Deaf children and hearing parents...why don't the parents learn sl?

[shel90]

Many deaf people can "hear", tons of deaf people within a community can hear also. But many of them know sign, and prefer it. I never said your daughter woudn't want to relate to other deaf people who can hear. In fact I said quite the opposite. I said that deaf people (able to hear or not), and all people, should find the group that understands them best. In your daughters case it would most likely be others who are deaf and hearing. But don't you want her to have as many friends as possible. Knowing sign opens up a world of opportunities for her to meet people she might not others have known. Just like knowing any other language. There is a reason that parents are buying all the "signing time" and other sign language videos for their hearing children. Because learning at least some sign has been proven to be beneficial to both hearing and deaf, and yes...deaf who can hear.

I can hear with my hearing aids..I dont care what anyone says.

I had nobody to relate to growing up. I thought I was the only deaf person and I was so afraid of my future cuz I was never exposed to deaf role models. All the plays, shows, speakers, or whatever that came to my school had all hearing people.

I grew up miserable with that fear and with nobody to really fully connect to thanks to the stupid oralists who pushed their stupid philosophies on my mom making her think that ASL and the Deaf community was bad for me.

 

[shel90]

Agreed. Holly has an amazing grasp of the issues. She is quite the insightful young woman.

Yes, I agree!!! I love Holly's views and she is so respectful of deaf people's needs.

 

[loml]

Why are you assuming that my daughter would relate most to people that are deaf and cannot hear. Wouldn't she relate most to people that are deaf and can hear?

Any time she wants to get connected to deaf people and learn sign, we'll be there to help and where possible guide her...
At the moment it is not relevant. She's growing up hearing with hearing people around her, and being deaf with or without hearing will have it's challenges.
At the moment, she decides to hear. She want's to hear her environment. Be it just sounds around and outside the house, voices of family-members, people, cars etc... she want's it to be a part of her world....
How we know... because she wants to have the CI on.
Why make her learn an extra language... we can do that later... for now, she's communications vey well with the languages she knows.
And regarding Deaf community.... that's far, far away..

Cloggy -Good Posting!

 

[rick48]

I grew up miserable with that fear and with nobody to really fully connect to thanks to the stupid oralists who pushed their stupid philosophies on my mom making her think that ASL and the Deaf community was bad for me.

Didn't you say last week that while you were raised orally and mainstreamed, your brother was sent off to a deaf residential school and learned ASL and that neither of your parents ever bothered to learn ASL?

 

[shel90]

Didn't you say last week that while you were raised orally and mainstreamed, your brother was sent off to a deaf residential school and learned ASL and that neither of your parents ever bothered to learn ASL?

My brother wasnt sent off to a residential deaf school..he went to a day deaf school. Right, neither of my parents learned ASL and I had to do all the interpreting orally to orally and back. My brother had to use his terrible oral skills to communicate because I didnt know sign language and I was the only one who could understand him so I ended up interpreting for him. I wish I had learned ASL for my brother but I was so brainwashed against it.

 

[rick48]

Many deaf people can "hear", tons of deaf people within a community can hear also. But many of them know sign, and prefer it. I never said your daughter woudn't want to relate to other deaf people who can hear. In fact I said quite the opposite. I said that deaf people (able to hear or not), and all people, should find the group that understands them best. In your daughters case it would most likely be others who are deaf and hearing. But don't you want her to have as many friends as possible. Knowing sign opens up a world of opportunities for her to meet people she might not others have known. Just like knowing any other language. There is a reason that parents are buying all the "signing time" and other sign language videos for their hearing children. Because learning at least some sign has been proven to be beneficial to both hearing and deaf, and yes...deaf who can hear.

Cloggy's daughter already knows at least three languages so by your standards Cloggy and his wife have opened up multiple worlds of opportunities for their daughter. If you go to Cloggy's blog it is readily apparent that Lotte besides being adorable is a happy child and enjoying life. What makes you think that they are not acting in her best interests, not giving her opportunities to have friends and not opening up worlds of opportuities for her?

Instead of trying to force your agenda upon Cloggy, why not stop and listen to what he is saying. After all, he is her parent and I think he knows his daughter a little bit better than you.

Rick

 

[rick48]

Cloggy -Good Posting!

Ditto from me Cloggy!
Rick

 

[loml]

Cloggy's daughter already knows at least three languages so by your standards Cloggy and his wife have opened up multiple worlds of opportunities for their daughter. If you go to Cloggy's blog it is readily apparent that Lotte besides being adorable is a happy child and enjoying life. What makes you think that they are not acting in her best interests, not giving her opportunities to have friends and not opening up worlds of opportuities for her?

Instead of trying to force your agenda upon Cloggy, why not stop and listen to what he is saying. After all, he is her parent and I think he knows his daughter a little bit better than you.

Rick

Rick -

 

[jillio]

So far, we've gotten a couple of answers regarding a parent's refusal to learn sign. The one that is understandable to a degree is because the oralist professionals warned them against it. While understandable, it has been evidenced by the deaf posters that is no less detrimental to their children.

The second answer that we are getting from a select few is that they have not learned sign because their child does not need any language other than the one they themselves as hearing people speak because they are firmly convinced that through sheer will, they can make their children hearing.

Yep, Holly, I believe you have hit the nail on the head in your title.

 

[Magie60]

Hearie Here this is my opinion.
I think that ASL should be taught in ALL public schools in the US. It is a language of the US and should be used as well by the hearing. Why shouldn't we want to communicate with every US citizen. The government wants us to learn foriegn languages to communicate with aliens from other countries. Are we forgetting about our own people. Parents should be happy to learn sign to communicate with their children. I would absolutely learn it to speak to my children. I'm on my way to learning it now.

 

[shel90]

Hearie Here this is my opinion.
I think that ASL should be taught in ALL public schools in the US. It is a language of the US and should be used as well by the hearing. Why shouldn't we want to communicate with every US citizen. The government wants us to learn foriegn languages to communicate with aliens from other countries. Are we forgetting about our own people. Parents should be happy to learn sign to communicate with their children. I would absolutely learn it to speak to my children. I'm on my way to learning it now.

I agree with you.

Yea, why not but unfortunately, the oralists or specialists in the deaf ed field (teachers, doctors, audis) believe that if deaf children are exposed to ASL, they will never develop oral skills. That is a myth that needs to be thrown in the trash!

 

[jillio]

I agree with you.

Yea, why not but unfortunately, the oralists or specialists in the deaf ed field (teachers, doctors, audis) believe that if deaf children are exposed to ASL, they will never develop oral skills. That is a myth that needs to be thrown in the trash!

It has been disproven time and time again. People want their children to be so much like hearing children that they simply refuse to see what history and research shows,

 

[rick48]

My brother wasnt sent off to a residential deaf school..he went to a day deaf school. Right, neither of my parents learned ASL and I had to do all the interpreting orally to orally and back. My brother had to use his terrible oral skills to communicate because I didnt know sign language and I was the only one who could understand him so I ended up interpreting for him. I wish I had learned ASL for my brother but I was so brainwashed against it.

So your parents listened to "the stupid oralists who pushed their stupid philosophies" with respect to you but not for your brother and raised two deaf children with different communication modes. They never bothered to learn how to communicate with one of their children and used the other child as the interpreter and you are blaming the "oralists" for your anger?

 

[shel90]

So your parents listened to "the stupid oralists who pushed their stupid philosophies" with respect to you but not for your brother and raised two deaf children with different communication modes. They never bothered to learn how to communicate with one of their children and used the other child as the interpreter and you are blaming the "oralists" for your anger?

I have posted so many times how my brother was first placed in an oral only program for 5 years but couldnt develop adequate readiness skills to survive kindergarden at my school. How my brother couldnt communicate with anyone at all at the school. It was the school that recommended my brother to go to the deaf school cuz in their words, he was an "oral failure".Yes, I blame the oralists. If they had told my parents the importance of ASL, I am sure things would be a lot different. My mom told me over and over again that she was pressured by them not to expose me to sign language cuz I was doing so well with the oral only approach and that if I learn it, I would stop speaking. Signing is still speaking anyway. Did u read my thread about my dad? U dont have to believe me..I really dont care but yes, I will always blame those stupid so-called experts who fed my parents lies about ASL and the Deaf community.

 

[loml]

Hearie Here this is my opinion.
I think that ASL should be taught in ALL public schools in the US. It is a language of the US and should be used as well by the hearing. Why shouldn't we want to communicate with every US citizen. The government wants us to learn foriegn languages to communicate with aliens from other countries. Are we forgetting about our own people. Parents should be happy to learn sign to communicate with their children. I would absolutely learn it to speak to my children. I'm on my way to learning it now.

Magie60 - Parents are happy to learn to communicate with their children. Signing is not the only communication option, nor is it the only visual communication option.

It is always easy to say what a person would do with their child; it can be quite a different story once a person actually has children.

 

[deafbajagal]

I have posted so many times how my brother was first placed in an oral only program for 5 years but couldnt develop adequate readiness skills to survive kindergarden at my school. How my brother couldnt communicate with anyone at all at the school. It was the school that recommended my brother to go to the deaf school cuz in their words, he was an "oral failure".Yes, I blame the oralists. If they had told my parents the importance of ASL, I am sure things would be a lot different. My mom told me over and over again that she was pressured by them not to expose me to sign language cuz I was doing so well with the oral only approach and that if I learn it, I would stop speaking. Signing is still speaking anyway. Did u read my thread about my dad? U dont have to believe me..I really dont care but yes, I will always blame those stupid so-called experts who fed my parents lies about ASL and the Deaf community.

I blame the so-called experts, too. My parents didn't know what to do - they trusted the people with the framed certificates on the wall.

 

[Holly]

Cloggy's daughter already knows at least three languages so by your standards Cloggy and his wife have opened up multiple worlds of opportunities for their daughter. If you go to Cloggy's blog it is readily apparent that Lotte besides being adorable is a happy child and enjoying life. What makes you think that they are not acting in her best interests, not giving her opportunities to have friends and not opening up worlds of opportuities for her?

Instead of trying to force your agenda upon Cloggy, why not stop and listen to what he is saying. After all, he is her parent and I think he knows his daughter a little bit better than you.

Rick

i was not made aware that his daughter knew 3 languages, please don't accuse me of being insensitive when it is really just a lack of knowledge. I don't have time to read up on everyone's blogs before I post a response.

 

[rick48]

I blame the so-called experts, too. My parents didn't know what to do - they trusted the people with the framed certificates on the wall.

Well my wife and I chose to take, and accept, responsibility for raising our child and not rely on others. That is why we took the time to not only research, meet others and to ask questions but most of all to monitor our daughter's progress and to make certain we were acting in her best interests.

BTW the very first "expert" we met grabbed my wife seconds after coming out of the booth where the tests confirmed what we already knew and told her not to listen to anyone who tells us that she can learn to hear and to speak for she never will.

Thankfully we never listened to that moron but I guess he's ok in your book because he was anti-oral.

 

[loml]

originally posted by loml

The family may see the Deaf community as their child’s fluent, proficient, accurate role model for American Sign Language, and the child’s own family as the fluent, proficient, accurate role model for the family language.

Oh, so you do recommend a bi-bi environment? However, using CS is not an excuse for not using sign if the child is using sign to communicate, no matter who their models for the language are. CS is still and English based system, therefore, an oral based system. And it still results in the parent's refusal to learn sign for the benefit of their deaf child. It is still making the deaf child soley responsible for adapting to the parent's needs, rather than the other way around.

jillio - Not your definition of bi-bi. The users of CS are not looking for an excuse. Cuers are seeking literacy, language and inclusion for their deaf/hoh children through the language that they can accurately model. The Deaf community could provide for these same families an accurate and fluent role model of ASL.

Few hearing people, interpreters included, sign as fluently as native ASL users. I have "heard" on many an occasion, "they he/she signs like a hearing person."

Parents are the best role models for their children for their familial language and their familial customs/culture. A child should be provided every opportunity to engage with its own nuclear family. Not providing the child the tools to be proficient in their familial language, and insisting that they use a foreign language, singles them out, identifying them as "different". What child does not want/need to be an integral part of their family first and foremost?

 

[Holly]

Well my wife and I chose to take, and accept, responsibility for raising our child and not rely on others. That is why we took the time to not only research, meet others and to ask questions but most of all to monitor our daughter's progress and to make certain we were acting in her best interests.

BTW the very first "expert" we met grabbed my wife seconds after coming out of the booth where the tests confirmed what we already knew and told her not to listen to anyone who tells us that she can learn to hear and to speak for she never will.

Thankfully we never listened to that moron but I guess he's ok in your book because he was anti-oral.

What you experienced was an extreme opposite. You are right, he was a moron for saying that your daughter was limited. But there is no need to make a general assumption for all "anti-oral" people based on him, please don't generalize.