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Old 02-29-2008, 05:06 PM   #12 (permalink)
Aleser
Woosh. Yes, Woosh.
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 568
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeafKattMom View Post
I have three deaf children. All severe to profound, bilateral hearing loss.
a nine yr old, three yr old and two yr old.

Im being presented with the idea of putting cochlear implants in them.

It scares me to death, to make this descision for my children. I feel strongly about raising them deaf, they are all fluent in sign language(mixture of ASL and signed english). Im on my way to becoming a cert. interpretor...

But now Im kind of up in the air... The school district representatives are pushing the implant, and saying the kids could be mainstreamed, they would hear, it will be great.

But I dont want to know I went out of my way to CI my kids if it dosent end up working OR taking my kids completely out of a deaf/signing environment if it works out really well.

I want to know who is deaf and a child of a hearing parent. How do you feel about CI's, if your parents got you one, or if they chose not to, how do you feel about that?

Im so worried that with either descision Ill make the wrong one and its driving me batty.

Thanks,
katt
All the nasty boundries that the school breached when trying to push CI on you aside, they were also hugely incorrect. Your children wont wake up the day after surgery understanding very single thing- it takes time, extensive speech therapy, and even then some people do well and others don't.

It may help your kids, and it might not. But it's all the same a huge choice with significant medical risks that shouldn't be influenced by a school district.

Are your children honestly happy as they are? If you can answer yes, my own opinion would be..

Don't fix children that aren't broken.
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"She thinks... she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not by forcing them... she can teach them and persuade them... that they'll catch it from her. This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them."
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