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

[deafskeptic]

There are some deaf children who managed to develop high literacy skills despite being language deprived. You are obviously one of them. You did good!

I'm one of them also. I remember noticing the grammatical errors that my classmates in the first grade made. I knew the the grammar was wrong but I couldn't explain why it was wrong. I've always wondered why some deaf manage to learn the grammatical rules despite language deprivation and others don't.

 

[shel90]

I am happy to hear you all are happy interacting with other people, and many deaf people does pretty well raised orally. But this all makes me feel that oralism really is a detour route to the deaf world.

All 4 of us renuited after being placed in separate stupid mainstreamed schools. We all grew up miserable and wished if they (the experts, parents, and teachers) wanted us to be oral only and be like hearing kids, at least they could have put all 4 of us in the same school for some support system.

At least 2 of us ended up in the same high school together but we didnt hang out much cuz she and I were into different things and didnt have the same classes nor lunch. :roll:

 

[flip]

All 4 of us renuited after being placed in separate stupid mainstreamed schools. We all grew up miserable and wished if they (the experts, parents, and teachers) wanted us to be oral only and be like hearing kids, at least they could have put all 4 of us in the same school for some support system.

At least 2 of us ended up in the same high school together but we didnt hang out much cuz she and I were into different things and didnt have the same classes nor lunch. :roll:

I see that happens today, too, and feel sorry for those children. It's a pity those children are forsaken by their incompetent parents and teachers. The whole thing just gets emberassing when parents keep on bragging how good their own kids are at drivin' that detour route.

It's incredible how many weird excuses that have been popping up the last 80 years to defend this malpractice.

 

[LadySekhmet]

I see that happens today, too, and feel sorry for those children. It's a pity those children are forsaken by their incompetent parents and teachers. The whole thing just gets emberassing when parents keep on bragging how good their own kids are at drivin' that detour route.

It's incredible how many weird excuses that have been popping up the last 80 years to defend this malpractice.

well said.

 

[jillio]

Prove it. Prove to me that being implanted early is the REASON why deaf children can speak very well.

I have very good speaking skills, and many times *I* have to tell people that I'm deaf, and they don't believe me until I show them my hearing aids, and I don't hide it. While I don't have 100% perfect speaking skills, no deaf person does, including your children. Heck, including many many many millions of hearing people. There's accents, there's dialects, there's lip movements (gawd, some are SO hard to understand!), etc. It's not just the DEAF people, but it's hearing people too.

I feel like I have to keep repeating myself...it all come down to EDUCATION! if you have a lousy speech therapy while growing up, you won't speak as well. It's that simple. Place an Asian child in Georgia, the child will have Georgian accent because that's where he grew up. It has nothing to do being deaf or BEING IMPLANTED! Place a deaf child within a Bi-Bi or TC environment WITH amazing speech therapy, you will get a well rounded deaf child that can speak fluently and write in English. Place the SAME child in a deaf institute with poor speech therapy, the child will have poor speaking skills.

While, I agree that being implanted does help with sounds, and probably speed up speech therapy, but it's definitely NOT the reason why they speak so well.
There's a few people that got CI as an adult, and they speak very well...I can name quite a few on this forums.

Thank you. My son has excellent speech skills, and can make himself understood easily. Does he speak perfectly? No. All of the students with CI that I work with have excellent speech skills. All were implanted after age 6. My son is not implanted at alll. The difference is that all of the people I have mentioned have excellent signing skills, as well. I also have a non-traditional student who became deaf at the age of 16. She uses HAs only. Does she have a "deaf voice". Absolutely. Despite the fact that she learned to speak as a hearing child would and was hearing for 16 years of her life.

 

[jillio]

I'm one of them also. I remember noticing the grammatical errors that my classmates in the first grade made. I knew the the grammar was wrong but I couldn't explain why it was wrong. I've always wondered why some deaf manage to learn the grammatical rules despite language deprivation and others don't.

You can observe the same thing in the hearing population. Some pick up on grammar easily, some never get it. Some seem to have an instinctual feel for grammatical rules, some do not.

 

[jillio]

I see that happens today, too, and feel sorry for those children. It's a pity those children are forsaken by their incompetent parents and teachers. The whole thing just gets emberassing when parents keep on bragging how good their own kids are at drivin' that detour route.

It's incredible how many weird excuses that have been popping up the last 80 years to defend this malpractice.

Well said!

 

[skm4441]

Once a Deaf person, or any person, encounters discrimination from the majority over and over again, it makes them give up on trying. They develop the attitude of "Why try? I'll never be able to do any better no matter what I do because they won't give me a chance." Discrimination doesn't jsut prevent people from doing...it prevents them from even wanting to try. The sad part is, it doesn't have anything to do with being deaf. It is the result of the way hearing react to and treat someone who is deaf.

All the deaf people gotta do is say, "You do not know what the hell is the best for me. You do not know me. You do not know how I operate in my daily life. So shut up and give me a chance." Unfortuately, people are either afraid to stand up for themselves, and on the other side, people are afraid to try new things and open their minds.

 

[skm4441]

I think one of the problems to CIs... I am not saying I am against CIs. But I think that sometimes parents do not understand deafness and the culture. They know nothing, so they assume somebody who holds a MD knows everything. So they ask the doctors about the deafness. Most MDs dont know much about deaf culture and its positives/negatives. Nor do they know many deaf people. So the parents of children turn to CIs. The parents think it is a miracle and neglected to tell their children when they get older that they are also hearing impaired. I am not saying that it's the child's fault. It's just that I feel that parents should try harder with all that HUGE access to ALL kinds of information (the Internet) and learn more about deafness and the CIs.

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion so don't bash me!!! This is just something that I saw on "Sound Fury" (I think) where the parents of a girl didn't tell her that she was deaf. But that was history... maybe the girl knows now. Who knows?

 

[rick48]

I think one of the problems to CIs... I am not saying I am against CIs. But I think that sometimes parents do not understand deafness and the culture. They know nothing, so they assume somebody who holds a MD knows everything. So they ask the doctors about the deafness. Most MDs dont know much about deaf culture and its positives/negatives. Nor do they know many deaf people. So the parents of children turn to CIs. The parents think it is a miracle and neglected to tell their children when they get older that they are also hearing impaired. I am not saying that it's the child's fault. It's just that I feel that parents should try harder with all that HUGE access to ALL kinds of information (the Internet) and learn more about deafness and the CIs.

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion so don't bash me!!! This is just something that I saw on "Sound Fury" (I think) where the parents of a girl didn't tell her that she was deaf. But that was history... maybe the girl knows now. Who knows?

Having a ci and considering oneself Deaf or raising a child Deaf are not mutually exclusive. Being a parent of a child with a ci and having been around parents of deaf children for many years I can tell you that your assumptions are erroneous and while there maybe a parent here or there who exhibits one of your assumptions, they are not the norm. My child always knew that she was deaf, always was around deaf adults and other deaf children and we did not rely upon doctors to tell us how to raise our child. I know this may come as a shock to you but did you ever consider the fact that we just consider that being able to hear and to have easier access to sounds and to spoken language is a benefit to our children? If there is technology that exists to allow our children to possibly take advantage of that benefit then we are not going to deny them that opportunity.
Rick
Rick

 

[skm4441]

Notice the disclaimer? I know my message probably wasn't true. But that's just how I feel.

 

[deafdyke]

but the grammar syntax was always wrong in accordance to proper English.

Agreed. ASLers don't generally have great writing expression. HOWEVER, it's a second language issue. It's not exclusive to ASL at ALL! It's like.......a French person trying to express themselves in written English. Or the really early instruction manuals from Japanese technology companies.

I actually meant the difference between these 4-5 year old children's speech was insignificant, or imperceptible. In some cases, the deaf CI kids were well ahead of others their age in their ability to speak clearly and vocabulary because they had been in school for 3 years more than their hearing peers.

Drew's Dad, ancedote is NOT the singular of data! Yes, I don't deny that there are some implanted oral kids who are doing well by ANY definition. However, there have ALWAYS been some kids who do well. That doesn't mean that those kids represent the average implanted kid. Besides, what about demographic and other sociological data that could explain the reason for their sucess? Like was the class in kinda a ritzy suburb where high achievement is the norm?

 

[rick48]

Yes, good point. Even kids who speak pretty well very often have voice clarity issues, tone, pitch and volumne issues.
And rick, the reason for your "ancedotal" data, is simple. You're automaticly exposed to the best of the best. Kids who don't do well orally, their families aren't gonna remain members of AG Bell. How much exposure have you had to bi-bi kids?

Nice try at attempting to discredit my experiences. Funny how you say the experiences of those posters you agree with should be listened to and taken as gospel truth but yet you attempt to discredit the real life experiences of parents such as myself and Drew's Dad because our real life experiences don't fit nicely into your little theory of cochlear implanted kids.

Please do not make assumptions about me as you have no idea the people I know and the families I have met and if you think AGBell is comprised solely of successfull oral kids (which it is not!) then instead of putting it down you ought to add them to your toolbox.

Like a broken record, you attempt to boil every issue down to a social-economic one when in fact, virtually every parent here and on other forums, regardless of what method they chose for their child, will tell you that the overriding factor is parental involvement--a factor that has nothing to do with social-economics but good old fashioned values.

 

[rick48]

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.

Fair enough, I stand corrected its a Bi-bi program. What grade level do you teach and what is the extent of speech classes that the children in your class get? How often a week, how long in duration, is it individual or just a class?

 

[Drew's Dad]

Drew's Dad, ancedote is NOT the singular of data! Yes, I don't deny that there are some implanted oral kids who are doing well by ANY definition. However, there have ALWAYS been some kids who do well. That doesn't mean that those kids represent the average implanted kid. Besides, what about demographic and other sociological data that could explain the reason for their sucess? Like was the class in kinda a ritzy suburb where high achievement is the norm?

I don't believe anything in my posts on this topic indicate that what I described is the norm. That's why I said "some" children and then gave my example. My point is simply that these types of kids exist when others flat out don't believe it.

As far as data about the kids, they were early implantees (about 2 yrs. old because that was the lower limit at that time), some bilaterally. They had all been in an oral deaf educational environment since at least 3, and I believe some since 18 months. All of their parents were able to afford the cost of this school, and most likely very dedicated with the schooling, which was through the Moog School in St. Louis. This is definitely an atmosphere where high achievement is the norm - and what I saw was high achievement.

Again, I did not insinuate that most children with implants will perform in that fashion, but it is clear that many do when they are given the resources that enable them to do so.

 

[jillio]

Having a ci and considering oneself Deaf or raising a child Deaf are not mutually exclusive. Being a parent of a child with a ci and having been around parents of deaf children for many years I can tell you that your assumptions are erroneous and while there maybe a parent here or there who exhibits one of your assumptions, they are not the norm. My child always knew that she was deaf, always was around deaf adults and other deaf children and we did not rely upon doctors to tell us how to raise our child. I know this may come as a shock to you but did you ever consider the fact that we just consider that being able to hear and to have easier access to sounds and to spoken language is a benefit to our children? If there is technology that exists to allow our children to possibly take advantage of that benefit then we are not going to deny them that opportunity.
Rick
Rick

That would be the difference between deaf and Deaf. One is a medicalized viewpoint and one is a socio=cultural viewpoint. One focuses on the deficit, one on the strenghs.

 

[jillio]

Fair enough, I stand corrected its a Bi-bi program. What grade level do you teach and what is the extent of speech classes that the children in your class get? How often a week, how long in duration, is it individual or just a class?

Why is speech class the priority? Shouldn't education be the priorty of an educational program?

 

[jillio]

I don't believe anything in my posts on this topic indicate that what I described is the norm. That's why I said "some" children and then gave my example. My point is simply that these types of kids exist when others flat out don't believe it.

As far as data about the kids, they were early implantees (about 2 yrs. old because that was the lower limit at that time), some bilaterally. They had all been in an oral deaf educational environment since at least 3, and I believe some since 18 months. All of their parents were able to afford the cost of this school, and most likely very dedicated with the schooling, which was through the Moog School in St. Louis. This is definitely an atmosphere where high achievement is the norm - and what I saw was high achievement.

Again, I did not insinuate that most children with implants will perform in that fashion, but it is clear that many do when they are given the resources that enable them to do so.

Agreed. However, there are still those that, even given such advantages, simply aren't capable of performing at that level. These are the kids that are still continuing to suffer language delays so severe that their entire academic careers and social adjustment is affected negatively.

 

[rick48]

That would be the difference between deaf and Deaf. One is a medicalized viewpoint and one is a socio=cultural viewpoint. One focuses on the deficit, one on the strenghs.

Since we never viewed our child as "deficit" in any way, always made certain she is loved and a part of large and loving extended family, and took advantage of the existing technology that has made her life easier your pat little explanation (although it cannot explain the inherent contradiction of Deaf parents who choose cochlear implants for their children), while it may sound trite and trendy in your circles, does not apply to our specific situation.

Please do not even attempt to think that you have any understanding of the decisions we made for our child and the rational behind those decisions for you have no idea.

Sorry, but there is no one way to raise any child, even a deaf child! We view both of our children as unique individuals and raised them accordingly.

 

[rick48]

Why is speech class the priority? Shouldn't education be the priorty of an educational program?

Where did I say speech class was a priority? No where.

Please do not start putting words in my posts that were not there, haven't you learned anything from your recent banning?

Go somewhere else to pick a fight, I am not interested in furthering your agenda.

BTW, the question was directed to Shel, who indicated that her ci student took speech classes, so perhaps you should ask her about her "priorities"?