shel90

Deafness and Hearing Loss

Good website with information on children and deafness...

__________________
"Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it."

--- Anonymous

Deafness

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on AllDeaf.com

jillio

Excellent website, shel. Thanks for posting.

Reba

Thanks for the link; I saved it to my Bookmarks.

rockdrummer

Seems that Mr. Egbert is a bit controversial

John F. Egbert-MindField » Deaf Bilingual Coalition

jillio

Only according to the oralist supporters, and the hearing community that has no understanding of the issues.

rockdrummer

There are responses ther from folks that are deaf as well. Perhaps you are considering them oralists

Sunshinelady

I did read it before, It is good for deaf Children

__________________
The laughter is the best medicine.

jillio

What---you never heard of a deaf oralist? And not all the responses are negative.

rockdrummer

I understand that and I never said all responses were negative. It's just makes me wonder how it is that some deafies are content with the oral approach and yet there are still those that are against it. Seems to me that it's a matter of choice and who ever makes the choice may have good results with a happy outcome and some may not. Such is life in many aspects. It's really not for me or anyone to decide for someone else other than those we are responsible for. Live and let live.

jillio

Absolutely, its a matter of choice. However, when decisions are being made regarding communication methods, those choices are made by the parent. And if a child has been raised in an oral atmosphere all their lives, and have nothing to compare it to, how can they express dissatisfaction with the only thing they know?

And yes, there are oral successes out there. They are, however, few and far between. Most suffer some negative consequences to varying degrees.

rockdrummer

Based on my experience it's the parents and educators that get together to come up with a direction. Remember a young child (especially with no experience in any methods) is not very well equipped to make such a profound decision. I would also be interested in some stats on the negative consequences that you speak of. If a parent is to make an informed decision they really need access to information that is more than just someones opinion. It would be helpful to have a place or link where this information can be found.

jillio

But, hasn't that decision been made prior to the child entering the educational system? If a child is diagnosed at the age of one, and has only been exposed to oral communication in the home for the years prior to entering the educational system, the decison has been made by proxy. And if a parent has decided to use the oral method at home, they will naturally be more than willing to accept such a recommendation from the educational system.

rockdrummer

That's a loaded question. In my view there are many more vairables in that process that you elude to most of which will depend on the parents involvement and how much they educate themselves on deafness.

jillio

How so....if they are using oral communication, haven't they decided to use oral communication?

dreama

Well I have my own case to go by. I really wish I had learnt BSL as a child. I grew up HOH so it was felt that I did not need it. I went on to develop a visual impairment which made sign language difficult to pick up visually. I know very basic sign language but I usually have to resort to finger spelling after a while when communicating to other deaf people. I do, however, find signing deaf people easier to communicate with. Even with my very basic signing.

I also went to a PHU which was actively oralist. That is they actively discouraged sign language. The children in that unit had no choice. Many of the children seemed to have communication difficulties even though most of them had some useful hearing at that unit. I don't think signing deaf have communication difficulties in the same way. They just use a differant language to communicate with.

I've also been to a mental health unit for the deaf in preston. Many of whom had very poor communication skills due to lack or a delay in learning sign language. There were deaf people who just couldn't communicate at all.

__________________
I speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
http://www.fightfoca.com/

jillio

I'm glad you brought that up, dreama. There are certain forms of mental disturbances that are disproportionately prevalent in the deaf community, and it is believed that the constant stress of commuication difficulties is responsible. For example, there is a very wide discrepancy between oral deaf who have attempted to assimilate into the hearing world, and those who have a Deaf identity in diagnosed adjustment related mental illness. It is thought that the Deaf suffer fewer of these disorders because they are not under the constant stress of attempting to measure up to standards that are unreachable.

shel90

Yea and no thanks to the oral specialists who pushed my mom into raising me oral. From what my mom tells me, they made it seem like to her that if I learned sign language, I would never grow up to be an independent adult so of course my mom was brainwashed a bit there and freaked her out so she put my brother and I in the oral-only program. My brother suffered 5 years of language deprivation until finally my mom had enough and placed him at the deaf school but since I "appeared" fine, I was kept in the oral only program. As a result, my self esteem and confidence in myself was nearly destroyed from years and years of people telling me this or that, putting me down, criticizing my speech and so many more.

I had no say in my educational approaches so as an adult, I have the power to educate people about the oral-only approach but apparently it is still strongly favored by those specialists who strongly believe that ASL will interfere with oral skill development and when deaf people in the profession try to put in their opinion and feedback, we are degraded as biased or deaf militants. Just like what happened here on AD when I tried to explain what the oral-only approach does to many deaf children but u saw what happened so that's the same thing that happens out there when deaf people who specialize in the field of deaf education voice their concerns and opinions. Something is wrong with the picture there.

__________________
"Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it."

--- Anonymous

shel90

Yea and that's the very reason why I spent years in therapy after I was diagnosed with a mild eating disorder. The therapist concluded that my eating disorder came from my stress and having no control over my life after years of trying to measure up to those "hearing" standards. I came to the belief that if I was skinny and beautiful, nobody would care about my deafness and not make a big issue about it and as a result, I became dangerously underweight. Luckily, it did reach to the point where I needed to be hospitalized but I needed serious therapy. After therapy and going to Gallaudet which helped me accept my deafness, all of my urges to self destruct vanished!

Also, I want to add to that ...my brother and his friends who went to the deaf school had no issues of self identity and they all were happy with themselves as deaf people..lucky them!

__________________
"Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it."

--- Anonymous

jillio

Exactly! And I want to thank you for sharing that painful part of your story, shel. It seems to be so darned difficult to get people to understand the the effects of an oral only environment ripple out and affect every aspect of a person's life. By you sharing the pain tha you have gone through, maybe at least one will have the light bulb go on.

I hear the same things from the deaf adolescents I work with that come from an oral only environment. I find it so frustrating because all they have gone through could have been prevented had those responsible just opened their eyes and looked at what was actually happening to the child. I keep telling peole that a signing happy well adjusted child is much preferable to a speaking neurotic unhappy child. But they just don't seem to get it.

shel90

And now CIs are used as their justification..oh boy. I am not against CIs and if they help great but to deny them sign language in the educational setting? Come on!

__________________
"Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it."

--- Anonymous

robbielyn

these oralist need to be deaf and try to learn french or czechoslavakian or something and see how easy it is to learn. Kudos to deaf who somehow manage to learn english and speak it and lipread cause I cannot imagine being able to do that myself if I were deaf. Sign language is so beautiful to watch and if deaf can communicate with each other then that is all that matters not whether they learn spoken language or not. Although living in a hearing world would make it easier if they could learn english but signing should definately be their first language.

jillio

Exactly. And then, when problems do arise, to blame then on everything else but the real cause. And what kills me, is I get told that I am trying to take a parent's decision away, but that is not it at all. I am only saying that if you want to demand the right to make those decision, and justify it by saying "This is my child and I will do what I think is best.", then you also have to accept any negative consequences that come with that decision. That is what I am not seeing. I see parents that demand to be allowed to make the decision,k but when their decision doesn't work out perfectly, they want to balme everyone else. That's my main point. If you are big enough to make the decision and defend it, then you have got to be big enough to accept whatever comes with it.

shel90

Actually, all deaf people whethr they have oral skills or not do learn English. Some may not be so great at writing it but it is better than nothing, right? That's why I have such strong feelings about reorganizing deaf education so more deaf people can have stronger literacy skills.

__________________
"Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it."

--- Anonymous

shel90

U got a good point there..never thought of it that way. I have always blamed the oral specialists not the parents...

__________________
"Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it."

--- Anonymous

jillio

Yeah, the oral specialists are the ones spreading the propoganda, and the parents are the ones buying it without taking time to completely investigate all options. Then when the propoganda does prove to be all it is cracked up to be, the parents want to blame everything and everyone else except those responsible. And if you make such an important decison without checking it out thoroughly, then no one is responsible but you.