"Good" Housekeeping - anti-Deaf bias!!!

deafdyke said:
Did you know that as recently as the '70's kids with mild losses were thought to be retarded?They discovered that a bunch of kids who had been previously dx as MR, were in fact HOH.
But on the other hand 20 years ago, people thought I was MR b/c of the way I spoke. (deaf voice)
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It's really quite stunning to realize how ignorant a lot of people are about deafness even today. There are leaps and bounds in the awareness of other disabilities, but not so much with deafness. It's really stunning to realize that in the second decade of the 21st Century, we're still dealing with a shocking degree of ignorance about it. *SMH*
 
CSign said:
:gpost: You make very good points Ambrosia. 20-30 years ago it was much more of an either or approach. Either you used sign language, or you took the strictly oral approach. The use of signed and spoken language in conjunction with each other was not as common or acceptable. Fortunately nowadays children are not always limited to one or the other.
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Um not quite. 20-30 years ago, was the heyday of Total Communication. Dhh kids at Deaf Schools learned to develop their oral skills. It wasn't a plethora of voice off kids who only signed.
 
The mother in the article certainly took an audist view by deciding against any ASL at all. But from my understanding that was a pretty common view 30 years ago. I'm certainly not approving in that decision.... I just sometimes see people projecting when it comes to the reasons behind a decision like that.
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Unfortunatly it's still quite common. There is NOTHING wrong with having spoken language abilty. I encourage hearing parents to pursue developing of speech skills......the difference is that I do not think that dhh kids should have to live life as a speech therapy session. Mothers like this are SO focused on having a "seemingly" "normal" and healthy kid, that they come up with all these justifications NOT to let their kid learn ASL or be exposed to kids like them or whatever..........I still see a lot of unhealthy grieving in parental choices. I also see a lot of parents who for example take one look at the listing of colleges attended by AG Bell scholarship winners, and automaticly think that their kid is going to be a Super Deaf, if they oralize them and keep them away from ASL etc.
 
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