"Fixing" the child or not?

For me, I find being visual more beautiful. When I have CI, and I take them off, I don't really miss my son's voice or anything like that. I never really cared for sounds.

But when I look at him, and watch him laugh... I love it! I love watching him smile and watching him try to talk to me with his hands. When I look outside, I love watching the trees dance in silent (the wind is doing it). Just little things like that is beautiful to me.
 
I hope that since Grendel and I are the only parents who have actually made this decision our opinions will be respected and believed. I will be completely honest about why we did choose to implant her.

My daughter's situation is a little different. She was actually born hearing and *did* lose her hearing. It was something she had that then went away.

When we decided to get her hearing aids, we didn't actually think about it. She had a loss and hearing aids would help her hear better, case closed. She continued to lose hearing and then she got to the point where she couldn't tell if her aids were in or out. At the same time she developed an interest in sound and spoken language. She would ask us why she couldn't hear things she used to hear, things like that. We started wondering if an implant would benefit her.

When we investigated the CI, all we were hoping for was a return to the fuctioning level she had with her hearing aids before she lost the last bit of hearing. We wanted her to turn towards us when we called her name, so we could get her attention when we wanted to sign to her. We NEVER expected more than that. We never expected her to be able to access spoken language. We just figured she was one of those kids who was unable to learn spoken language....boy were we wrong!!!

Within a few hours of activation Miss Kat was asking for the spoken words for things. She LOVED hearing. She started gaining spoken language at an amazing rate. We decided that we wanted to emphasis spoken language for awhile so we decided to attend John Tracy Clinic's summer session. When we returned from the session Miss Kat told us she wanted to go back to a "talking school", so we switched her programs. (Though to be honest, I think we would have changed it even if she hadn't. But if she had objected, we would have changed it back.)

I never felt like we were fixing her, even though it could be viewed that way. We saw it as a chance to access to sound. We saw it as a way to open some doors for her, an opportunity to give her more.

As for the "definition of surgery", I always thought it was anything that a doctor did that opened the skin....I don't think there is judgement in the word.
 
Yeah, what is so terrible with silence like A said that it is more beautiful with visual. You don't need to hear the sounds when you see body language like laughing or smiling. If a person sign to me and I respond back with great ease and understanding instead of struggling trying to understand spoken language. I am glad that Shel brought it up about that. Why surgery? It is to make the person get well like cancer or life threatening or illness but not with disabilities if it is not working for them. That is why I don't like "fixing" like it is important to get the children fix like a car repair. :roll: We are human and it is up to the deaf individual if she or he want to have CI or future stem cell if that works. I don't go for stem cell maybe because it will harm the baby or babies. Like Yiz said that it is more natural to be the way deaf person is like me. I just want to be natural, not "fix". :)
 
Frisky Feline said:
is it a good thing or bad thing? :eek3: sorrrry ha
Click to expand...

Bad thing if you don't want to make people angry.

Good thing if you want to make a point.

You're still trying to "fix" something. How you justify your reason for "fixing" it varies. "Fix" has no moral values attached to it. "Providing access" does have a value attached to it on the other hand.
 
I respect anyone who made decisions for their kids. My parents would do the same thing for me. for some reason, she didn't. one day she asked me if I d like to get a CI and I made my choice not to have CI in my youth. I am happy the way I am and for who I am to the day. A while ago, I did think about having a CI for my curiosity but I decide not to get one: two reasons, CI is too expensive and worrying how much limited activitity if I get a CI. so I decide not to. I dont cry over it and have moved on. I do consider ci as a fix because it is. Once you fix something that would not be 100 percents better due to break it for the first time and heal it with weaker than the way it is as an untouched it. fix is not always the best wise. just my opinion. Like I am not a fan of seeing crack on the vase that I broke and fixed it. It would not look the same one as the originial one.
 
souggy said:
Bad thing if you don't want to make people angry.

Good thing if you want to make a point.

You're still trying to "fix" something. How you justify your reason for "fixing" it varies. "Fix" has no moral values attached to it. "Providing access" does have a value attached to it on the other hand.
Click to expand...

yeah it is still fixing.
 
I don't tend to use the term "fixed," to describe getting CIs -- as I don't see that it changed the simple fact that she's deaf and can't hear without the aid of technology. I guess you could say that wearing glass or contacts may "fix" your vision in that they make it possible to see clearly or better than before, but glasses don't fix your eyesight. A CI might "fix" someone in the sense that it uses another pathway to the auditory nerve, bypassing that which is damaged or not working making it possible to access sounds to some degree. But it doesn't fix your hearing.

And at the end of the day, or when you are about to swim, you can put both the glasses/contacts and the processors on the side table and see and hear just as before, nothing "fixed."
 
souggy said:
"Fix" has no moral values attached to it. "Providing access" does have a value attached to it on the other hand.
Click to expand...

I think I agree with this. I'm struggling with articulating it. I wouldn't say I'm "fixing" my child by sending her to an immersive ASL environment: I'm making sure she can be exposed to sign, both formally and incidentally, which she wouldn't get naturally. I wouldn't have said I was "fixing" her by making her wear hearing aids, I was trying to provide access to sound (unsuccessfully). And then similarly, we opted for CIs, which did provide access to sound, but have not "fixed" her lack of natural hearing. The word "fix" just doesn't seem to fit in any of this.

I do assign a high value to her ability to learn languages through those channels we've opened up: via ASL immersion and via her CI-driven access to sound.
 
GrendelQ said:
I don't tend to use the term "fixed," to describe getting CIs -- as I don't see that it changed the simple fact that she's deaf and can't hear without the aid of technology. I guess you could say that wearing glass or contacts may "fix" your vision in that they make it possible to see clearly or better than before, but glasses don't fix your eyesight. A CI might "fix" someone in the sense that it uses another pathway to the auditory nerve, bypassing that which is damaged or not working making it possible to access sounds to some degree. But it doesn't fix your hearing.

And at the end of the day, or when you are about to swim, you can put both the glasses/contacts and the processors on the side table and see and hear just as before, nothing "fixed."
Click to expand...


I agree, with this statement. CI/Hearing aids does not fix deafness just as glasses does not fix eye sight.


Glasses are generally called "Corrective Lenses"

I considered all of these as tools to aid visual loss or hearing loss.
 
Alright, I will say to people "stop trying to correct us, there's nothing wrong with us" or "Stop trying to correct our deafness, there is nothing wrong with being deaf" HA/CI is really an attempt to correct. Doesn't really correct it though. but for most people, they think it is better than none at all.
 
Well, the crux of the problem is the language barrier more than the actual notion of "fixing."

The ones that already have a language don't want to be fixed. The ones that are struggling to understand are the ones that want to be fixed.
 
souggy said:
Well, the crux of the problem is the language barrier more than the actual notion of "fixing."

The ones that already have a language don't want to be fixed. The ones that are struggling to understand are the ones that want to be fixed.
Click to expand...

I don't understand your point of view and the bold sentence is that it is better to use ASL to be able to understand at school and at home instead of trying to be "fixed" if the situation is not working well. It is better to tell somone to stop and not to correct or fix the deaf person. Am I making sense? :hmm:
 
Neither access to sound nor access to ASL comes naturally into my daughter's life: both require similarly extreme efforts/actions to correct that lack.

I don't see why there's an objection to a person who values ASL (or values spoken English) taking these disruptive actions available to us -- neither changes who the child is, both benefit my child.
 
I think it all depends on if a person see deaf as a disability or an identity.
 
Bebonang said:
I don't understand your point of view and the bold sentence is that it is better to use ASL to be able to understand at school and at home instead of trying to be "fixed" if the situation is not working well. It is better to tell somone to stop and not to correct or fix the deaf person. Am I making sense? :hmm:
Click to expand...

If that's your interpretation of it.

I can understand where people are coming from when it come to trying to make the most of technology and hearing. However... to me, it's like pursuing perfection-- it doesn't exist.

I used to be a miserable drip when I had hearing aids. Well, if you think I am bad now-- imagine how that is amplified. It took me time to accept that as long my hearing is not perfect, that there will always be communications issue. And with my hearing loss, it's the best I am going to get. So I ended up giving up hearing aids, except to get rid of tinnitus, because it's a lot more enjoyable being yourself than trying to meet other people's needs.

But I can also understand why the Deaf feel like there's a constant pressure to be fixed. Hearing people treat us like if we're broken.

However I do know quite a few with mild hearing loss that are content to be in the hearing world. If they want that technology to make themselves feel fuller, they should have that option.
 
If you feel you have to make sure she have access, is it because you feel her deafness is hindering her?

And yes, your child will be who she is no matter what, but it is also true that if you didn't have CI, she would be a different person than she is. And if she was hearing, she'll definitely be a different person. It would as if she never was deaf. Either way, I know we all love our child no matter what. (but there are parents who seem tend to treat deafness/hearing is extremely important to them -- kinda like how some parents expect their child to be good at sports, or make straight A's, etc.)

There are few people who feel deafness should not define them.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top