teach in a TC program..I teach in a BiBi program.

I went to a TC school. I had speech therapy 2 or 3 times a week. When I got to 9 to 12 years old, instead of speech therapy I had English by myself. Due to the fact that I was 3 grades ahead of everyone in my class, and spoke very well. (THis is all individual basis, through IEP).

All of my teachers spoke and signed. Not ASL as you would think, but PSE/SEE language. I would think it's harder to speak in English and sign ASL because of the different language syntax.

 

[shel90]

I went to a TC school. I had speech therapy 2 or 3 times a week. When I got to 9 to 12 years old, instead of speech therapy I had English by myself. Due to the fact that I was 3 grades ahead of everyone in my class, and spoke very well. (THis is all individual basis, through IEP).

All of my teachers spoke and signed. Not ASL as you would think, but PSE/SEE language. I would think it's harder to speak in English and sign ASL because of the different language syntax.

I couldnt speak proper English and sign proper ASL at the same time. One language has to change to follow the other language's syntax.

 

[Raykat]

yes correct, my hearing son heard those children who have cochlear implants. Their pronounce sound like Deaf voice. None of accurately pronouce like hearing people's speak. When those Deaf children become older and realize other hearing people do not understand their speak. They removal their hearing aids and cochlear implants. What a waste of their time to learn how to speak? Go through surgerical to put device in their skulls, they do not deserve it. They born as healthy and adorable babies. They did not ask for device in their heads. Why can't they learn ASL and go to Deaf school instead of learn how to speak ... Parents do not want to face the reality into the Deaf World due to ashame. Many parents want their Deaf children hearing normal be like them.

Just for example - children born with brown eyes, take them to the hospital to replacement blue eyes; want their color eyes be like the parents. Same concept Deaf fixed hearing normal like the parents. Obviously, parents do not accept for who they are. *sigh* Cochlear implants are not considering medical reason. Deaf is natural as born. Why can't the parents accept their Deaf children?

All I can say regarding these children who are not understandable to the hearing world is that they probably havent had the time and effort put into their speach therapy. During my younger years only my parents could understand me, now I sometimes have a hard time convincing people I am as deaf as I really am (100db) and this is with one h/a only.


As for the statement regarding changing eye colour, I have never heard such a stupid comparison in all my life. SIGHT is a sense, HEARING is a sense, being born deaf is not natural, it is very often caused by the some illness, either in mother or child so how can that be classed as natural. Yes the parents need to accept their child the way it is but that does not preclude trying to remedy, in any way possible, any one of the natural five senses.

 

[jillio]

I went to a TC school. I had speech therapy 2 or 3 times a week. When I got to 9 to 12 years old, instead of speech therapy I had English by myself. Due to the fact that I was 3 grades ahead of everyone in my class, and spoke very well. (THis is all individual basis, through IEP).

All of my teachers spoke and signed. Not ASL as you would think, but PSE/SEE language. I would think it's harder to speak in English and sign ASL because of the different language syntax.

Bingo!

 

[shel90]

[/B]

All I can say regarding these children who are not understandable to the hearing world is that they probably havent had the time and effort put into their speach therapy. During my younger years only my parents could understand me, now I sometimes have a hard time convincing people I am as deaf as I really am (100db) and this is with one h/a only.


As for the statement regarding changing eye colour, I have never heard such a stupid comparison in all my life. SIGHT is a sense, HEARING is a sense, being born deaf is not natural, it is very often caused by the some illness, either in mother or child so how can that be classed as natural. Yes the parents need to accept their child the way it is but that does not preclude trying to remedy, in any way possible, any one of the natural five senses.

Maybe for some children, that is the case but for others, no matter how much time and effort is spent on speech therapy, they simply just cannot develop clear oral skills. My deaf brother was one of them.

 

[LadySekhmet]

A TC program does not use ASL as the language of instruction. They use English, in spoken and signed form, as the language of instruction. Once can voice and sign one of the manual English systems, or PSE, at the same time because you are using the same syntax. Unfortunately, the kids end up getting poor models of both signed and spoken languages in many cases.

I agree with you. Since I was raised in a TC school, I can see that either the students have poor spoken English skills, or poor signing skills.

For me, I would say that I'm lucky because I have both good sign language skills (while my signing skills is more English focused), and excellent spoken language. Many of the students I know are weak in one area, or both. All my classmates graduated from college, they all spoke and signed. Many of the older students that I know are very smart. There's very few that has poor spoken English, but still very good written English and signed English. Quite a few of them have masters. One is a Dentist. The younger students that I know, went to the SAME school...have poor spoken English and poor written English (NOT ALL, but more than my class and older classmates).

It makes me think that it's the teachers. Many of the teachers I had were there for a long time then they left when the younger students were supposed to be in their class. Some teachers went to the HS Deaf program. So, it makes me wonder about the Education that they're getting from the "good" teachers.

Now, when I went back there recently....more than half of the young students have CI, and the teachers don't bother signing with the students. I find that very sad and offending because this is supposed to be a TC school, not oral. The students have wonderful spoken English, and written, but poor signing skills.

There's always changes in everything, so you cannot expect that one method is perfect. For me, TC was perfect in my situation as I had best of both worlds.

 

[Raykat]

Shel....I think it was in your post a few pages back that you mentioned the much lower reading level of many deaf children. I am at loss to understand why this should be the case. In my experience, reading was the main source of information and education for me growing up. My nightly routine during my teens was to retire to bed with a huge bowl of icecream and a book. Nothing equals the pleasure of a well written book, a nice turn of phrase, as the saying goes. I must say I struggle on here to understand the posts of those whose first language is ASL as the grammar and sentence structure is so different to written English. This is not a criticism, just a stated fact.

Can you give me some understanding as to why the reading levels should be so low, when I would have thought they would be much higher owing to the dependence of the deaf on the written word. Are the literacy levels also going down for the general population, as is the case here in NZ.

 

[shel90]

I agree with you. Since I was raised in a TC school, I can see that either the students have poor spoken English skills, or poor signing skills.

For me, I would say that I'm lucky because I have both good sign language skills (while my signing skills is more English focused), and excellent spoken language. Many of the students I know are weak in one area, or both. All my classmates graduated from college, they all spoke and signed. Many of the older students that I know are very smart. There's very few that has poor spoken English, but still very good written English and signed English. Quite a few of them have masters. One is a Dentist. The younger students that I know, went to the SAME school...have poor spoken English and poor written English (NOT ALL, but more than my class and older classmates).

It makes me think that it's the teachers. Many of the teachers I had were there for a long time then they left when the younger students were supposed to be in their class. Some teachers went to the HS Deaf program. So, it makes me wonder about the Education that they're getting from the "good" teachers.

Now, when I went back there recently....more than half of the young students have CI, and the teachers don't bother signing with the students. I find that very sad and offending because this is supposed to be a TC school, not oral. The students have wonderful spoken English, and written, but poor signing skills.

There's always changes in everything, so you cannot expect that one method is perfect. For me, TC was perfect in my situation as I had best of both worlds.

Curious..are all of the teachers there hearing? Any deaf teachers there at that school?

 

[jillio]

I agree with you. Since I was raised in a TC school, I can see that either the students have poor spoken English skills, or poor signing skills.

For me, I would say that I'm lucky because I have both good sign language skills (while my signing skills is more English focused), and excellent spoken language. Many of the students I know are weak in one area, or both. All my classmates graduated from college, they all spoke and signed. Many of the older students that I know are very smart. There's very few that has poor spoken English, but still very good written English and signed English. Quite a few of them have masters. One is a Dentist. The younger students that I know, went to the SAME school...have poor spoken English and poor written English (NOT ALL, but more than my class and older classmates).

It makes me think that it's the teachers. Many of the teachers I had were there for a long time then they left when the younger students were supposed to be in their class. Some teachers went to the HS Deaf program. So, it makes me wonder about the Education that they're getting from the "good" teachers.

Now, when I went back there recently....more than half of the young students have CI, and the teachers don't bother signing with the students. I find that very sad and offending because this is supposed to be a TC school, not oral. The students have wonderful spoken English, and written, but poor signing skills.

There's always changes in everything, so you cannot expect that one method is perfect. For me, TC was perfect in my situation as I had best of both worlds.

My son, as well, was educated in a TC environment, because if I wanted a signing environment for him it had to be TC. There were no bi-bi programs available at that time. I tried to combine his TC educational environment with a bi-bi home environment where ASL and English were kept separate. We used ASL for communication purposes, and English in written form through print and CC, and occasionally, through speech.