faire_jour

Number one, spoken English IS a language. By fostering it, you ARE worried about language acquisition.

Number two, I didn't say it was MORE important than anything. I said it is not valued. Spoken language is not seen as something of value in many bi-bi schools. They take the position that some kids will learn, some won't, but that they are not going to spend time wotking toward the goal of fluent spoken language use.

Deafness

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jillio

Exactly. Their first point of contact is a hearing physician and a hearing audiologist. Both tend to view things from the pathological perspective. By the time the deaf school has any input, these parents have already been convinced that they must do everything to make their child a reasonable facsimile of a hearing kid, and that to work with the deafness instead of against it will do untold harm to their child.

jillio

Some kids will develop speech and some won't. That is a fact of childhood deafness. Some will, some won't. Some will with very little assistance, and some won't despite the newest technology and 24/7 therapy. That is why it is so important not to sacrifice language acquisition, cognitive development and academic performance to something as much of a crap shoot as speech.

faire_jour

And some will if given proper support and therapy, but won't if not, so they need it. They deserve to get what they need to succeed as much as the kids who pick it up easily.

I am simply saying that many schools view spoken language as a waste of time. Parents don't. If the philosophies don't line up, parents won't enroll their kids.

souggy

Um... I was never expected to speak until I told my mom I wanted to learn how to at age 8 since she was starting to get joint problems at the time, and I didn't want to be ignored by my family since most of them didn't learn ASL. I learned how to speak through 2 hours of AFTER-SCHOOL therapies once a week.

Why does it have to be IN the school? If you really value it, then there is such thing as "after-school programs."

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faire_jour

Research shows that in order for someone to learn a language they must be exposed to it 35 hours a week. They need fluent interaction, from language models 35 hours a week. That can't happen through 2 hour therapy sessions alone.

jillio

I have been involved in deaf ed for over 20 years, and have yet to encounter a deaf school, charter or otherwise, that views speech as "a waste of time."

shel90

The whole point of schools is EDUCATION not speech therapy.

To guarantee that all deaf/hoh children are getting equal access, ASL is the language to use. To use spoken language u run the risk of children not having full access. They ARE deaf, not hearing.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

jillio

Could you refer me to that research? I would be very interested in seeing what methodology was used to reach this conclusion, and what population was studied.

faire_jour

Sure. I'll find it. It was a study about bilingualism in general. It was not about Deaf children. They found that 35 hours was the key, if they were exposed to less, they never became fully fluent in the "weaker" language.

deafdyke

Correction.........the bi-bi school that YOU experianced!
Actually, faire_jour most of the public programs out there don't have great speech therapy resources, since many of the gifted speech therapists tend to be attracted to the private school programs or the oral programs in high achiever towns.

jillio

In that case, you cannot generalize it to the deaf population. There are too many variables that you are not accounting for. But I would still be interested in reading it.

faire_jour

No, I have spoken to other bi-bi programs as well. We have "shopped around" because we have considered relocating so that our daughter could have the best education around. There is a prevelant feeling that if the child is learning to speak, that's great, but if not, there is nothing we can (or will) do about it.

I think SLP's are attracted to jobs where their work is needed and valued. Why wouldn't they go to an oral school?

faire_jour

So, a deaf child would somehow need LESS exposure to a language to pick it up? That seems unlikely.....

shel90

That's where history repeats itself..trying to apply theories on hering children to deaf children. It just doesn't work. More variables need to be taken into account when dealing with a deaf/hoh population than just simple cut and dry exposure to 35 hours of spoken language.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

jillio

There are variables regarding exposure that would be peculiar to a deaf child that would not apply to the hearing population.

souggy

The difference is that "35 hours" thing is PASSIVE learning.

In speech therapy, it's ACTIVE learning... well if it's hands-on, it's active.

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jillio

Exactly. We have to break away from seeing deaf kids as hearing kids with impaired functioning and start seeing them as fully functioning deaf kids. The ears and the mouth play far too important a role for some.

faire_jour

But education can be given in spoken language as much as in ASL. My daughter does not have speech therapy all day, she has school. She is learning to read, doing math and science and sharing stories. It is just a different language mode.

jillio

Correct. That would be one of the variables that would make research of this type non-applicable to the deaf population. There are several others as well.

shel90

Spoken language..fully accessible by auditory.

Deaf children do not have full auditory access like hearing children.

ASL fully accessible visually or tactually.

Deaf children can see and can feel..so they have full access to sight or touch.

Which language would be guaranteed to be fully accessible to ANY deaf/hoh child?

I think the answer is easy to figure out.

Why should deaf childre n have less than full access in the education setting where learning takes place? Why? That just seems cruel in a way.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

jillio

The question is, how much more could she be learning in a visual mode?

Also, speech is a mode of English. ASL is a different language altogether, and it developed to be in sync with the manner in which the brain processes visual information. That is why the syntax is spatial and time oriented. English is linear; quite unlike ASL, and therefore, when one attempts to use one of the MCEs, one is making the linguistic environment confusing for the child's brain to process.

faire_jour

So far she is keeping up beautifully, is happy as a clam to be there and her spoken language has exploded. She is doing well in her academics, and is happy, I don't know what more I could want!

deafdyke

YES! THANK YOU! Most dhh kids are exposed to English/spoken language out of school. Yes....they aren't sitting at a desk going " boo-be-bah" ....but they ARE building on the stuff they learn in speech therapy. They don't need to be in speech therapy 24/7.

faire_jour

Exposure to a language is not speech therapy.

Plus, if a child is a sign language user, when they leave schol, they will still be using sign. Are you advocating a family with a child who uses ASL, NOT use it at home, so that they will learn spoken language?

souggy

*head smacks into desk*

Why is it so hard to explain to an American about fluent language acquisition... from a Canadian or European point of view.

I swear the monolingual political viewpoint distorted things.

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faire_jour

No. I understand, but I believe that BOTH languages need to be acquired naturally through exposure and use NOT through lessons and therapy.

jillio

Unfortunately, it has. Americans appear to take great pride in their monolingualism. I, personally, see it as a shame.

souggy

Here's a million dollar question...

How do Europeans and Canadians become fluent in French, Italian, German, English, Japanese, Mandarin and so on... and in some cases: they learn up to 5 languages before university, without being completely immersed in the language itself, not using it at school or at home?

It's sure ain't "35 hours a week." Need help? Ask a Finnish.

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jillio

Exposure, exposure, exposure. And how do children raised in a bilingual home know to code switch at a very young age depending upon who they are communicating with. Same thing, exposure, exposure, exposure. They both early on connect the symbolic nature of language, and that fundamental knowledge is applied to various languages. Americans seem to have difficulty understanding the symbolic nature of language.