Putting your deaf children in which schools...and why?

They also know sign language too so you don't know if they think it is better that the child have both exposure. They could be there to work with the oral side of exposure. Just because they work there doesn't mean anything.
 
A said:
They also know sign language too so you don't know if they think it is better that the child have both exposure. They could be there to work with the oral side of exposure. Just because they work there doesn't mean anything.
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They work at oral only schools. There in no signing in any of these classrooms. They give information to parents and encourage them to use spoken language. Why would you do those things if you thought it was wrong? I have had a long conversation with one professional in particular (at JTC) about ASL and spoken language. She told me that she understands where we are coming from, wanting our child to have both, and JTC is very supportive of parental choice, and then she explained why they have the philosophy that they have.
 
just because someone encourage spoken language doesn't mean they are against bilingual for the deaf child. bilingual means both. So of course, they would encourage spoken language. I feel If she was truly against ASL, she wouldn't bother learning it. So did she really speak against ASL, as in don't use ASL at all?
 
faire_jour said:
They work at oral only schools. There in no signing in any of these classrooms. They give information to parents and encourage them to use spoken language. Why would you do those things if you thought it was wrong? I have had a long conversation with one professional in particular (at JTC) about ASL and spoken language. She told me that she understands where we are coming from, wanting our child to have both, and JTC is very supportive of parental choice, and then she explained why they have the philosophy that they have.
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Did you ever stop to think that they work there due to pay or benefits? Not just their belief's or their perceived belief's.

I know people who work for different companies and it was not their first choice and the company policies do not reflect their beliefs, but they get paid better and have more benefits than they would anywhere else.
 
A said:
just because someone encourage spoken language doesn't mean they are against bilingual for the deaf child. bilingual means both. So of course, they would encourage spoken language. I feel If she was truly against ASL, she wouldn't bother learning it. So did she really speak against ASL, as in don't use ASL at all?
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She knows ASL, and to my understanding learned in later in life (ie grew up oral). I never said she was against ASL, I'm saying she advocates FOR listening and spoken language for children. She works at an oral school and encourages parents to teach their children spoken language as their first language. Her job is outreach, she helps parents teach their children spoken language through a program JTC has. It teaches parents how to teach their children spoken language.
 
KristinaB said:
Did you ever stop to think that they work there due to pay or benefits? Not just their belief's or their perceived belief's.

I know people who work for different companies and it was not their first choice and the company policies do not reflect their beliefs, but they get paid better and have more benefits than they would anywhere else.
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She's been working at JTC for many many years. She and I had many conversations about ASL and spoken language and she continued to impress upon me how important it is that we spend the time learning spoken language now, and if we chose to continue with ASL it was fine, but the chance for spoken language was closing.
 
faire_jour said:
She's been working at JTC for many many years. She and I had many conversations about ASL and spoken language and she continued to impress upon me how important it is that we spend the time learning spoken language now, and if we chose to continue with ASL it was fine, but the chance for spoken language was closing.
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May I ask why she thought the chance for spoken language is starting to close? I had speech therapy from age 2 through high school and I did well with it. I was completely fluent in ASL by age 4 or so, so no further sign instruction was necessary (other than adapting to newly established signs as they arose), so all focus turned to spoken language for the remainder of my IEP years.
 
AlleyCat said:
May I ask why she thought the chance for spoken language is starting to close? I had speech therapy from age 2 through high school and I did well with it. I was completely fluent in ASL by age 4 or so, so no further sign instruction was necessary (other than adapting to newly established signs as they arose), so all focus turned to spoken language for the remainder of my IEP years.
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The idea is that if auditory pathways are not stimulated, the brain slowing changes and it is terribly difficult to reverse. If a child is going to learn to listen and speak, the auditory centers of their brain must be stimulated, or they will change over to visual. That is why late implanted children, and adults who have been deaf since birth do not get the same benefits from their CI's as earlier implanted, or late deafened people. Their brains change. So, if my daughter is going to learn to listen and speak, she needs to have those auditory pathways. The window for that development slowly starts to close. There is some disagreement about when, but the research shows that if a child is implanted after age 8, they never get the benefit that younger kids get.

Yes, you can always work on speech, and even language, but listening is what goes away.
 
I think I disagree, but I may be an exception. As long as I wore my hearing aids (or in Miss Kat's case, her CI) I always had brain/auditory stimulation. I could hear all my teachers, classmates, family at home, and everywhere else. I don't think that really changes over time. It is a natural reaction (for me, at least) to listen to what you're hearing - I think you as a hearing person likely takes that for granted (no offense meant) because you have the ability to tune out repetitive sounds so you don't necessarily have to "listen" for stuff. Just my 2 cents.
 
AlleyCat said:
I think I disagree, but I may be an exception. As long as I wore my hearing aids (or in Miss Kat's case, her CI) I always had brain/auditory stimulation. I could hear all my teachers, classmates, family at home, and everywhere else. I don't think that really changes over time. It is a natural reaction (for me, at least) to listen to what you're hearing - I think you as a hearing person likely takes that for granted (no offense meant) because you have the ability to tune out repetitive sounds so you don't necessarily have to "listen" for stuff. Just my 2 cents.
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That's because you did hear from the beginning, so it is natural for you :D

It you hadn't, and you never heard spoken language until you were an adult, it wouldn't make sense to you.
 
But Miss Kat is still a child. She's hearing nearly from the beginning as well. (I didn't start hearing anything until my aids at age 2). So her window of opportunity with spoken language should be no more narrow than mine.
 
And, if anything, her opportunities with spoken language are probably even more increased with the CI because it puts her far closer to the speech range than I ever will be with aids.

I'm only saying to keep an open mind and keep positive - don't listen to those who tell you her window for spoken language is closing. I really don't think it is. That should give you some encouragement, I hope.
 
I thought being visual is awesome. Anyway, I too wore hearing aids before I was in preschool. around at the age 2
 
A said:
I thought being visual is awesome. Anyway, I too wore hearing aids before I was in preschool. around at the age 2
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It is! :D

I love signing and teaching my SO signs too. I think it also is what makes me a good photographer and graphic designer - I've got that visual eye !! :)
 
faire_jour said:
She's been working at JTC for many many years. She and I had many conversations about ASL and spoken language and she continued to impress upon me how important it is that we spend the time learning spoken language now, and if we chose to continue with ASL it was fine, but the chance for spoken language was closing.
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The chance to hear it and understand it, sure, but since she is an implanted child, she should be able to process it now. I didn't get aids until I was 6 years old, and I am fluent in English, and I speak well. I had no speech delay whatsoever, and my parents never signed to me. My language window didn't "close." I have no issues with speech.

The part about the spoken language window closing sounds ridiculous if you are speaking about a child who is now implanted. The implant ought to help her process speech, and she can't HELP but hear what is going on around her now, assuming that everything is activated, etc. There is no need for pushing auditory stimulation if she is getting it already with the implant being on, period. She will hear speech and learn it anyway. I did. Because she is so young (am I right in thinking she is very young? I always forget how old each of the implanted children are on here), her brain would just be soaking up the information she gets. It would not be ignoring the new information she obtains through her implant in auditory form.

Oral school is just a replica of what you go through in daily life. You mentioned they don't advocate for lipreading. Well, amplification devices aren't perfect. I wear aids, and I have a friend with a CI. He was implanted at two years old, I believe. Both of us are deaf, and we both lipread. He gets a SIGNIFICANTLY higher benefit from his CI than I do with my aids, BUT he still has to lipread, because it doesn't allow him to hear everything. The thing is that oral environments make it harder on the child to understand. It's possible, but it's a lot less comfortable for me and sometimes very frustrating.
 
natty_4ever said:
The chance to hear it and understand it, sure, but since she is an implanted child, she should be able to process it now. I didn't get aids until I was 6 years old, and I am fluent in English, and I speak well. I had no speech delay whatsoever, and my parents never signed to me. My language window didn't "close." I have no issues with speech.

The part about the spoken language window closing sounds ridiculous if you are speaking about a child who is now implanted. The implant ought to help her process speech, and she can't HELP but hear what is going on around her now, assuming that everything is activated, etc. There is no need for pushing auditory stimulation if she is getting it already with the implant being on, period. She will hear speech and learn it anyway. I did. Because she is so young (am I right in thinking she is very young? I always forget how old each of the implanted children are on here), her brain would just be soaking up the information she gets. It would not be ignoring the new information she obtains through her implant in auditory form.

Oral school is just a replica of what you go through in daily life. You mentioned they don't advocate for lipreading. Well, amplification devices aren't perfect. I wear aids, and I have a friend with a CI. He was implanted at two years old, I believe. Both of us are deaf, and we both lipread. He gets a SIGNIFICANTLY higher benefit from his CI than I do with my aids, BUT he still has to lipread, because it doesn't allow him to hear everything. The thing is that oral environments make it harder on the child to understand. It's possible, but it's a lot less comfortable for me and sometimes very frustrating.
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My daughter is 7, she was implanted at age 5. She did not have access to spoken language with her hearing aids, so she did not start learning to hear until she was implanted. That means she had a very late start. Now she has learned to hear and can overhear and understand, but no, at first she couldn't, She had to gain discrimination skills, learn to be able to hear the subtle differences between "Sh" and "ch" and "mmm" and "nnn". Now that she hears those things well, she can learn language through listening. If she hadn't heard, and been able to discriminate between those sounds, language would be just a garble of sound rushing by her and leaving her behind.
 
faire_jour said:
My daughter is 7, she was implanted at age 5. She did not have access to spoken language with her hearing aids, so she did not start learning to hear until she was implanted. That means she had a very late start. Now she has learned to hear and can overhear and understand, but no, at first she couldn't, She had to gain discrimination skills, learn to be able to hear the subtle differences between "Sh" and "ch" and "mmm" and "nnn". Now that she hears those things well, she can learn language through listening. If she hadn't heard, and been able to discriminate between those sounds, language would be just a garble of sound rushing by her and leaving her behind.
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Oh, of course. There's an adjustment period. The same happens if you get a newer hearing aid if you are HOH and can hear the difference. I'm deaf now, but I remember when I'd get new HAs and would have to relearn sounds and listening for a while. Not to compare it directly to the CI, because I know that's a whole other world. Just saying I can sort of empathize.

But now that she CAN hear, she can get that auditory stimulation from other places, not just school. I was mainstreamed, and I got auditory stimulation there just from listening to the teacher and students, but I didn't really understand anything they said because, well, my speech perception sucks, I suppose. But my speech abilities turned out fine. I might have learned more and been more interested if my classes were in ASL or in a bi-bi school.
 
natty_4ever said:
Oh, of course. There's an adjustment period. The same happens if you get a newer hearing aid if you are HOH and can hear the difference. I'm deaf now, but I remember when I'd get new HAs and would have to relearn sounds and listening for a while. Not to compare it directly to the CI, because I know that's a whole other world. Just saying I can sort of empathize.

But now that she CAN hear, she can get that auditory stimulation from other places, not just school. I was mainstreamed, and I got auditory stimulation there just from listening to the teacher and students, but I didn't really understand anything they said because, well, my speech perception sucks, I suppose. But my speech abilities turned out fine. I might have learned more and been more interested if my classes were in ASL or in a bi-bi school.
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She can hear now, but now she has to learn the language. I can hear Japanese fine, but I can't understand the words, because I haven't learned them. That is what her oral school is doing, teaching her the language.
 
faire_jour said:
My daughter is 7, she was implanted at age 5. She did not have access to spoken language with her hearing aids, so she did not start learning to hear until she was implanted. That means she had a very late start. Now she has learned to hear and can overhear and understand, but no, at first she couldn't, She had to gain discrimination skills, learn to be able to hear the subtle differences between "Sh" and "ch" and "mmm" and "nnn". Now that she hears those things well, she can learn language through listening. If she hadn't heard, and been able to discriminate between those sounds, language would be just a garble of sound rushing by her and leaving her behind.
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As a late implant, I don't think all that is entirely true. if it was, the new sounds I never heard before would still sound like a garble of sounds. but I know what sound it is, and I've been deaf since birth (I was just a baby when my older sister was diagnosed as deaf, and she was curious if I was too). I forced myself to listen to garble of sounds with my implant for a long time before I finally got a hang of it. I'm older, and she is still young.
 
I'm probably just re-starting a fire but....

I think BOTH of you have rosy colored glasses, Shel and FJ.

Shel is probably working in a great and balanced deaf school and assumes most deaf schools are like that. I suspect this is far from reality, especially those far from big cities.

FJ is probably surrounded by parents with higher intelligence or more likely, hidden feelings and they know not to diss ASL in front of others. Sort of how a person who is a little bit racist would be friends with a black person but still locks the door if he sees a sketchy black man walking by but not a sketchy white man.
 
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