Quote:
Originally Posted by faire_jour
Ok, I don't want to come off rude, but I want you to know that things could change for your daughter.
EVERY SINGLE Deaf adult I have met (with 2 exceptions and they both had Deaf parents) have grown up oral. They all discovered ASL as teens either through a change in school or by meeting another Deaf person or just seeing it and deciding they want to learn, and once they learn it, they never stop using it. I think you should be prepared that your daughter may choose to turn off her voice at some point. My best Deaf friend grew up completly oral, she went to CID, was a "star" student, she has zero difficulty understanding and using spoken Engglish, she even says she looked down on "ASL" Deaf people. She went to college and "found" ASL. She is now 100% voice-off and married to a Deaf of Deaf of Deaf of Deaf man and has 2 Deaf children of her own. It is not because she can't speak, but because now she chooses not to. She is also an advocate AGAINST oral education of Deaf children now.
I'm not saying this will be the case for your daughter, but you need to realize it is a possibility and you should be willing to accept and support her if that happens. AGAIN, I am not saying this is the life story of every Deaf person, but in my experience it happens often.
Also I wanted to say that the reason oral schools generally end is because the goal IS to mainstream. Our oral class at the School for the Deaf ends after 1st grade and Auditory-Verbal therapists recommend sending deaf-hoh students to a regular pre-school. The idea behin the methodology is that the deaf-hoh student will be able to function exactly like a hearing child because their speech/listening skills will be highly trained. They are supposed to "disappear" into mainstream society.....it doesn't usually work that way.
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OK--I have met one or two people who were raised oral and, as an adult, decided to be "voice off". I can understand why in some circumstances, but not in others. I also wonder about turning off hearing, in a way, by not wearing hearing aids. My daughter hears a lot of things without her hearing aids--in fact, she often takes them out and puts on headphones to listen to music. So, if she takes off her hearing aids or turns them off, she can still hear quite a bit--is she suppose to ignore what she does hear? I just don't get that--she would have to somehow plug her ears to not hear anything. And as far as speaking, if it comes so naturally to a person--if that is the way they communicate all of their life--if they LOVE to talk--I mean LOVE to talk(you know, lots of hearing people are quiet and don't talk much, and some are extremely talkative and just can't be quiet--some oral deaf people are like that, too--some people would be devastated if they couldn't talk because they are so talkative)--it is, honestly, as strange an idea to "turn their voice off" for THOSE people as it would be for a hearing person to take a vow of silence. Yes, IF my daughter made that decision, I would love her very much and that would NEVER change--I would communicate with her in whatever way she chose. BUT--we have such WONDERFUL communication with each other--we talk about everything and have a very close bond--it would be as unusual for her to stop speaking English and only sign as it would be for her to give up English for Spanish or any other language. As for things like marriage and family--her deafness seems to be caused by Rh-incompatibility during pregnancy. There is little chance that she will have deaf children unless some other cause occurs--could happen and would be fine, but the odds are that she will have hearing kids. Dating and marriage--who knows--maybe she would fall in love with someone who didn't talk--then I could see how she would want to communicate with him in a different way. I don't know--I just honestly cannot imagine her "turning off her voice"--it seems as unnatural for her to do that as it would for a hearing person to do it. Anyway--yes, it could happen--and my hearing son could decide to take a vow of silence--but the likelihood of either thing happening is very remote. How can someone who CAN hear and CAN speak and DOES live in a world where they talk to everyone around them--how can they give it up? If someone has a stroke and loses the ability to talk--I get it. If someone who can hear with hearing aids loses more hearing and becomes profound--I get it. I just don't get it when it is such a natural part of a person--hearing and speaking--why give it up? If it DOESN'T come natural--if it IS hard to do--if it FEELS unnatural--then I get it. But if it is the way you are--the way you function in life--how can you ignore something that is part of you?