SEE is a language... It's English...

[Berry]

I do not understand how I am adding fuel to the fire. titled the thread with a happy face to show that I had no negative intent.

Of course you don't understand. People are getting frustrated because they do not know how to explain it to you. Jillio does not believe it can be explained to you.

In truth things such as this are not explained or taught.

They are acquired. Understanding is developed. I had an early start. I was introduced to the Deaf World as a child by my CODA friend.

It is pretty clear that a vocal group of individuals don't like me because of my statements about SEE. .

Wrong.

We dislike SEE.

We don't really know you yet. So far your defense of SEE is the only thing we do know about you.

At no time did I ever say it was the "best thing" to do, or that it was better than ASL.

.

You are hearing, but you are not listening.

I believe knowledge acquired empirically is the best knowledge.

Don't listen to me.

Listen to the DEAF.

They are trying to tell you what they learned by having lived it.

 

[posts from hell]

Real nice.

Thanks for seeing what I saw.........

 

[Berry]

Would it be better for a hearing parent who barely knows ASL to try to use her poor ASL ability with a young child? Is SEE considered easier for a hearing English-speaking person to use? How difficult is it for a child to transition from SEE to ASL?

It might not be an exact analogy, but I'm thinking a bit of my dad's experiences as a child. His parents spoke only Italian at home. So when he started school, he barely knew any English, just a few words that he had picked up from playmates.

He said he had to learn English in a hurry when he was in kindergarten. However, that meant that the English he learned was correct English, not the barely-intelligible bit of English my grandparents knew. By the time he was 7, he was fluent in both languages.

What good would it have done him if his non-English-speaking parents had tried to "speak English" at home when they only knew a few words, and spoke even those with a strong accent?

So - maybe I'm wrong here, but if a hearing parent can use SEE easily, wouldn't that give a young child more access to language than a poorly-done version of ASL? Wouldn't it be better to learn ASL correctly, once the parent learned it better also, or when the child can learn from an ASL-using teacher?

Your baby in the cradle will not sign as well as you -- Even though the only signs you know are Mommy, Milk, and Water.

You can learn with your baby. When he is five you and baby will both be competent.

At ten years old the parents will fall behind and probably never catch up.

But that is unimportant. The child will be off and running. That is important.

Where your analogy fails -- And where it succeeds --

Is the willingness of the parents to put forth the effort to learn a new language

The fact he already had a full language to start with

Parents learn SEE because it is easier for them -- Not because it is easier for the child. The parent really does not have to learn anything new. They just have to learn to express what they do know in a novel way.

The burden to learn, and to adapt, later in life, falls squarely on the child.

Not fair.

Deaf people DO teach English to Deaf students using ASL. Just as teachers teach French to English speaking students using English.

 

[Berry]

Feel free to.

Thank you.

 

[Berry]

Don't get me wrong: I am solidly on the Deafies' side. I was just bemused at the suddenness of the hearing people banding together in some common cause--telling us that we are wrong.
Okay, okay, maybe that was not your intention, you darn hearies, but that was my impression.
Leave me alone.
*looking around for a hearie face I do not like*

 

[Berry]

Didn't realize you were waiting for some explanation. There is a gap in exposure that many deaf kids have when it comes to learning to read and write in English. Unlike typical hearing kids, many deaf kids just starting to learn to read and write have not previously been exposed to the English language -- typical hearing kids are exposed to spoken English: the grammar, the vocabulary, the syntax, etc. for some 4 or 5 years before they begin to write and read in the language. That lack of early exposure to English is what most Deaf ed experts point to as a cause of literacy issues, which they try to fill using various teaching approaches, including visual phonics, speechreading techniques, English-based sign systems, scaffolding approaches.

I am of the opinion that with the advent of DVD's, CD's, etc D's, that written English is no longer the hallmark, nor the bastion of knowledge that it once was, even for hearies.

Much information is lost in the written word.

All we have of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is what is written.

Why would I read Obama's inaugural speech when I can WATCH IT?

I hope the written word will always exist but, baring world wide disaster, it will never have the importance it once did.

Let it go.

 

[Bottesini]

I am of the opinion that with the advent of DVD's, CD's, etc D's, that written English is no longer the hallmark, nor the bastion of knowledge that it once was, even for hearies.

Much information is lost in the written word.

All we have of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is what is written.

Why would I read Obama's inaugural speech when I can WATCH IT?

I hope the written word will always exist but, baring world wide disaster, it will never have the importance it once did.

Let it go.

I need the written word to access Obama's inaugual speech.

 

[jillio]

I need the written word to access Obama's inaugual speech.

The next bit of research I am about to post will explain why.

 

[jillio]

Luckner and colleagues (2005/2006) identified 964 articles related to literacy and deaf individuals
over a 40-year period, a finding that attests, at least, to the importance of the issue. Yet Luckner and colleagues found only 22 of those studies sufficiently rigorous, complete, and relevant to be included in a meta-analysis of research results, and reported that "no two studies examined the same dimension
of literacy" (p. 443). In short, they found that educators and researchers do not know as much about deaf students' literacy as they think they do.

...language-rich early environments appear to be necessary for age-appropriate literacy skills, but
they do not appear to be sufficient. Rather, several studies have indicated that deaf children
whose early environments Include access to both sign language and the print/spoken vernacular" develop better literacy skills than those exposed only to one mode or the other (Akamatsu, Musselman, &. Zweibel, 2000; Brasel & Quigley, 1977; Padden & Ramsey. 2000; Strong & Prinz, 1997, 2000).

Although deaf children with cochlear implants frequently are found to read better than peers without implants, their mean levels of performance still rarely match those of hearing age-mates (Geers, 2005; Spencer, Tombiin, & Gantz, 1997). Emerging longitudinal data further suggest that even while such children continue to show language gains, their reading abilities may fall behind those of hearing peers in later grades (Geers, Tobey, Moog, & Brenner, 2008), when schooling demands that they read to learn and there is reduced emphasis on learning to read. A possible exception appears to be tbose students with implants who have the opportunity to use both spoken and sign language in school, a group that has been found to read at the same level as hearing peers, at least through high school (Spencer, Gantz, & Knutson, 2004).

There appears to be a naive assumption that underlies beliefs about reading and children with cochlear implants: that there is a direct relationship between hearing threshold and reading ability. Literacy does seem to be sensitive to hearing loss, but the relationship appears to be one in which even relatively small increases in hearing thresholds can disrupt reading ability, rather than one in which there is a direct link between the two.

Timms, Brien, Merrell, Collins, and Jones (2003), however, did not find a correspondence between hearing thresholds and composite reading scores among 5- and 6-year-olds. Among older deaf and hard-of-hearing students, Allen (1986) found that degree of hearing loss had little effect on academic achievement, as measured by the Stanford Acbievement Test, a finding replicated by Powers (2003) in his reanalysis of a large data set.

Marschark and Wauters argued that one reason for the lack of progress in this area might he that deaf students' reading challenges are not really specific to reading. The researchers observed that weaknesses exhibited by deaf students in many of the subskills involved in reading are paralleled by similar weaknesses in understanding sign language, and suggested that both therefore might better be accounted for in terms of more general language-comprehension and cognitive factors. In their view, understanding and improving reading comprehension skills among deaf students will require going beyond the most commonly studied aspects of deaf students' reading—phonology, vocabulary,
morphology, and grammar—and considering differences in higher-level language and cognitive processes.

This notion is captured in Paul's view of reading as involving interactions among text factors, reader factors, and task/context factors, and in the more general notion of reading as involving both top-down and bottom-up processing (i.e., between what is known and what is on the primed page).

…tbe possibility that rather than continue to search for explanations of deaf students' difficulties with text, it mighi be more fruitful to examine relations of cognitive processing, language comprehension, and learning, regardless of whetber the latter twoinvolve printed words or througb-the-air communication. In this view, if deaf students have full perceptual access to both print and sign language and demonstrate similar difficulties in learning through those media. it is unlikely that discussions of English phonology or grammar, or any other text variables, will be sufficient to overcome reading challenges. Rather, a focus on reader variables such as lexical knowledge, metacognition, and informat ion-processing strategies and habits in the context of language at large would be in order.

A related explanation for the advantage of reading over learning from sign or speecb is the evanescence of through-the-air communication. We suggested earlier in the present article that deaf students' seeing sign can be considered functionally equivalent to hearing students' hearing speech for the purposes of interpersonal communication, and the two modalities share the linguistic quality of rapid fatling. Michaei, Keller, Carpenter, and Just (2001) observed very different patterns of brain activity when bearing individuals heard or read identical sentences, an indication of qualitative differences
between the two ways of processing information. Michael and colleagues suggested that listening requires much more processing—as well as greater utilization the memory resources—than reading, in large measure because of rapid fading. With printed text, in contrast, the reader can control how fast words are processed, and portions of the text can be re-read to provide context or disambiguation of more difficult or misread segments (an option not available with real-time text).

Marschark, et.al. (2009). Are deaf students reading challanges really about reading? The American Annals of the Deaf. 4(4).

Okay. Those of you who follow my posts regarding literacy, language, and cognition...how many times have you seen me post exactly what is being stated in this article? We have discussed the issues of higher thinking, top down and bottom up processing, and the fact that auditory stimuli require more, as well as a different type, of processing.

And please note the use of "language rich environments" not spoken language rich environments" nor "English rich environments".
Again, discuss away.

 

[deafskeptic]

Luckner and colleagues (2005/2006) identified 964 articles related to literacy and deaf individuals
over a 40-year period, a finding that attests, at least, to the importance of the issue. Yet Luckner and colleagues found only 22 of those studies sufficiently rigorous, complete, and relevant to be included in a meta-analysis of research results, and reported that "no two studies examined the same dimension
of literacy" (p. 443). In short, they found that educators and researchers do not know as much about deaf students' literacy as they think they do.

it seems that the majority of the studies with the expectation of those 22 studies don't meet the standards for meta-anaylysis.

...language-rich early environments appear to be necessary for age-appropriate literacy skills, but
they do not appear to be sufficient. Rather, several studies have indicated that deaf children
whose early environments Include access to both sign language and the print/spoken vernacular" develop better literacy skills than those exposed only to one mode or the other (Akamatsu, Musselman, &. Zweibel, 2000; Brasel & Quigley, 1977; Padden & Ramsey. 2000; Strong & Prinz, 1997, 2000).

In short, exposure to both sign and spoken language seem to be helpful.

Although deaf children with cochlear implants frequently are found to read better than peers without implants, their mean levels of performance still rarely match those of hearing age-mates (Geers, 2005; Spencer, Tombiin, & Gantz, 1997). Emerging longitudinal data further suggest that even while such children continue to show language gains, their reading abilities may fall behind those of hearing peers in later grades (Geers, Tobey, Moog, & Brenner, 2008), when schooling demands that they read to learn and there is reduced emphasis on learning to read. A possible exception appears to be tbose students with implants who have the opportunity to use both spoken and sign language in school, a group that has been found to read at the same level as hearing peers, at least through high school (Spencer, Gantz, & Knutson, 2004).

In short, CIs only provides partial access to spoken language.

There appears to be a naive assumption that underlies beliefs about reading and children with cochlear implants: that there is a direct relationship between hearing threshold and reading ability. Literacy does seem to be sensitive to hearing loss, but the relationship appears to be one in which even relatively small increases in hearing thresholds can disrupt reading ability, rather than one in which there is a direct link between the two.

ok, I'm not sure how to parse this.

Timms, Brien, Merrell, Collins, and Jones (2003), however, did not find a correspondence between hearing thresholds and composite reading scores among 5- and 6-year-olds. Among older deaf and hard-of-hearing students, Allen (1986) found that degree of hearing loss had little effect on academic achievement, as measured by the Stanford Acbievement Test, a finding replicated by Powers (2003) in his reanalysis of a large data set.

Degree of loss doesn't appear to be a factor in achiement or test performace.

Marschark and Wauters argued that one reason for the lack of progress in this area might he that deaf students' reading challenges are not really specific to reading. The researchers observed that weaknesses exhibited by deaf students in many of the subskills involved in reading are paralleled by similar weaknesses in understanding sign language, and suggested that both therefore might better be accounted for in terms of more general language-comprehension and cognitive factors. In their view, understanding and improving reading comprehension skills among deaf students will require going beyond the most commonly studied aspects of deaf students' reading—phonology, vocabulary,
morphology, and grammar—and considering differences in higher-level language and cognitive processes.

So then access to language is vital.

This notion is captured in Paul's view of reading as involving interactions among text factors, reader factors, and task/context factors, and in the more general notion of reading as involving both top-down and bottom-up processing (i.e., between what is known and what is on the primed page).

…tbe possibility that rather than continue to search for explanations of deaf students' difficulties with text, it mighi be more fruitful to examine relations of cognitive processing, language comprehension, and learning, regardless of whetber the latter twoinvolve printed words or througb-the-air communication. In this view, if deaf students have full perceptual access to both print and sign language and demonstrate similar difficulties in learning through those media. it is unlikely that discussions of English phonology or grammar, or any other text variables, will be sufficient to overcome reading challenges. Rather, a focus on reader variables such as lexical knowledge, metacognition, and informat ion-processing strategies and habits in the context of language at large would be in order.

I have never believed phonics were the only way to become literate. Phonics have never been my forte.

A related explanation for the advantage of reading over learning from sign or speecb is the evanescence of through-the-air communication. We suggested earlier in the present article that deaf students' seeing sign can be considered functionally equivalent to hearing students' hearing speech for the purposes of interpersonal communication, and the two modalities share the linguistic quality of rapid fatling. Michaei, Keller, Carpenter, and Just (2001) observed very different patterns of brain activity when bearing individuals heard or read identical sentences, an indication of qualitative differences
between the two ways of processing information. Michael and colleagues suggested that listening requires much more processing—as well as greater utilization the memory resources—than reading, in large measure because of rapid fading. With printed text, in contrast, the reader can control how fast words are processed, and portions of the text can be re-read to provide context or disambiguation of more difficult or misread segments (an option not available with real-time text).

In short, sign is not a barrior to literacy.

Marschark, et.al. (2009). Are deaf students reading challanges really about reading? The American Annals of the Deaf. 4(4).
Okay. Those of you who follow my posts regarding literacy, language, and cognition...how many times have you seen me post exactly what is being stated in this article? We have discussed the issues of higher thinking, top down and bottom up processing, and the fact that auditory stimuli require more, as well as a different type, of processing.

And please note the use of "language rich environments" not spoken language rich environments" nor "English rich environments".
Again, discuss away.

I've seen you post this endlessly. I wonder what you think of my take on your post.

 

[jillio]

I've seen you post this endlessly. I wonder what you think of my take on your post.

You have pretty well summed it up. I would make one correction, where you said "access to sign and spoken language". The article actually says print/spoken, meaning print or spoken.

 

[deafskeptic]

I've seen you post this endlessly. I wonder what you think of my take on your post.

You have pretty well summed it up. I would make one correction, where you said "access to sign and spoken language". The article actually says print/spoken, meaning print or spoken.

Ok i stand corrected.

 

[Jiro]

Would it be better for a hearing parent who barely knows ASL to try to use her poor ASL ability with a young child? Is SEE considered easier for a hearing English-speaking person to use? How difficult is it for a child to transition from SEE to ASL?

It might not be an exact analogy, but I'm thinking a bit of my dad's experiences as a child. His parents spoke only Italian at home. So when he started school, he barely knew any English, just a few words that he had picked up from playmates.

He said he had to learn English in a hurry when he was in kindergarten. However, that meant that the English he learned was correct English, not the barely-intelligible bit of English my grandparents knew. By the time he was 7, he was fluent in both languages.

What good would it have done him if his non-English-speaking parents had tried to "speak English" at home when they only knew a few words, and spoke even those with a strong accent?

So - maybe I'm wrong here, but if a hearing parent can use SEE easily, wouldn't that give a young child more access to language than a poorly-done version of ASL? Wouldn't it be better to learn ASL correctly, once the parent learned it better also, or when the child can learn from an ASL-using teacher?

there you go. As I've said many times... many immigrant children have no problem learning bilingual languages. Majority of children's time is spent at schools. They are taught by professionals and they communicate socially daily with their peers.

Bottom line - your grandparents and your dad had a complete language to begin with. SEE is not a complete language nor anything at all. It does not matter if it's just a visual representation of English. I'm sorry that you have a great difficulty in understanding it. But it's really not hard to understand this simple concept - there's a language for ear called [spoken] English (since spoken English is not the same as written English). and there's a language for eye called ASL. You cannot combine both English & ASL and then call it SEE - it's a language! It's as offensive and terrible as combining Spanish & English and then call it Spanglish. Do you support teaching Spanglish to Mexican kids in America?

Perhaps if you give ASL a try first before you defend CSign's nonsensical stance... then perhaps you might understand a thing or two.

I'm a firm believer in parental's choice that's in the best interest of their children but I will be against it if their reasoning is flawed. I take it that you support any parental's choice that's in their children's best interest no matter how flawed it is?

 

[Berry]

I personally think the initial idea behind SEE was was great, workable, and had the potential for fantastic benefits for everyone.

What they did with it was insane.

First, instead of preserving ASL they deconstructed it. They did this by using English glosses of signs as though they were the words and then put them back together again. So you come up with monstrosities like "butter - fly" for butterfly.

Then they invented signs that did not need to exist in the first place. Such as using the letter "j" to mean "ing" when the "now" sign is readily available.

Next they took what signs they kept and initialized them into oblivion. For example the "real, is, true, be" sign -- In SEE it is initialized for "am, is, are, was, were," etc in a useless display of time consuming finger exercises.

Had the creators of SEE respected ASL and used normal signing in English word order they might have created an extremely useful bridge between the two languages. Both for ASL users to cross over into English and for English users to cross over into ASL.

True it would have been a pidgen, but it would be a respectful pidgen that could fly.

 

[shel90]

I personally think the initial idea behind SEE was was great, workable, and had the potential for fantastic benefits for everyone.

What they did with it was insane.

First, instead of preserving ASL they deconstructed it. They did this by using English glosses of signs as though they were the words and then put them back together again. So you come up with monstrosities like "butter - fly" for butterfly.

Then they invented signs that did not need to exist in the first place. Such as using the letter "j" to mean "ing" when the "now" sign is readily available.

Next they took what signs they kept and initialized them into oblivion. For example the "real, is, true, be" sign -- In SEE it is initialized for "am, is, are, was, were," etc in a useless display of time consuming finger exercises.

Had the creators of SEE respected ASL and used normal signing in English word order they might have created an extremely useful bridge between the two languages. Both for ASL users to cross over into English and for English users to cross over into ASL.

True it would have been a pidgen, but it would be a respectful pidgen that could fly.

Been trying to tell that to the SEE defenders to see what they really realize what they are supporting. I would never support any Deaf person to take apart English and contruct it to ASL syntax. I would tell them that writing English in ASL syntax doesnt make sense just like signing ASL in English syntax doesnt make sense at all.

 

[jillio]

I personally think the initial idea behind SEE was was great, workable, and had the potential for fantastic benefits for everyone.

What they did with it was insane.

First, instead of preserving ASL they deconstructed it. They did this by using English glosses of signs as though they were the words and then put them back together again. So you come up with monstrosities like "butter - fly" for butterfly.

Then they invented signs that did not need to exist in the first place. Such as using the letter "j" to mean "ing" when the "now" sign is readily available.

Next they took what signs they kept and initialized them into oblivion. For example the "real, is, true, be" sign -- In SEE it is initialized for "am, is, are, was, were," etc in a useless display of time consuming finger exercises.

Had the creators of SEE respected ASL and used normal signing in English word order they might have created an extremely useful bridge between the two languages. Both for ASL users to cross over into English and for English users to cross over into ASL.

True it would have been a pidgen, but it would be a respectful pidgen that could fly.

Pigeon languages, or contact languages, have historically been very effective bridges. Butchered languages have not.

 

[dogmom]

it seems to me that butchering two languages - ASL and English - to try to construct a "substitute" for teaching purposes inherently starts from a "lack of" mind-set, therefore basing the whole thing on a bias which sets the vast majority of children <as they get older and more out into the world> for difficulty at best and feelings of failure and isolation at worst.

I'm also on a learning disability forum. One time there was a thread about how it seems to us that dyslexia is so much more recognized by everyone - and diagnosed by authorities - than math LD alone or other learning disabilities. I wrote it seemed like maybe that was due partly to the high emphasis and bias we have in the U.S. on English and general literacy/print as opposed to other ways of knowing and learning.

 

[posts from hell]

Hmm, nope, don't see where I wrote anything remotely discussing your many gaps.

Alright. Since you did not answer. My many gaps, as you call them, can be attributed to my learning via the use of SEE. Now you can personally see what I am advocating against, by telling others to use ASL with their kids.

Would you want other kids to have the same gaps that I have? I would wager not, so, it's time for you to see to it that other parents don't do whatever suits THEM. Preferably you let them do what is the best for the KID.

So much for your false sense of superiority. I feel sorry for you. I'm glad others have SEEn the same.

 

[jillio]

it seems to me that butchering two languages - ASL and English - to try to construct a "substitute" for teaching purposes inherently starts from a "lack of" mind-set, therefore basing the whole thing on a bias which sets the vast majority of children <as they get older and more out into the world> for difficulty at best and feelings of failure and isolation at worst.

I'm also on a learning disability forum. One time there was a thread about how it seems to us that dyslexia is so much more recognized by everyone - and diagnosed by authorities - than math LD alone or other learning disabilities. I wrote it seemed like maybe that was due partly to the high emphasis and bias we have in the U.S. on English and general literacy/print as opposed to other ways of knowing and learning.

I have noticed that dyslexia is more often diagnosed than specific math disorders or a specific disorder of reading / writing. I don't think it is that more prevalent. I think it is just used as an umbrella diagnosis when a more specific diagnosis would be much more appropriate.

 

[jillio]

Alright. Since you did not answer. My many gaps, as you call them, can be attributed to my learning via the use of SEE. Now you can personally see what I am advocating against, by telling others to use ASL with their kids.

Would you want other kids to have the same gaps that I have? I would wager not, so, it's time for you to see to it that other parents don't do whatever suits THEM. Preferably you let them do what is the best for the KID.

So much for your false sense of superiority. I feel sorry for you. I'm glad others have SEEn the same.

I am currently reading some very interesting research regarding parental stress in parents with deaf kids. It seems that the parents who are dedicated to oral language report more stress, have poorer relationships with their children, and the children experience more behavior issues. This is the result of gaps in language acquisition.