Implants changing life for Modesto girl born deaf
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faire_jour
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And that is really crappy because (both of) you couldn't hear.
I was reading a book called the Overacheivers in the tub.
The suburban "norm" now seems to be kids going to "name brand colleges" b/c their parents are SO convinced that they provide a better education.
I wonder if it's the same with the oral schools......that parents are convinced that they're better b/c they think that they provide a better education.
I know one of the Big Reasons why parents chose oral only is b/c it's portrayed as providing a "better education"
But does it actually provide a better education or is that simply how the oral business portrays it?
The suburban "norm" now seems to be kids going to "name brand colleges" b/c their parents are SO convinced that they provide a better education.
I wonder if it's the same with the oral schools......that parents are convinced that they're better b/c they think that they provide a better education.
I know one of the Big Reasons why parents chose oral only is b/c it's portrayed as providing a "better education"
But does it actually provide a better education or is that simply how the oral business portrays it?
faire_jour
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I'll tell you my experience, maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't.
The oral schools that daughter has attended (JTC and now we are headed to CID) have extremely experienced and knowledgable professionals. They are dedicated and excellent at teaching. They have great ideas, activites and are amazing resources. Also, the schools have TONS of staff. At one point at JTC we had 5 kids in the class, one (Master's degree) teacher, two aides (Master's students) and and SLP all in the classroom during lunch. They sat with the kids, asked questions, helped the kids learn language, added vocabulary, expanded their responses, would rephrase and re-explain if the kids didn't understand, They did everything exactly right, all of the time.
So, is that better than a mainstream education? I would say yes. It is much more individual, the teachers know exactly how to teach deaf children, they are able to monitor their language levels, help them learn to hear, understand, learn and use spoken language. Mainstream teachers don't have those skills. They don't know what a deaf child needs or how to give it to them.
Miss-Delectable
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This mother wants to send her daughter to this private school and expects the district to foot the bill. I would think there is a speech center nearby where they can send this girl to, that might be free?
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Tell me about it. When I worked for a deaf program at a public school as an aide, I, along with the teacher I worked for, had to "fight" with the mainstreamed teachers to ensure that our students from the deaf program got their needs met. Unfortunately, the principal's view on deafness was to pity the children and just let them get by. It was horrible.
Right, because they shouldn't be learning in a hearing people setting. Therefore CI is still "WORK" for deaf kids.
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I need to pick up that book, DD. I'm seeing a lot of overly stressed out teens. The testing bureaucracy makes it worse. Many parents have unrealistic expectations. Deaf kids are even more vulnerable to unrealistic expectations than hearing kids. That's how the deaf kids get mainstreamed without proper support.
faire_jour
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It takes time for them to learn to hear and understand, yes. At about 3 years post implant most kids get to the level of performance at which they will remain. Depending on their benefit it could be from enviromental sounds to being able to understand running speech with extremely distracting background noise. It takes time to learn, but then the benefits can be immense.
faire_jour
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Speech therapy is never free.
A child has the right to an appropriate education. It costs thosands and thosands of dollars for a student to attend California School for the Deaf (especially residental), why isn't anyone complaining about that? The state pays for that placement 100%.
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I couldnt imagine what these children must be going through. Recently this year, we got a huge spurt in numbers of middle school deaf kids transferring to our school (I think the number was around 20 or so) and several of them have CIs. At least half of them didnt know ASL at the beginning of the school year and now they are halfway fluent. My co-workers said that it seemed like in the past 3 years, middle school gets the highest number of transfers from the public school systems for the first time in the school's history. I wonder if the passing of NLCB made things much harder of the deaf kids?
I don't think the work to use CI ends at certain time. Deaf kids have mapping at least once a year and they have to adjust to the new mapping every time. They have to deal with background noise. FM system and background filtering don't always help because sometimes filter out something they don't want it to be filtered. So it can be frustrating.
This is why deaf kids should learn ASL earliest as possible in case a situation like this come up. I can imagine their acedemic have slowed down on them because they have to learn ASL first.
It's the public vs private school effect basicly. Private schools have the abilty to attract private funds and thus really talented speech therapists etc.
shel, that doesn't surprise me at ALL! What most oral only advocates DO NOT understand, is that oral only skills can serve kids pretty well in elementary school, many of them will have MAJOR issues especially socially. Yes, some kids can really thrive in the mainstream, but more will be dog paddling in the mainstream. Especially, since a lot of them may be served by Resource Rooms or special eds that lump kids with disabilties in with the " Ummmm who's President so adn so?" kids who are legion in special ed.
Miss-Delectable
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Speech therapy never costed my family a cent. The govt funded it in full til I was 18.
Yes, the child has a right to an appropriate education, however if parents want private education then they should be the one to fund the fees in most cases. You say Calif School for the Deaf costs a lot, well, yes, but it's a public school. Jean Weingarten Oral School for the Deaf isn't a public school.
Anyway, special education always cost the govt more than general education, which is why they want to mainstream deaf and kids with special needs because it'd cost them less than if they went to a specialist school.