Cochlear Implants for Healthy Deaf Babies and the Hippocratic Oath

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FreeThinker said:
Sorry for the repost! I am a fairly new to all.deaf.com. It does not matter if one has CI or can speak or cannot speak. Any one with hearing loss, even those with CI, are very welcome to attend any Deaf bilingual schools. It is a common misperception that Deaf bilingual schools do not allow children to speak. Speech therapy is still part of the big picture at schools that embraces Deaf bilingual education philosophy. It just that some Deaf militants with radical ideas are driving away potential hearing allies to work together side by side on educational issues for Deaf students. I am in favor for non-exculsive provisions for all Deaf babies/children so that nothing is excluded from their educational plans.
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I could not agree with you more. It seems that it is difficult, indeed, to get many people to understand that the bi-bi aprroach does not exclude spoken language.
 
shel90 said:
I agree...it seems like many people have mistaken me as refusing to the idea of providing speech therapy in the program where I work at. I support it as long as the kids get ASL too for full access to language rather than partial.
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We have explained it numerous times.
 
jillio said:
I could not agree with you more. It seems that it is difficult, indeed, to get many people to understand that the bi-bi aprroach does not exclude spoken language.
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I know...I am just starting to realize that all this time, many people here thought the philosophy of BiBi is against spoken language exposure. No wonder.
 
jillio said:
Again, it is not an "either/or" proposition. It is not either ASL or speech. It is ASL and speech. Hence the term, bilingual.
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Glad you pointed that out. I wouldnt have thought of doing that. :ty:
 
One bite at a time.......

FreeThinker said:
Very simple - Think globally, act locally - become a member of state and local Deaf associations affiliated with National Association of the Deaf. Getting involved in events organized by state and local Deaf assoications. Have the administrators of Deaf blingual schools collorabrate with area hospitals - letting the medical professionals know who are are. Checking for updates from Deaf Bilingual Coalition - a newly formed organization fighting for linguistic rights for the minority. Deaf Bilingual Coalition organizes rallies at various organizations who do not support dual language model for deaf babies/children. I try to keep up with latest research/trends/issues of Deaf bilingual education. And most important we need support from hearing allies to spread the word.

I have to admit that we are like a dot on the whiteboard. We have alot to educate the public about the benefits of dual language model. We will be smashed often on our attempt to educate the general public, just as the Black people have suffered with their fight for their civil rights. We do have a dream, too!
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FreeThinker - With all due respect, while your enthusiasim is refreshing, from my prespective, how does forming a DeafBiligual Coalition, with a platform of ASL only for a newly diagnosed deaf child in a hearing family, realistically meet the needs of the child and his/her family? WHen does the deaf child get exposure to English? Perhaps I have missed that point somewhere, please redirect me if I have.

IMO, for learning and acquisition of ASL, utopically speaking, the childs needs are best met (DOHA), if possible with a Deaf Adult, fluent and accurate in ASL, to provide the language of ASL. The child (DOHA) can/does learn,and acquire familial language,( choosing English for this discussion), from within their own family, via cueing. The child and family may all choose to learn ASL, but the biggest key, imo, is the child connecting with their family with their language. A child is quite capable, imo, of learning to seperate the two, ASL and Cued English.

What methods did your family employ, for you to have success with language?


Successful early intervention, leads to inclusion, language, language learning and literacy.
 
loml said:
FreeThinker - With all due respect, while your enthusiasim is refreshing, from my prespective, how does forming a DeafBiligual Coalition, with a platform of ASL only for a newly diagnosed deaf child in a hearing family, realistically meet the needs of the child and his/her family? WHen does the deaf child get exposure to English? Perhaps I have missed that point somewhere, please redirect me if I have.

IMO, for learning and acquisition of ASL, utopically speaking, the childs needs are best met (DOHA), if possible with a Deaf Adult, fluent and accurate in ASL, to provide the language of ASL. The child (DOHA) can/does learn,and acquire familial language,( choosing English for this discussion), from within their own family, via cueing. The child and family may all choose to learn ASL, but the biggest key, imo, is the child connecting with their family with their language. A child is quite capable, imo, of learning to seperate the two, ASL and Cued English.

What methods did your family employ, for you to have success with language?


Successful early intervention, leads to inclusion, language, language learning and literacy.
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With all due respect, loml, a DeafBilingual coalition cannot be bilingual and ASL only at the same time. That would result in monolingualism. Inherent in the concept and definition of bilingualism is fluency in 2 languages; in this case ASL and English.
 
jillio said:
With all due respect, loml, a DeafBilingual coalition cannot be bilingual and ASL only at the same time. That would result in monolingualism. Inherent in the concept and definition of bilingualism is fluency in 2 languages; in this case ASL and English.
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I can see how my wording could cause confusion. When I say ASL only, I am referring to ASL only as an early intervention method, prior to school years. ASL used to learn English within the school system.
 
loml said:
I can see how my wording could cause confusion. When I say ASL only, I am referring to ASL only as an early intervention method, prior to school years. ASL used to learn English within the school system.
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Using ASL as an L1 language, under the concept of bilingualism, does not preclude English being utilized as an L2 language prior to school age.
 
FreeThinker said:
I won't lobby my Senators and House members about getting a law passed prohibiting implants in children. But I would lobby the medical community to ensure each child would be given full exposure to both English and ASL. Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf advocates auditory-verbal therapy which involves no visual input. When a child is born, there is a crucial language acquisition period and want to take full advantage of this period by using the two pathways (ears and eyes). The baby's brain is prewired for lanuage and waiting for input (by either auditory or visual or both). What gets me mad is what if the child is not as successful as he or she is supposed to under the auditory-verbal therapy. This child does not have any back up plan and gets behind in his or her language development. We can remedy this problem by ensuring that each Deaf baby is exposed to two language. There is no evidence that learning two languages would slow down child's language acquistion. In fact, it would give the child greater cognitive flexiblily when he or she uses two or more languages. When this child grows up, he or she can choose one of languages to be his or her primary language.
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That is what I have been posting in here that the deaf kids needs ASL as a safety net. I like what Jillio says about putting out all options and then drop some options as the child grow older. I love using analogies. I think of Jillio's example as a pyramid with a large base - Strong and very stable. Going by oral method first then add ASL if the oral training is not working out is like an upside down pyramid. Definitely not stable and will tip over.

Freethinker, I personally don't like CI for babies/kids as one death is too much for me. That is just me. ASL is not broken and never was broken. Martha Vineyard back in 18th century is the proof. It is the pro-oralists that was and still is the problem. They put way too much emphasis on speech just because we have voice so that we should use our voice. My thinking: They have hands so they should use ASL. I know they don't like that.
 
loml said:
FreeThinker - With all due respect, while your enthusiasim is refreshing, from my prespective, how does forming a DeafBiligual Coalition, with a platform of ASL only for a newly diagnosed deaf child in a hearing family, realistically meet the needs of the child and his/her family? WHen does the deaf child get exposure to English? Perhaps I have missed that point somewhere, please redirect me if I have.

IMO, for learning and acquisition of ASL, utopically speaking, the childs needs are best met (DOHA), if possible with a Deaf Adult, fluent and accurate in ASL, to provide the language of ASL. The child (DOHA) can/does learn,and acquire familial language,( choosing English for this discussion), from within their own family, via cueing. The child and family may all choose to learn ASL, but the biggest key, imo, is the child connecting with their family with their language. A child is quite capable, imo, of learning to seperate the two, ASL and Cued English.

What methods did your family employ, for you to have success with language?


Successful early intervention, leads to inclusion, language, language learning and literacy.
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The hearing family with the deaf 2 year old did it successfully with ASL. The parents started learning ASL immediately they found out that their daughter was deaf. Now, at 2 and half, her language level is that of a 3 year old. It is not impossible as u keep implying. If the parents really want to communicate with their child and provide a linguistic-rich for their child, they will do it. It is a matter of desire.
 
loml said:
FreeThinker - With all due respect, while your enthusiasim is refreshing, from my prespective, how does forming a DeafBiligual Coalition, with a platform of ASL only for a newly diagnosed deaf child in a hearing family, realistically meet the needs of the child and his/her family? WHen does the deaf child get exposure to English? Perhaps I have missed that point somewhere, please redirect me if I have.

IMO, for learning and acquisition of ASL, utopically speaking, the childs needs are best met (DOHA), if possible with a Deaf Adult, fluent and accurate in ASL, to provide the language of ASL. The child (DOHA) can/does learn,and acquire familial language,( choosing English for this discussion), from within their own family, via cueing. The child and family may all choose to learn ASL, but the biggest key, imo, is the child connecting with their family with their language. A child is quite capable, imo, of learning to seperate the two, ASL and Cued English.

What methods did your family employ, for you to have success with language?


Successful early intervention, leads to inclusion, language, language learning and literacy.
Click to expand...

A parent going to a sign language course, picking it up bit by bit while interacting with their child, like avearge people do, will notice how far their children will develop, and quite often at a faster pace than hearing peers if they also encourage kids to read and write, and speak if the child can and want to, compared to oral childrens, cuers or not. I hope you someday happens to visit a bilingual preschool/school and perhaps an university with deaf students, as sitting in an ivory tower, talking about ideas on internet, and the reality is two vast different things.
 
FreeThinker said:
The question of the day: Could surgeons performing the cochlear implant surgery on healthy deaf babies be in violation of the Hippocratic Oath? A modern version of the Hippocratic Oath is shown below and look especially at the bold highlight: I will follow that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievous
.............
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Answer - No.

"I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievous" .. this is exactly what happened with our daughter...
 
shel90 said:
Many thanks!
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Shel, the DBC is a very fledgling organization and I have been informed that, any day, now another group will form because they don't agree with enough of the DBC mission goals so I'm just waiting till they roll out.....
 
Nice view

flip said:
A parent going to a sign language course, picking it up bit by bit while interacting with their child, like avearge people do, will notice how far their children will develop, and quite often at a faster pace than hearing peers if they also encourage kids to read and write, and speak if the child can and want to, compared to oral childrens, cuers or not. I hope you someday happens to visit a bilingual preschool/school and perhaps an university with deaf students, as sitting in an ivory tower, talking about ideas on internet, and the reality is two vast different things.
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flip- Rather presumptious statements.
 
shel90 said:
The hearing family with the deaf 2 year old did it successfully with ASL. The parents started learning ASL immediately they found out that their daughter was deaf. Now, at 2 and half, her language level is that of a 3 year old. It is not impossible as u keep implying. If the parents really want to communicate with their child and provide a linguistic-rich for their child, they will do it. It is a matter of desire.
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Shel90 - Good for them. How are they planning on approaching learning, aquiring and becoming literate in English for her?

Language of a three year old... in sign?
 
loml said:
Shel90 - Good for them. How are they planning on approaching learning, aquiring and becoming literate in English for her?

Language of a three year old... in sign?
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Yea and she already recognizes all the letters in the alphabet. What do u mean how are they going to become literate in English for her? They are both hearing and just learned ASL two years ago and I have been corresponding with them via email. Their English skills appear fine to me. :giggle:
 
Tousi said:
Shel, the DBC is a very fledgling organization and I have been informed that, any day, now another group will form because they don't agree with enough of the DBC mission goals so I'm just waiting till they roll out.....
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Ok thanks for the FYI..:)
 
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