Your opinion on speech?

HOH2000 said:
Wow! I didn't expect there'd be a lot of answers to this thread! :D

I agree that DHH should be exposed to speech AND sign. Both are useful and important in my opinion. I do wish my parents encouraged asl along with speech. but you can't have everything you want. I do appreciate speech therapy but sometimes it can be a pain. I have speech once a week at a hearing services center and twice a week at school. Three hours a week of reading books out loud, repeating words and sentences, practicing s and z and x and th sounds, trying to lay off extra syllables at the end of my words (for example, I'd pronounce dinner as dinner-ah), etc. I also have to practice my listening skills (watching videos without closed captioning and having a conversation with a person nine feet away in noise). Really tiring!

If I had a deaf or HOH child, I'd teach him or her asl, and encourage speech therapy, but he or she doesn't want to, I'd back off and agree. There's nothing wrong with not speaking verbally or speaking verbally along with knowing and using ASL. At my public school, there are 5 asl-speaking students I sign to, and at home, I speak verbally to my family (I consider signing as talking) and sometimes I'd sign to them without even realizing it. :P

By the way, my audiologist and speech therapist are fluent in asl.
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My dad was born in Russia and they don't have 'TH' in their alphabet
and dad use to give me 'speech lessons ' . He would tell me to count
to '3' . Dad would say " one two tree!" then have me say it and
When I repeated him one two tree!" Dad would say "Good girl!"
My oldest and ex brother would be :laugh2: in the doorway .
To this day I have a real hard time saying 'TH'. I was getting gas and when
inside to pay and said I was at pump 'tree' and the guy said "PUMP TREE?" I said yeah pump tree !
 
HOH2000 said:
Wow! I didn't expect there'd be a lot of answers to this thread! :D

I agree that DHH should be exposed to speech AND sign. Both are useful and important in my opinion. I do wish my parents encouraged asl along with speech. but you can't have everything you want. I do appreciate speech therapy but sometimes it can be a pain. I have speech once a week at a hearing services center and twice a week at school. Three hours a week of reading books out loud, repeating words and sentences, practicing s and z and x and th sounds, trying to lay off extra syllables at the end of my words (for example, I'd pronounce dinner as dinner-ah), etc. I also have to practice my listening skills (watching videos without closed captioning and having a conversation with a person nine feet away in noise). Really tiring!

If I had a deaf or HOH child, I'd teach him or her asl, and encourage speech therapy, but he or she doesn't want to, I'd back off and agree. There's nothing wrong with not speaking verbally or speaking verbally along with knowing and using ASL. At my public school, there are 5 asl-speaking students I sign to, and at home, I speak verbally to my family (I consider signing as talking) and sometimes I'd sign to them without even realizing it. :P

By the way, my audiologist and speech therapist are fluent in asl.
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If you have a dhh child, you should rethink that position.

I do know adults who have regrets that their parents let them make the decision at a young age not to continue speech.

When they grow up, that's a better time for them to decide to be voice off.
 
Bottesini said:
If you have a dhh child, you should rethink that position.

I do know adults who have regrets that their parents let them make the decision at a young age not to continue speech.

When they grow up, that's a better time for them to decide to be voice off.
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I think she means be child centered and to have speech therapy as more of a supplement, rather then as an "auditory verbal" "gotta make every single waking hour a Spoken Language Enrichment Oppertunity" approach.
I think that a kid should have speech until they are at least seven or eight and then there needs to be a conference, with the kid, the parents and the service providers over dropping speech. Parents need to have a realistic view of what speech can and can't accomplish. Many parents seem to think that speech therapy will produce a kid with absolutly perfect "like hearing speech." .....and you must admit that articulation therapy can be REALLY boring!
 
BTW, I know a parent who sends her kid to a Total Communication program for 4 days a week, and then on the 5th day her kid attends the John Tracy Preschool program.
I know of some kids who attended the main Clarke campus for elementary school and who then transfered to TLC.
Besides, I thought almost all dhh kids, including those who attend Schools and programs for the Deaf, already get a very hefty dose of speech and spoken language intervention.
 
IMO, I agree with Grummer, ideally oralism should never be enforced. It should be a choice. However, I also feel it necessary that a dhh child should be given access to the written counterpart of a spoken language, in order to communicate with ease to non-signers. I agree with Shel90, the oral only approach is wrong and very damaging. Being raised oral and 'hearing' without access to sign language or having sign language as my primary communication, has left me growing up being someone I wasn't. Did I do well, yes Am I successful in my achievements, ýes. But I was continuously frustrated and needing to withdraw at every opportunity. Why? Speech for a dhh person isn't something you learn and then its over and complete, course finished, like a hearing person. Speech therapy for a dhh person, is hard work (even for those who are told they sound just like a hearing person, or that they speak well). The hard work and effort never ends. Im living proof of that.

I tried for 7 years to get my family to accept my preferrance to go 'voice off' and use Auslan as my primary language, and for them to take up using sign with me. My whole family are Hearing, I am the only one D/deaf. Not using speech and primarily signing is my preferred choice as an adult. However, is that entirely fair on my loved ones who have only ever, until 7 years ago, known me to use speech? It has taken me some real soul-searching and 'trial and error' to find some form of middle ground especially for my family. Yes, I will continue to use speech for my family's sake but I will choose when and how much. Also, many thanks to modern technology, there is not as much need for verbal communication nowadays as it was back when I was growing up.

In saying this, My staunch stance on 'Down with Audism' is more so than ever before. A dhh child and adult should have full access to sign language as a human right. Then it truly does become their own choice.
 
Also, many thanks to modern technology, there is not as much need for verbal communication nowadays as it was back when I was growing up.
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Tooooo true. Once EMail and IM programs came on the scene I jumped on those so fast my head spun. My father adapted pretty well and started to understand that I preferred those over the telephone (before cell phones and texting). It took a long while for both my mother and my aunt to let go of the voice phone with me lol. Now? None of my family KNOWS to not call me via voice phone but rather to text (or in the case of my aunt- email- still working with her on texting).

Some in my family now know a little sign. Sister uses it a bit more now (she took a class in college). Parents- its a little harder for them- they're older and aging bodies/hands aren't flexible as they once were lol- but they try.
 
DeafDucky said:
Tooooo true. Once EMail and IM programs came on the scene I jumped on those so fast my head spun. My father adapted pretty well and started to understand that I preferred those over the telephone (before cell phones and texting). It took a long while for both my mother and my aunt to let go of the voice phone with me lol. Now? None of my family KNOWS to not call me via voice phone but rather to text (or in the case of my aunt- email- still working with her on texting).

Some in my family now know a little sign. Sister uses it a bit more now (she took a class in college). Parents- its a little harder for them- they're older and aging bodies/hands aren't flexible as they once were lol- but they try.
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Remember also, that modern video technology and media has also made positive breakthroughs and milestones for sign language as well.
 
Interesting topic. I don't think that speech has anything to do with Deaf culture. My parents were tough, I had to go through a LOT of speech therapy and as a child I absolutely hated it. Now I'm grateful because there are many situations where it comes in handy. Nevertheless I prefer sign language, because I don't have to put the afford into it. Since signing is a huge part of the Deaf culture as in being its only language, I think the signing skills have more an influence. It is more ones behavior towards speech then their capability (I don't like the word right there but I'm in lack of a more accurate description).

I think with a deaf kid I would try to make him or her feel comfortable about using his or her voice and encourage them to do speech therapy, but never would I force my kids. There are soooo many more important thinks in the world.


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Latascha said:
Interesting topic. I don't think that speech has anything to do with Deaf culture. My parents were tough, I had to go through a LOT of speech therapy and as a child I absolutely hated it. Now I'm grateful because there are many situations where it comes in handy. Nevertheless I prefer sign language, because I don't have to put the afford into it. Since signing is a huge part of the Deaf culture as in being its only language, I think the signing skills have more an influence. It is more ones behavior towards speech then their capability (I don't like the word right there but I'm in lack of a more accurate description).

I think with a deaf kid I would try to make him or her feel comfortable about using his or her voice and encourage them to do speech therapy, but never would I force my kids. There are soooo many more important thinks in the world.


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Really? What about oral deaf schools? (even thou most of the "schools" are preschools and not graded set ups, a la Clarke, DePaul, CID, Sunshine Cottage etc) And I know that even some of the Auditory Verbal proponets (the ones that claim that dhh kids who do AVT and are raised with AVT principles magically assimulate into the mainstream) say that there's an oral deaf culture.
Again I think the key is making it fun, and concentrating on working on it as a Really Useful Skill/Tool (among many) rather then as The Be All and End All. Good speech is a GREAT thing to have. But it doesn't automaticly confer success. If that was true, then all hearing people would be fablously successful!
 
deafdyke said:
Really? What about oral deaf schools? (even thou most of the "schools" are preschools and not graded set ups, a la Clarke, DePaul, CID, Sunshine Cottage etc) And I know that even some of the Auditory Verbal proponets (the ones that claim that dhh kids who do AVT and are raised with AVT principles magically assimulate into the mainstream) say that there's an oral deaf culture.
Again I think the key is making it fun, and concentrating on working on it as a Really Useful Skill/Tool (among many) rather then as The Be All and End All. Good speech is a GREAT thing to have. But it doesn't automaticly confer success. If that was true, then all hearing people would be fablously successful!
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I had a speech therapist when I was 8 yo and she would bring toys to made speech lesson fun . My younger sister would get jealous and didn't want to leave the room . My speech therapist was hoh too and I meant a lot to me. She was the only person I knew that wore a HA too.
 
Well in my opinion a culture only exists if there is a language that is shared. I don't see that with oral deaf people. The language of Deaf people will always be sign language and since you don't need speech for signing I don't see a connection there.
Of course it might be that I'm wrong entirely, that is just my personal feeling and opinion about it.


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Latascha said:
Well in my opinion a culture only exists if there is a language that is shared. I don't see that with oral deaf people. The language of Deaf people will always be sign language and since you don't need speech for signing I don't see a connection there.
Of course it might be that I'm wrong entirely, that is just my personal feeling and opinion about it.


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You are correct.
 
Latascha said:
Well in my opinion a culture only exists if there is a language that is shared. I don't see that with oral deaf people. The language of Deaf people will always be sign language and since you don't need speech for signing I don't see a connection there.
Of course it might be that I'm wrong entirely, that is just my personal feeling and opinion about it.


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Right on!!!! I think oral deaf people tend to have more of a disabilty culture experiance.
 
Another exercise in meaning of "oral deaf". Presumably referring to a "late deafened" person who can still speak however being deaf can't "understand" any spoken response.

Excluding, of course using a Cochlear Implant.

Whether one uses ASL/BSL et al is another matter.

Whether deafness is a "disability culture" seems to be "discussion" here in Alldeaf.com.
 
drphil said:
Another exercise in meaning of "oral deaf". Presumably referring to a "late deafened" person who can still speak however being deaf can't "understand" any spoken response.

Excluding, of course using a Cochlear Implant.

Whether one uses ASL/BSL et al is another matter.

Whether deafness is a "disability culture" seems to be "discussion" here in Alldeaf.com.
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There are plenty of oral deaf who were born deaf. They vastly outnumber the ASLers
 
Bottesini said:
There are plenty of oral deaf who were born deaf. They vastly outnumber the ASLers
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Botti, Botti, Botti. Remember Dr Phil is DEAF to any explanation of what deaf/Deaf really is. He has it set in his head that deaf means no sound at all and we'll never be able to convince him otherwise. :roll:
 
whatdidyousay! said:
I had a speech therapist when I was 8 yo and she would bring toys to made speech lesson fun . My younger sister would get jealous and didn't want to leave the room . My speech therapist was hoh too and I meant a lot to me. She was the only person I knew that wore a HA too.
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:aw: that's so sweet. I once had a severely deaf speech therapist who wore two cochlear implants. :D
 
LoveBlue said:
Botti, Botti, Botti. Remember Dr Phil is DEAF to any explanation of what deaf/Deaf really is. He has it set in his head that deaf means no sound at all and we'll never be able to convince him otherwise. :roll:
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I am just a few years younger that our Dr. Phil and admit that is what I grew up with as well. It still feels weird to call someone that hears some "deaf" rather than hard of hearing.
 
Latascha said:
Well in my opinion a culture only exists if there is a language that is shared. I don't see that with oral deaf people. The language of Deaf people will always be sign language and since you don't need speech for signing I don't see a connection there.
Of course it might be that I'm wrong entirely, that is just my personal feeling and opinion about it.
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I disagree. A separate, shared language can be a part of a culture and a cultural identity, but it's not a requirement for all cultures. Most people from the U.S., England, Canada, and Australia speak English, but they all have their own distinct cultures (and there are also various regional cultures within each of those countries). Religions can have their own culture that crosses languages. For example, Catholics from all over the world share a common cultural identity as far as their religion, even if they don't all speak the same language. In fact, the original language of Catholicism was Latin, and hardly anyone speaks that anymore. There are many cultures where no one speaks their original language because everyone who spoke it died; that doesn't mean their culture also died out. There are also many countries where there's more than one official language (such as Canada: English/French), but people who speak those different languages would still think of themselves as sharing a common national culture.

Cultural identities and languages overlap and cross into one another. Sharing a language isn't necessarily a requirement for sharing a culture. If members of Deaf culture want to exclude non-signing deaf/HOH people as being part of their culture, then that's their decision, but that ignores all the other things besides language that also make up culture, such as common experiences and beliefs (which Deaf, deaf, and HOH people sometimes do share). Some Deaf people may say, "But we often don't believe the same things or have the same experiences!" Well, not all people who sign share the same beliefs and experiences, either.
 
From very direct experience-daily-disconnecting my Cochlear Implant back to SILENCE. It is also disconnected when I go to sleep.

If I could "hear anything when disconnected" then the classification would "hearing impaired"

I am not sure"why"an ongoing "debate" on deaf actuality?

aside: I have been bilateral DEAF since December 20, 2006. No change -to date.

aside: My hearing test/audiogram in December 2006 showed-no hearing at 105 DB.
That result set up an appointment at Sunnybrook/ Cochlear Implant section/Toronto. Easily "fit the Implant criteria when passing the physical. I easily did. The operation was July 12, 2007.

I understand the "profound category" is 85- 100 Db.

To repeat during the wait time I heard NOTHING- silence.

That is my experience which might "differ somewhat" from another person-somewhere in this world. To me changes nothing.

aside: I have never denied that I am bilateral DEAF.
 
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