Is there a such thing as "true bilingualism"?

faire_jour said:
I am telling you, of the Deaf of Deaf kids in our bi-bi school, 1 wears a single hearing aid, the rest are unamplified and greater than 75% have never had a single speech therapy session, in or out of school.

And that is their parent's decision, but Shel asked what I thought, and I answered.
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A question..... the one that wears single hearing aid, does he/she have speech class? If not, why not?

Another question....those who are unamplified. Do you know the type of hearing loss they have? Are they mostly severe to profound or profound loss?

Last question (I promise, last one...lol)....those greater than 75%, do you know if they are audiologically categorized as hard of hearing?

Answers to those questions might help me and others to give you a better perspectives to your original question.
 
F_J, your child have Cochlear implant, you don't have to worry about hyperfocusing on speech like the parents of yesterday.
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YES!!!!!!
Faire_joure you're an AWESOME parent, BUT it does seem like your venture into oral skills has tapped a vein of anxiety that Miss Kat won't develop fluent oral abilty.
But then again, the question is whether or not dhh kids in general can develop totally fluent oral abilty. (meaning an average verbal IQ, easily understood by most people who aren't familiar with "deaf speech", on par spoken language abilty) Most kids will be able to develop oral skills on a continum. Yes, the old days of dhh kids only having a handful of words/simple oral abilty is gone....but most dhh kids will still approach spoken English as a second language.
That's not a bad thing......There are a lot of forigners who have a decent grasp of English but who are more comfortable with Spanish or whatever.
I know off the top of my head that many oral deaf kids still have difficulty with things like figures of speech and other intriacites of English that would also befuddle an ESL foriegner.
 
faire_jour said:
So, how did you get there? What would you answer if asked (say, on a form) "primary language"? What about your thoughts and dreams? What language are they in?

I know what you mean about "whatever language expresses the thought most clearly", even though ASL is easily my weaker language, some ideas and stories are best in ASL!
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How did I get here...

I was raised with both. I grew up exposed to languages, not only ASL and English. I was just surrounded by language. I don't know how I got here to be honest LOL

My primary language would be ASL if I had to pick one.

My thoughts and dreams happen in English, ASL, and French. Depends on what I am thinking or dreaming
about.
 
faire_jour said:
Nope, totally their right and their choice. We disagree, but without judgement. They are doing what they think is right, and so am I. They support me, and I support them. Each family must make the decisions for themselves. I know what I believe, but that doesn't matter.

I only answered because I was directly asked. I support all parents and their choices for their families*, even if they don't align with my own beliefs.


(*assuming it is working for the child)
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Who is deciding if "it is working for the child"? You?
 
F_J, ask me about deaf parents of hearing children. Then I think they need to add spoken language to their life (rather it is preschool, summer camp, exposure to hearing family). Because they are hearing. And I think hearing parents should expose ASL to deaf children.
 
faire_jour said:
But deaf kids learn very differently than hearing kids. It isn't the same.
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I am going to go back a step and say I don't agree with this. It's not that deaf babies' brains don't work the same way, it's that their ears don't work the same way. In the cognitive sense, bilingualism is the same for a hearing child or a deaf child. Some people grow up bilingual in ASL and LSQ (Quebecois sign language) for instance, and are bilingual in the same way as someone who grows up with English and French.

What's different is the medium through which the input (words, phonemes, grammatical structures) enter the brain. That is why so many people in the ASL community, and in the Linguistics and Cognitive Science community, support ASL as a first language for deaf babies, because it's completely accessible visually. But you already know that.

Anyway, my point is that it's not that deaf children learn language differently, it's that they learn speech differently. I do think that you're confusing them here to some extent. And that's why I think the research about bilingualism for hearing children is useful. I think that the person who told you Miss Kat can't be bilingual hasn't done enough research into bilingualism in general, and may have general misconceptions about it, as many people from essentially monolingual societies do.

On a different note, I'm also a hearing parent, and I will say that I think we are all a little audist, despite our best intentions. Well, maybe there are exceptions, but while I thought I would be one, now that I'm actually facing these issues, I can see I'm really not. We want our children to have as many opportunities as possible in life. I would like to think that it's absolutely fine for my daughter to sign and not speak, but at the end of the day I don't believe everyone in my community (or my family) will learn to sign. I do think this comes from my natural bias as a hearing person. It is hard for me to step out of the hearing way of thinking, and part of that is that I want my daughter to hear as well as possible. If she ends up not being able to hear even with technological assistance then I will rethink that, but for now I am being honest with myself and saying that I would like her to be able to speak well. I also want my hearing son to speak perfect English even though we live in a non-English-speaking country, because I think English is a valuable tool in life. Why is it so valuable? Because of the imperialism of English-speaking countries. So yes, don't know what the word is for that, but let's call it Anglicist. Should we try to fight for society to be more egalitarian? Yes. Should we do it at the expense of our own children's happiness? Probably not. But as for figuring out what will make our children happy...well, that's up to all of us individually, isn't it? And we all have our biases. Mostly we all just do our best and hope we're right.
 
lucyinthesky said:
I am going to go back a step and say I don't agree with this. It's not that deaf babies' brains don't work the same way, it's that their ears don't work the same way. In the cognitive sense, bilingualism is the same for a hearing child or a deaf child. Some people grow up bilingual in ASL and LSQ (Quebecois sign language) for instance, and are bilingual in the same way as someone who grows up with English and French.

What's different is the medium through which the input (words, phonemes, grammatical structures) enter the brain. That is why so many people in the ASL community, and in the Linguistics and Cognitive Science community, support ASL as a first language for deaf babies, because it's completely accessible visually. But you already know that.

Anyway, my point is that it's not that deaf children learn language differently, it's that they learn speech differently. I do think that you're confusing them here to some extent. And that's why I think the research about bilingualism for hearing children is useful. I think that the person who told you Miss Kat can't be bilingual hasn't done enough research into bilingualism in general, and may have general misconceptions about it, as many people from essentially monolingual societies do.

On a different note, I'm also a hearing parent, and I will say that I think we are all a little audist, despite our best intentions. Well, maybe there are exceptions, but while I thought I would be one, now that I'm actually facing these issues, I can see I'm really not. We want our children to have as many opportunities as possible in life. I would like to think that it's absolutely fine for my daughter to sign and not speak, but at the end of the day I don't believe everyone in my community (or my family) will learn to sign. I do think this comes from my natural bias as a hearing person. It is hard for me to step out of the hearing way of thinking, and part of that is that I want my daughter to hear as well as possible. If she ends up not being able to hear even with technological assistance then I will rethink that, but for now I am being honest with myself and saying that I would like her to be able to speak well. I also want my hearing son to speak perfect English even though we live in a non-English-speaking country, because I think English is a valuable tool in life. Why is it so valuable? Because of the imperialism of English-speaking countries. So yes, don't know what the word is for that, but let's call it Anglicist. Should we try to fight for society to be more egalitarian? Yes. Should we do it at the expense of our own children's happiness? Probably not. But as for figuring out what will make our children happy...well, that's up to all of us individually, isn't it? And we all have our biases. Mostly we all just do our best and hope we're right.
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No it is accepted that deaf peoples brain becomes wired differently.
 
lucyinthesky said:
I would like to think that it's absolutely fine for my daughter to sign and not speak, but at the end of the day I don't believe everyone in my community (or my family) will learn to sign. I do think this comes from my natural bias as a hearing person. It is hard for me to step out of the hearing way of thinking, and part of that is that I want my daughter to hear as well as possible. If she ends up not being able to hear even with technological assistance then I will rethink that, but for now I am being honest with myself and saying that I would like her to be able to speak well..
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you need to ask us how we feel about our own family who won't sign. and yes, we have hearing aids and spoken language. Tell your family because they won't learn Sign language, they are not allow to say "nevermind" to your daughter, or treat her as second class because the communication is not very good.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
you need to ask us how we feel about our own family who won't sign. and yes, we have hearing aids and spoken language. Tell your family because they won't learn Sign language, they are not allow to say "nevermind" to your daughter, or treat her as second class because the communication is not very good.
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I agree. I just don't know how to force others to think the same way. I feel like I'm already treated like a second class citizen because I speak with an accent.
 
Bottesini said:
No it is accepted that deaf peoples brain becomes wired differently.
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Deaf brains may become wired differently in some ways, but the language centers are similar. That is how Ursula Bellugi's work proved that sign languages are controlled by the same part of the brain as spoken languages. I guess there may be some debate on this, but I have a degree in linguistics and am a believer in Universal Grammar (not everyone follows the same school of thought) - the brain is wired to understand language and human languages are essentially the same at the core, it is the superficial elements that are different.
 
So much drama! When a child turns 13, she's going to make her own decision. The parent may offer as much education and support as possible but ultimately the child will decide for herself. If the child decides to join the deaf community exclusively, it's not rejection of the parent. It's important for a parent to allow a teenager to make choices without too much parental control or influence. Being a parent is the hardest job ever. We pour our heart and soul into rearing a child then step back and let her move on without us. I'm struggling with this myself. *sigh*
 
Lighthouse77 said:
do you keep hanging out with them?
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Hehe I try not to.

I should have been clearer...I don't really think it's okay not to learn sign if you have a deaf family member, but I get why hearing parents have trouble with totally ignoring speech because we spend a lot of time speaking and it's a big leap to decide that you're not going to think about speech at all. I'm not saying it's right, just that it's hard not to think that way. It's kind of built in. And that's why I think the OP was confusing language and speech to some extent. For hearies they are kind of tied together in our way of thinking.

In our case I am kind of at a loss because my daughter isn't profoundly deaf, she has a mild-moderate hearing loss. So I don't think it would make sense for her not to learn speech. I want her to learn sign too - I'm not saying that I don't. But I'm going to give her hearing aids and speech therapy because otherwise it wouldn't be using her potential. If her hearing loss turns out to be progressive I will rethink that. I'm just saying that my desire for her to speak comes from my innate audism, which I try to step away from, but which is hard to really completely get away from. I feel like if I were Deaf I would have a different perspective. Do you think a hearing parent can ever truly think in a Deaf way? That's another question, isn't it? That's really what I'm saying...that I'm not sure we can. But that's because we come to it too late. Our kids are more "plastic."
 
you know, I have heard children who started out mild and moderate loss tend to get worst as they get older. This is a good idea for her to learn ASL at a young age. BEcause you never know she'll need it. other than that, they are ok with speech. I was referring to children who are more of a severe to profound deaf.
 
lucyinthesky said:
Hehe I try not to.

I should have been clearer...I don't really think it's okay not to learn sign if you have a deaf family member, but I get why hearing parents have trouble with totally ignoring speech because we spend a lot of time speaking and it's a big leap to decide that you're not going to think about speech at all. I'm not saying it's right, just that it's hard not to think that way. It's kind of built in. And that's why I think the OP was confusing language and speech to some extent. For hearies they are kind of tied together in our way of thinking.

In our case I am kind of at a loss because my daughter isn't profoundly deaf, she has a mild-moderate hearing loss. So I don't think it would make sense for her not to learn speech. I want her to learn sign too - I'm not saying that I don't. But I'm going to give her hearing aids and speech therapy because otherwise it wouldn't be using her potential. If her hearing loss turns out to be progressive I will rethink that. I'm just saying that my desire for her to speak comes from my innate audism, which I try to step away from, but which is hard to really completely get away from. I feel like if I were Deaf I would have a different perspective. Do you think a hearing parent can ever truly think in a Deaf way? That's another question, isn't it? That's really what I'm saying...that I'm not sure we can. But that's because we come to it too late. Our kids are more "plastic."
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Even if you don't like to OP's manner, she has been living it for six years now. She is quite bright and really not confused.

And your daughter's loss is different from profound deafness. My husband has a moderated loss and he speaks perfectly well Everyone understands him. Of course there is no reason not to learn speech with a mild or moderate hearing loss.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
you know, I have heard children who started out mild and moderate loss tend to get worst as they get older.
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Yeah, some do. No one knows in our case. I have heard a 30% chance or a 50% chance. That's why I think it's important for her to be bilingual in sign language. Which brings us back to the original question, no?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that the reason why many people don't want their kids to study speech is that it takes so much time away from other things they could be learning, like social studies, math, art, etc...so the audist issue is that many hearing people think it's so important for a child to speak that they are willing to give up on their child's education and whole development. Speaking itself is not audist, it's speaking at the expense of the child's well-being.
 
unfortunately for some deaf, speech still doesn't really reach the auditory part of the brain. it's still a visual/feel/whatever type of thing. Why fight it? Give them ASL.
 
lucyinthesky said:
Yeah, some do. No one knows in our case. I have heard a 30% chance or a 50% chance. That's why I think it's important for her to be bilingual in sign language. Which brings us back to the original question, no?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that the reason why many people don't want their kids to study speech is that it takes so much time away from other things they could be learning, like social studies, math, art, etc...so the audist issue is that many hearing people think it's so important for a child to speak that they are willing to give up on their child's education and whole development. Speaking itself is not audist, it's speaking at the expense of the child's well-being.
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it is true, if the child is struggling to learn speech. Is your child struggling to the point that it have to be the sole focus all day? Is she saying "Huh" alot? if so, that's means she is missing out some of her education.
 
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