Deaf Education - One size does not fit all

[shel90]

The world will always move on whether deaf person can speak or not. Stop thinking about what other people will treat deaf person just because of their incapable to speak, but instead give deaf person the strength and courage to face with any hardships the world will strike them with. That method is the best defense deaf person can have.

Capable to speak is just one of tool, but not a weapon deaf person can use to survive. Speaking is worth nothing if deaf person have a low self-esteem.

Rather than worrying about getting deaf person to "fit" in with the rest of the world, worry about deaf person's happiness and being comfortable.

Hearing people have ability to adapt to any changes that was present in front of them. Some of them just chose not to.

Sure it's good to give deaf child all options available out there, but just make sure it's not because of what other people are doing.

Don't force kid to use fork if 90% of the society use fork to eat. If you just ended up become one of 1% that use chopstick and yet you are happy. Deal with it.
Life goes on whether you can follow the society or not.
Sometimes 1% offers the best gift you can ever had.

Person does not miss out much if he can't understand what's going with the rest of the world.

Love, friendship, family, and hope always find another way into that person's life.

So don't force kid to learn sign language or to speak just because you think it's best for kid. Just offer it, kid will pick whether make kid most at ease.

That I agree with...all I care is that the deaf children have EQUAL access to the curriculm as hearing children do. I still dont have much faith that the oral-only environment really can give them that opportunity.

BiBi uses both so nobody is being forced to do anything...just providing the young little deaf babies full access to language and because they are unable to express what is working for them, we use both...use ASL for language foundation and speech to see if they benefit from them. If they show signs of going either way that's when we make the reccomendations but as far as my experience goes, most deaf kids who have auditory beneift still want to use ASL too. I find it interesting. I dont recall an older deaf kid saying that they dont want ASL anymore. I am sure that happens but in my experience, I have never seen it. It is usually the other way around.

 

[jillio]

The world will always move on whether deaf person can speak or not. Stop thinking about what other people will treat deaf person just because of their incapable to speak, but instead give deaf person the strength and courage to face with any hardships the world will strike them with. That method is the best defense deaf person can have.

Capable to speak is just one of tool, but not a weapon deaf person can use to survive. Speaking is worth nothing if deaf person have a low self-esteem.

Rather than worrying about getting deaf person to "fit" in with the rest of the world, worry about deaf person's happiness and being comfortable.

Hearing people have ability to adapt to any changes that was present in front of them. Some of them just chose not to.

Sure it's good to give deaf child all options available out there, but just make sure it's not because of what other people are doing.

Don't force kid to use fork if 90% of the society use fork to eat. If you just ended up become one of 1% that use chopstick and yet you are happy. Deal with it.
Life goes on whether you can follow the society or not.
Sometimes 1% offers the best gift you can ever had.

Person does not miss out much if he can't understand what's going with the rest of the world.

Love, friendship, family, and hope always find another way into that person's life.

So don't force kid to learn sign language or to speak just because you think it's best for kid. Just offer it, kid will pick whether make kid most at ease.

 

[Buffalo]

As long as the majority of the hearing community defines deafness as a disability, they place themselves in the position of being responsible for making those accommodations. The pathological view places any person with a disability in the role of dependent, and shifts the burden of accommodation onto the non-dependent. If they wish to hold onto that view of disability, then they must accept the social responsibilities that are inherent in their viewpoint.

Then why some of them are laying that blame on the deaf people???

 

[jillio]

That I agree with...all I care is that the deaf children have EQUAL access to the curriculm as hearing children do. I still dont have much faith that the oral-only environment really can give them that opportunity.

BiBi uses both so nobody is being forced to do anything...just providing the young little deaf babies full access to language and because they are unable to express what is working for them, we use both...use ASL for language foundation and speech to see if they benefit from them. If they show signs of going either way that's when we make the reccomendations but as far as my experience goes, most deaf kids who have auditory beneift still want to use ASL too. I find it interesting. I dont recall an older deaf kid saying that they dont want ASL anymore. I am sure that happens but in my experience, I have never seen it. It is usually the other way around.

Agreed. How can you say that a child receives no benefit from something they have never had?

 

[shel90]

Agreed. How can you say that a child receives no benefit from something they have never had?

Right...


I just dont understand how speech can take prededence (my spelling skills are bad today for some reason) over education. I just cant understand that concept. Sure, it is great to have in order to communicate with hearing people but without education...*good luck* on life. Even hearing people without an education (literacy skills not college degrees) dont go far...I cant imagine for deaf people who dont have an education. That is where all of my focus is spent on. Speech (speaking skills and lirpeading skills) is not my primary concern when I am teaching.

 

[jillio]

Right...


I just dont understand how speech can take prededence (my spelling skills are bad today for some reason) over education. I just cant understand that concept. Sure, it is great to have in order to communicate with hearing people but without education...*good luck* on life. Even hearing people without an education (literacy skills not college degrees) dont go far...I cant imagine for deaf people who dont have an education. That is where all of my focus is spent on. Speech (speaking skills and lirpeading skills) is not my primary concern when I am teaching.

Exactly. In this day and age, education is important for all children. But for a child that has to overcome obstacles that society places in his/her way, it is doubly important. The sad fact is that a hearing person with a Bachelor's degree will not have as difficult a time proving themselves capable as a deaf person with a Ph.D.

 

[shel90]

Yes they do provides speech but it is not required. I've done my homework on bi bi program, the disavantage of the bi bi program is that ASL is only use in the classroom, they do not spend time working on speech, that program mostly revoles around the use of ASL and using ASL to teach reading and writing skills in English as second. Where does speech fits in?

I thought we mostly agree for deaf children to gain full communcation access to give deaf children the oppurtunity to meet and interact all people of the people (deafs and hearings).
What good would it do for deaf children if ASL alone is use and not speech at the same time? Will there again be some communcation barries between the deafs and hearings? You got to remember Hun, 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, they will not allow their deaf child to rely soley on signs and not spoken language, they will not want to limited their child's option in their world that is different from ours.

We do not want deaf children go on suffering as usual if we limited their communcation access. Too often children were restricted from learning signs do we want to restricted them from speech?

They are not going to move forward instead they will be moving backwards just as it always been ASL versus spoken speech. The whole idea with bi bi program is to use signs to teach those deaf children how to read and write English. That sounds as biased as the AGBell organization.
Whatever happens to all forms of communication? I'm all for equal education for the deaf (signs and speech together) I know both sides of the coin.

Many professials seem to have a one size fits all metality when it comes to education for the deaf children I don't need to hear this from deaf adults either. The truth is they're hurting the deaf children by limiting their toolbox appoaches.

ASL is a great visual body language communcation for the deafs to the deafs But, speech, spoken language and lip reading is a great visual communcation for the deafs to the hearings. Is that the whole point of putting deaf children in both worlds instead of one?

This bi bi program supports the deaf culture where they share the same language, experiences and values where does this leave for the hearing world?

So this is why I don't think this program is more appopriate education for deaf student unless you can come up with a better respond when is speech is taught and how often?

(If I've made some spelling errors, sorry!! I'm on sidekick it's hard to read my whole post when typing with thumbs)

That statement where u metioned about 90% of deaf children being born to hearing parents...believe me, I have never forgotten. I deal with that daily on my job. I have known that fact for 10 years and never will forget it cuz it is right in my face daily. Maybe u can empathize with my frustrations of dealing with my students crying to me when they tell me that their parents refuse to learn sign language and try to force them to use speech skills which they dont have. It is in my face daily, Cheri.

 

[shel90]

Exactly. In this day and age, education is important for all children. But for a child that has to overcome obstacles that society places in his/her way, it is doubly important. The sad fact is that a hearing person with a Bachelor's degree will not have as difficult a time proving themselves capable as a deaf person with a Ph.D.

My husband has 2 college classes under his belt but yet he is regarded highly by our hearing friends than I am with a MA degree.

Funny, some of his hearing friends even asked me if my MA degree was a fraud. Can u fucking (pardon my language) believe that shit?

 

[Miss-Delectable]

Didnt Helen Heller build her strong L1 language through sign language and then work on developing speech skills later?

Yep, that she did!

 

[Cheri]

Ok I do have a question before I ask some questions I am not criticizing anyone, I have a few deaf friends who do not speak had been to residential school where ASL was their primary language, they have very poor English skills and language delay, I'm not so sure what program it was, so I can't say its the bi bi program, my question is why their English writing skills match their signs of ASL, why has the residential school failed many deaf children? Is it because their first language was ASL and not enough speech was taught?

 

[Miss-Delectable]

My husband has 2 college classes under his belt but yet he is regarded highly by our hearing friends than I am with a MA degree.

Funny, some of his hearing friends even asked me if my MA degree was a fraud. Can u fucking (pardon my language) believe that shit?

That I can believe. So many ignorant hearies doesn't understand that deaf people can gain legitimate qualifications..

I wonder if most of his friends has any kind of qualifications or not! You should ask them that

 

[jillio]

My husband has 2 college classes under his belt but yet he is regarded highly by our hearing friends than I am with a MA degree.

Funny, some of his hearing friends even asked me if my MA degree was a fraud. Can u fucking (pardon my language) believe that shit?

I know what you mean. It is a bunch of BS. Like they just gave you that damned degree to be nice! I know full well how much work it is. And the sad fact is, my M.Ed will give me greater credibility than your M.Ed will because I am hearing. That really sucks. We have to complete the same requirements.

 

[Silentwolfdog]

Ok I do have a question before I ask some questions I am not criticizing anyone, I have a few deaf friends who do not speak had been to residential school where ASL was their primary language, they have very poor English skills and language delay, I'm not so sure what program it was, so I can't say its the bi bi program, my question is why their English writing skills match their signs of ASL, why has the residential school failed many deaf children? Is it because their first language was ASL and not enough speech was taught?

Here's a few reasons for this.

Poor education system. (My school was like this. The system was messed up and as results we suffered.)

They learned ASL far too late at this stage. (Best time to learn language is when you are born, not 5 or 6 years old.)

No motivation. (I remember I was the only one out of my class that really tried to do homeworks, studied, etc. and yet none of them seem to try. They blamed school when they did nothing to help themselves as well.)

They come from poor family background. (Can you really focus at school if you were abused or neglected by your own family member?)

That's only thing I can think of right now. I am sure there's more reasons for what you have asked.

 

[shel90]

Yep, that she did!

Thanks! I couldnt remember. That shows proof that sign language would never ever interfere with the development of speech skills. Man!

 

[shel90]

Ok I do have a question before I ask some questions I am not criticizing anyone, I have a few deaf friends who do not speak had been to residential school where ASL was their primary language, they have very poor English skills and language delay, I'm not so sure what program it was, so I can't say its the bi bi program, my question is why their English writing skills match their signs of ASL, why has the residential school failed many deaf children? Is it because their first language was ASL and not enough speech was taught?

Like Jillo said, the BiBi philosophy is relatively new and a few deaf schools are starting to adopt it. My brother works at deaf school and he tells me that it still is a TC program. Maybe that was the case for your friends who graduated from the Deaf schools.

Did they have a full access to language since birth or were they introduced to ASL later on after "trying" out other methodologies?

 

[jillio]

Here's a few reasons for this.

Poor education system. (My school was like this. The system was messed up and as results we suffered.)

They learned ASL far too late at this stage. (Best time to learn language is when you are born, not 5 or 6 years old.)

No motivation. (I remember I was the only one out of my class that really tried to do homeworks, studied, etc. and yet none of them seem to try. They blamed school when they did nothing to help themselves as well.)

They come from poor family background. (Can you really focus at school if you were abused or neglected by your own family member?)

That's only thing I can think of right now. I am sure there's more reasons for what you have asked.

**nodding agreement** And your 2nd reason is probably the most responsible.

 

[Cheri]

That I agree with...all I care is that the deaf children have EQUAL access to the curriculm as hearing children do.

Hearing people who uses English as their primary language some cannot read or write well.

I dont recall an older deaf kid saying that they dont want ASL anymore. .

I've seen some deaf adults and kids have dropped ASL when they had their cochlear implants.

 

[shel90]

Here's a few reasons for this.

Poor education system. (My school was like this. The system was messed up and as results we suffered.)

They learned ASL far too late at this stage. (Best time to learn language is when you are born, not 5 or 6 years old.)

No motivation. (I remember I was the only one out of my class that really tried to do homeworks, studied, etc. and yet none of them seem to try. They blamed school when they did nothing to help themselves as well.)

They come from poor family background. (Can you really focus at school if you were abused or neglected by your own family member?)

That's only thing I can think of right now. I am sure there's more reasons for what you have asked.

The learning of ASL later is the biggest problem at my school even though we are a BiBi program. When those kids who are delayed graduate from high school with a low reading level, who gets the blame? Us..of course!!! That really pisses me off.

Yes, the Deaf shcools of the old days didnt provide good quality education cuz of all the different methodologies being invented and then ASL was finally recognized as a language its own right by Stokes. It has been a long and slow change since then.

 

[shel90]

Hearing people who uses English as their primary language some cannot read or write well.



I've seen some deaf adults and kids have dropped ASL when they had their cochlear implants.

Well, that's their choice and their rights cuz they have already completed their education. We are talking about children, are we? Yes, I have seen deaf adults drop ASL cuz they dont want to use it anymore and be immersed in the hearing world full time but at least they were provided the skills from the schools that they went to when they were kids to make that decision. They are on their own and capable of making their own decisions regarding their adult education or careers.

 

[Cheri]

Like Jillo said, the BiBi philosophy is relatively new and a few deaf schools are starting to adopt it. My brother works at deaf school and he tells me that it still is a TC program. Maybe that was the case for your friends who graduated from the Deaf schools.

Did they have a full access to language since birth or were they introduced to ASL later on after "trying" out other methodologies?

I just told you their primary language was ASL no others were introduced to them, even their parents signs better than I've seen most hearing parents would sign. It can't be in TC because TC are in public schools. I would have to ask what program they were in, all I know is that they grew up in a deaf residential schools.