"Fixing" the child or not?

GrendelQ said:
I know it's been done, as many of you point out, you grew up w/out ASL, and I've heard from many parents of children with CIs who don't use ASL that it's either a non-issue or they've found ways to communicate without sound or sign, but I'm wondering what those methods are. The descriptions of pointing to pictures in books that you and your parents set up to tell stories about what you were encountering throughout the day or what you needed is fascinating. Li creates elaborate 3D paper sculptures and walks me through the "story" -- sort of a hybrid of that approach with signing or speaking.
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I haven't been on AD for a while so I'm not familiar with the story of Li-Li. But I can tell you what it was like when I was like before I could read. I was born deaf and I had a knack for lipreading so I could understand what people were trying to tell me (but I most likely said it back wrong). For example, if my mom asked me "Do you want juice?" I probably thought it was something like "chute", but the fact that I could associate the exact lip movements with the drink helped me understand. This is probably not the best way but that's how I understood before learning to read. I was quite the chatterbox, but I know I said things wrong but my parents knew what I was trying to say since I was consistent. That was the purpose of speech therapy, to increase my vocabulary and to make what I was trying to say more clear. I started when I was 3. Did that make sense?
 
A said:
but do you really think writing, pointing,lipreading, etc is really a good substitute for communication

I don't think many people like to use those methods... maybe temporary but not all the time.
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I've not attempted any of those methods, so I don't have a personal basis for judging them, but I'm interested in what those of you who have tried them have experienced. What are the approaches (non-sound-based / non-ASL-based) that work for you and your pre-literary children or how did they work for you when you were a small child, before you could write well?

Given the small number of ASL users and the even smaller number of CIs vs. a large # of deaf children born every year, I'm thinking there's got to be a large number of deaf children communicating without either sound or sign. What's working or not working for those of you experiencing this?
 
I can't remember before I learned to write. I think I've always wore hearing aids. I did go swimming alot so I did lot of guesswork on lipreading as I am not a good lipreader when they needed to ask me a question. I could barely carry on a conversation with lipreading . during swimming, I just imitate what everyone else was doing. If they were splashing, then so was I.

I depended on my hearing aids alot growing up. so that one summer in my preteen was shock for me... but my family were treating me like they did when we go swimming. they were used to it.
 
For me, this discussion should be based on a couple of fundamental emotional needs.

Each of us has a basic human need to be accepted for who we are. It's very important that children do not perceive they are a "problem." That's not the message that many parents mean to convey when they want to fix a hearing loss (or any other issue), but children naturally blame themselves. Consider how children react when there is a divorce. Children cannot understand so they blame themselves. Even if adults carefully explain the situation, children cannot emotionally cope with it. Professional help is appropriate in these circumstances.

Each of us have a basic human need to belong. If communication is difficult (or nonexistent), how can a person feel like she belongs? If a person does not feel like she belongs, she find a place where she does feel like she belongs. Often, that is perceived as rejection but people must meet their basic needs.

It seems so basic yet these needs are often not identified and met.
 
sallylou said:
For me, this discussion should be based on a couple of fundamental emotional needs.

Each of us has a basic human need to be accepted for who we are. It's very important that children do not perceive they are a "problem." That's not the message that many parents mean to convey when they want to fix a hearing loss (or any other issue), but children naturally blame themselves. Consider how children react when there is a divorce. Children cannot understand so they blame themselves. Even if adults carefully explain the situation, children cannot emotionally cope with it. Professional help is appropriate in these circumstances.

Each of us have a basic human need to belong. If communication is difficult (or nonexistent), how can a person feel like she belongs? If a person does not feel like she belongs, she find a place where she does feel like she belongs. Often, that is perceived as rejection but people must meet their basic needs.

It seems so basic yet these needs are often not identified and met.
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:gpost:....SallyLou...I still find the quote "fixing the child or not"...quite "crude"!......I had my dog neutured...someone asked, "Did you get him "fixed"?...My car needed repairs....did you get it fixed?....The list goes on and on....

All my boys have their facilities, sight, hearing, smell & speech...if one of them could not hear or was HOH....I'm not about saying, "Well, I'm gonna get you "fixed"!....I believe if I said that, it would make him feel worser!....

I'm about saying, "I'm gonna try and do something to help you hear better....it might involve surgery." But if your're happy the way things are, then we can only consider it....and brain-storm the pros & cons of it.....Still, the bottom line would be my decision, but taking into consideration how my child really feels being deaf or HOH.....
 
sallylou said:
For me, this discussion should be based on a couple of fundamental emotional needs.

Each of us has a basic human need to be accepted for who we are. It's very important that children do not perceive they are a "problem." That's not the message that many parents mean to convey when they want to fix a hearing loss (or any other issue), but children naturally blame themselves. Consider how children react when there is a divorce. Children cannot understand so they blame themselves. Even if adults carefully explain the situation, children cannot emotionally cope with it. Professional help is appropriate in these circumstances.

Each of us have a basic human need to belong. If communication is difficult (or nonexistent), how can a person feel like she belongs? If a person does not feel like she belongs, she find a place where she does feel like she belongs. Often, that is perceived as rejection but people must meet their basic needs.

It seems so basic yet these needs are often not identified and met.
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Very insightful, sallylou. We must be mindful of the message given to others. Intent is not always specifically spelled out. The message received is what is important, and unfortunately, children quite often get a different message from the one intended.

A different example would be the parent that says that ASL is very important, but only uses it in direct communication with the deaf child. The message the child gets is that spoken communication is more important, "because Mom doesn't use ASL with everyone in my presence. It is only used for me, and that makes me look different, so I will reject it and say I don't need it."

I've seen this happen many more times than once.
 
sallylou said:
For me, this discussion should be based on a couple of fundamental emotional needs.

Each of us has a basic human need to be accepted for who we are. It's very important that children do not perceive they are a "problem." That's not the message that many parents mean to convey when they want to fix a hearing loss (or any other issue), but children naturally blame themselves. Consider how children react when there is a divorce. Children cannot understand so they blame themselves. Even if adults carefully explain the situation, children cannot emotionally cope with it. Professional help is appropriate in these circumstances.

Each of us have a basic human need to belong. If communication is difficult (or nonexistent), how can a person feel like she belongs? If a person does not feel like she belongs, she find a place where she does feel like she belongs. Often, that is perceived as rejection but people must meet their basic needs.

It seems so basic yet these needs are often not identified and met.
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Excellent post!!
 
jillio said:
So, my clarification that it was to access spoken language, rather than just "language" was correct.:wave:
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No, Jillio -- in my answer to A's question about whether I thought her deafness would hinder her if I left my child in her natural state, I very intentionally referred to my choice to intervene with regard to language, all language, spoken and ASL included. Not just to spoken language.

GrendelQ said:
Yes, my daughter's deafness would hinder her if I didn't provide her with access to language -- it wouldn't be available to her naturally, incidentally in her life without intervention.

So, I provide it in two ways: through immersion-driven access to a manual language (ASL) and through CI-driven access to a spoken language (English).
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I'm not sure why you think my point should be corrected to spoken language only. ASL was not a naturally occurring phenomenon in Li-Li's environment. Not only were her caregivers unaware that she was deaf, but as I've explained, they spoke Mandarin, and would not have been able to provide ASL instruction in the mountains of Jiangxi, China. But her specific situation matters little in one sense: I found it nearly as difficult to provide an immersive learning environment in my rural town in Massachusetts :). So, since she was 14 months, shortly after returning to the US, we've taken her and now send her on a 4 hour commute every day to be in a school where she gets not only formal ASL instruction, but the even more important peer and incidental input, and a deaf community in which she feels she belongs and is not broken, as Sally Lou described it beautifully. We've changed a great deal in our lives to bring ASL into our home and make it her primary language and one that we share with her.

And we've been very fortunate that we've been able to do this: a different time, place, resources, and we wouldn't be able to.

And we don't ever want her or (to a lesser extent) others to see either intervention as a 'fix' for something broken but, rather, as choices we've taken as a family that provide her with access to language she wouldn't have had otherwise.
 
RR, I agree that's a crude term. One of my doctors asked me, "Can't they fix that?" I was dumbfounded. Next time, I have a response ready. I'm not an appliance! Some doctors are unbelievably ignorant. Did they not have an ENT rotation during their residency?
 
GrendelQ said:
No, Jillio -- in my answer to A's question about whether I thought her deafness would hinder her if I left my child in her natural state, I very intentionally referred to my choice to intervene with regard to language, all language, spoken and ASL included. Not just to spoken language.



I'm not sure why you think my point should be corrected to spoken language only. ASL was not a naturally occurring phenomenon in Li-Li's environment. Not only were her caregivers unaware that she was deaf, but as I've explained, they spoke Mandarin, and would not have been able to provide ASL instruction in the mountains of Jiangxi, China. But her specific situation matters little in one sense: I found it nearly as difficult to provide an immersive learning environment in my rural town in Massachusetts :). So, since she was 14 months, shortly after returning to the US, we've taken her and now send her on a 4 hour commute every day to be in a school where she gets not only formal ASL instruction, but the even more important peer and incidental input, and a deaf community in which she feels she belongs and is not broken, as Sally Lou described it beautifully. We've changed a great deal in our lives to bring ASL into our home and make it her primary language and one that we share with her.

And we've been very fortunate that we've been able to do this: a different time, place, resources, and we wouldn't be able to.

And we don't ever want her or (to a lesser extent) others to see either intervention as a 'fix' for something broken but, rather, as choices we've taken as a family that provide her with access to language she wouldn't have had otherwise.
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You are doing a great job of talking around the point.:giggle: If she did not need the CI to access visual language, as in ASL, she needed to access which mode of language? Spoken language. IE, the CI is an intervention intended to access spoken language, not simply "language". Language had already been accessed via alternate intervention: ASL. The CI's purpose is more specific than "language". "Langauge" does not have to be accessed through auditory/aural means. Only spoken language needs such an intervention.

Again, my original statement holds true. Based on all you have replied.
 
sallylou said:
RR, I agree that's a crude term. One of my doctors asked me, "Can't they fix that?" I was dumbfounded. Next time, I have a response ready. I'm not an appliance! Some doctors are unbelievably ignorant. Did they not have an ENT rotation during their residency?
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A very short rotation...and even less time spent in sensitivity training.:P
 
jillio said:
You are doing a great job of talking around the point.:giggle: ...
Again, my original statement holds true. Based on all you have replied.
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Hmmm. I don't know how much more simply I can put it or how many times I can rephrase how important it is to me to provide my daughter with access to language, specifically ASL -- not just a little bit sprinkled here and there, but as an integral part of her life at school and home -- only to have you state that I'm claiming that CI's are required to use ASL.

We certainly have a language barrier between us, and neither access to sound nor access to ASL seems to be helping the two of us.
 
GrendelQ said:
Hmmm. I don't know how much more simply I can put it or how many times I can rephrase how important it is to me to provide my daughter with access to language, specifically ASL -- not just a little bit sprinkled here and there, but as an integral part of her life at school and home -- only to have you state that I'm claiming that CI's are required to use ASL.

We certainly have a language barrier between us, and neither access to sound nor access to ASL seems to be helping the two of us.
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Talk about misunderstanding...that is not what I am saying at all. No where did I say you claimed CIs were required to use ASL. :roll: I said that CIs are not necessary to access ASL, which is language. In a visual mode. CIs therefore, are intended to access language in a spoken mode. Therefore, their purpose is not just to access language as you previously stated, but to specifically access language in a spoken mode.

In other words, people who do not have CI or HA access LANGUAGE all the time. They simply do not access SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

You are taking something with a very specific purpose and trying to broaden it. It can't be done.
 
sallylou said:
RR, I agree that's a crude term. One of my doctors asked me, "Can't they fix that?" I was dumbfounded. Next time, I have a response ready. I'm not an appliance! Some doctors are unbelievably ignorant. Did they not have an ENT rotation during their residency?
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Thank you, Sally.....then why is this thread named "Fixing" the child or not?.....

I was asked awhile back, that if I was the mother of a deaf baby, would I use ASL or speech when I talked to it?...I responded, BOTH!...Someone said it was audism....Now why is that?

If the entire family is hearing, just the baby or child is deaf, why would I just use ASL to converse with my child? The child realizes that most people are hearing and they "talk with their mouths"....so should I "close my mouth" when talking to the child and use ASL only?....What does that teach the child?...Signing, along with mouth movement should be the appropriate way to converse with a deaf child (or I feel it should).

I don't feel any deaf child should be taught "ASL only"....they will grow up, and be in both worlds....hearing and deaf....they can learn lip movements/reading more quickly. And using their vocal cords!...It enables speech, at a faster rate, then just ASL and not using any speech.
 
Grendel, I highly recommend that you see the movie See What I'm Saying. I saw it this week and it was great. An actor named Robert explained how much he wanted his mom to learn ASL. The mother never learned any ASL. His story about taking an interpreter to the hospital to say goodbye to his dying mother is heartbreaking. I'm not saying that you're like his mother in any way. I just think that the movie would help you understand deaf people more. Robert needed his mom to enter his world but she never did.
 
What I wouldn't give for my parents to have taught me ASL as a child. I'm learning fast and deaf people are amazed at my progress. Still, it would have been so much better if I had learned when I was younger. I would been more prepared.
 
sallylou said:
Grendel, I highly recommend that you see the movie See What I'm Saying. I saw it this week and it was great. An actor named Robert explained how much he wanted his mom to learn ASL. The mother never learned any ASL. His story about taking an interpreter to the hospital to say goodbye to his dying mother is heartbreaking. I'm not saying that you're like his mother in any way. I just think that the movie would help you understand deaf people more. Robert needed his mom to enter his world but she never did.
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Thanks Sally, I'll definitely check it out. I am learning ASL, though, it was our primary mode of communication with our child for her first year with us and we currently alternate equally between English and ASL. I just don't think that I'm fluent and knowledgeable enough to be the best possible ASL model for my daughter, and I want her to have more input than just my husband and myself, which is why her days are spent at a bi-bi school for the deaf rather than in a mainstream or AV/oral environment.
 
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