Miss-Delectable
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News - He lives in two worlds - sacbee.com
In the midst of a language lesson, the deaf Vacaville boy looks up with alarm and grabs the special transmitter on the side of his head.
"I can't hear," says 9-year-old Joey Marchand, indicating the spot where a device was implanted in 2001 to help him hear. "Going booo, booo."
At his teacher's urging, Joey gets back on task, relying only on sign language.
That easy transition between two worlds – the hearing and the deaf – was not what Joey's parents expected when they anguished over the controversial cochlear implant.
"I just want my son to talk," his father, Emile Marchand, said when Joey was 2. "I want him to be in the hearing world."
Going back to document Joey's progress in the years since his implant at UC Davis Medical Center, The Bee found a happy boy who does talk, sometimes incessantly though not always clearly.
But in the spacious special education classroom, as dying batteries left Joey without sound, the value of straddling the two worlds is completely clear.
"What does it mean, 'compound?' " teacher Alicia O'Leary asks him in speech and sign language, pointing to words like raincoat, cookbook and snowman.
"Two words," Joey responds, holding up two fingers.
Being able to use both modes of communication doesn't just come in handy when something goes wrong with the implant. Experts say it also allows deaf children to access the deeper meanings of the world around them, which could increase their future academic options.
"The goal is not just to get them graduated and onto Social Security (Disability Insurance), but to make them healthy and happy adults," said Richard Horrell-Schmitz, who teaches deaf and hard-of-hearing children at Joey's school.
After years of wanting Joey to rely primarily on his implant for hearing and speech, Joey's parents now see benefits in the dual approach.
"I realized, what good is speech without language?" said Joey's mother, Christina Marchand. "If you can say everything perfectly but you can't understand what you are saying, there is no use in saying it."
When Joey received his cochlear implant, he joined about 32,000 deaf people with implants worldwide, about half of them children. At the time, the technology deeply divided the deaf community, with many characterizing the invasive procedure as an attempt to "fix" deafness.
Although the subject remains controversial, acceptance of the device has grown along with its use. Today, more than 50,000 people have been implanted. Among children with the implants, the vast majority, like Joey, have hearing parents.
Cochlear implants stimulate the hearing nerve, which then fires off electrical impulses that the brain interprets as pitch and loudness. It takes months of training to make sense of those impulses, which people who became deaf later in life say sound robotic, like Darth Vader.
Still, the implants are not a cure for deafness. Dead batteries or lost pieces from the processing apparatus worn on the outside of the body can render the device ineffective, and most implants can't be used during rigorous sports.
When Joey practices with his swim team, he dives into the water minus the fanny pack that carries the processor and without the headpiece that receives the processor's coded signals.
Instead, he watches his coach, who does his own version of sign language to indicate which stroke Joey should swim.
Profoundly deaf at birth, Joey lost nearly three important years of speech and language development before his surgery. While his hearing sister, Chloe, now 11, was hitting regular developmental milestones, Joey knew only a few rudimentary hand signals and tended to express himself with grunts and crying fits.
Now 9, Joey attends Fairfield's Cordelia Hills Elementary for a special program operated by the Solano County Office of Education. His class has six deaf or hard-of-hearing students at various grade levels. Four use hearing aids; Joey and one other student have implants.
Cordelia's approach is not purely oral education, where children are trained to rely completely on their mechanically enhanced hearing. Nor does it represent the more traditional approach, where speech is eschewed in favor of sign language and immersion in deaf culture.
Instead, Cordelia uses "total communication," offering students a buffet of language choices they can later choose to abandon if they don't need them to comprehend or communicate.
Horrell-Schmitz, who is deaf and fluent in both sign language and speech, described the approach as a way of taking learning beyond labeling.
A deaf child can learn to say the word "apple," for example. "But he can also learn to count them, learn the names of the different varieties, discover the ways they are grown," he said. "We are so happy when he just says 'apple,' which in the grand scheme of his life is the least important."
The approach is especially important for kids like Joey, who had virtually no language for the first three years of his life, said Lois Keenan, the Solano County district's program director.
"Eighty percent of what we learn is overheard," she explained. "If you haven't overheard English from birth to 3 you have all kinds of holes, especially content holes."
Joey is now learning English much as a non-native speaker learns a second language, she said. And there are limitations in the quality of his emerging hearing. Sign language, she explained, fills in some gaps while he grows more proficient in all aspects of English language.
Figures of speech are especially hard for deaf kids to grasp, experts said, but essential as curriculum gets more sophisticated. That's why idioms such as, "It's raining cats and dogs," are a special focus in Joey's class.
"I have so many deaf kids who actually believe it is raining cats and dogs because they have never heard that before," O'Leary said.
Joey and classmate Alicia Patron hopped up from their desks to demonstrate a favorite: "I'm pulling your leg."
Joey approached Alicia, signing and saying "Alicia, look, a monster!"
Alicia responded: "Where?" then pretended to look for it in the distance.
Joey grinned mischievously, signing, "I'm only teasing you," but saying, "I am pulling my leg!"
O'Leary, a strict and persistent teacher, is encouraged by Joey's progress in both language development and behavior.
"It was a bit of a battle at the beginning, but I remember thinking he had a lot of potential, and I couldn't wait to tap into it, to settle down and get him focused."
Joey's mom also has noticed a change. "He has no choice but to pay attention and listen and understand what they are teaching him," she said. "If he doesn't, they make sure they get through to him."
Although still substantially behind in speaking, writing, reading and understanding, compared with boys his age who can hear, Joey is an eager learner. He always is among the first to respond to a teacher's question, and takes great care writing his name, coloring or labeling a picture. He excels in math, tackling increasingly complex problems with enthusiasm.
Despite a lot of yawning the morning after Halloween, Joey maintained that focus during a tricky listening drill.
O'Leary used only her voice, amplified by a small microphone. Each child had a piece of paper with several lines of words, shapes and simple drawings. Slowly, O'Leary gave them instructions:
"Write the letter T in the white circle and draw a line connecting the snowflake to the telephone."
Joey concentrated, found the white circle and wrote the T. But he and the other students got stuck on the second part of the command.
O'Leary repeated it, this time adding sign language. Joey quickly looked down at his paper and drew a line from the snowflake to the telephone.
"Yes!" he whispered, shooting a thumbs-up sign.
Whether simultaneous use of sign language and speech in implanted children restricts their ability to become fluent in either is a subject of debate in the deaf education community.
Even Keenan, the district program director, acknowledged that a deaf child who learns both will progress quickly only if the two modes of communication are reinforced at home.
That's a struggle for Joey's family. Christina Marchand said his sign language has progressed further than the rest of the family's, and that Joey is always trying to teach them how to sign. At home, she said the emphasis is on speech and enunciation.
At times, she said, she can't help Joey with his homework, sending it back to school with a note that she couldn't get her explanation across to Joey, stymied by either her limited sign language or his limited ability to understand her when she speaks.
More than that, Joey's mom wrestles with her son's inability to grasp life lessons others take for granted.
Joey still can't distinguish between strangers who may be dangerous and everybody else. Catching the eye of someone at a local store, for example, Joey ran to his mother shouting, "Mom, someone take me," she recalled.
And Joey wants to go to church, but has no concept of religious faith.
"I don't know how to explain that without the language – who Jesus was, and that God is watching over us," said Christina Marchand. "I want him to understand why people go to church and why they pray."
Joey's parents still hope Joey will catch up with his hearing peers and join them in the classroom, on the playing field and in every other aspect of life. Mostly, she wants him to be accepted.
"I remember going to school and seeing kids who were a little different and who rode this short little yellow bus and got teased," she said. "I just want him to fit in."
In the midst of a language lesson, the deaf Vacaville boy looks up with alarm and grabs the special transmitter on the side of his head.
"I can't hear," says 9-year-old Joey Marchand, indicating the spot where a device was implanted in 2001 to help him hear. "Going booo, booo."
At his teacher's urging, Joey gets back on task, relying only on sign language.
That easy transition between two worlds – the hearing and the deaf – was not what Joey's parents expected when they anguished over the controversial cochlear implant.
"I just want my son to talk," his father, Emile Marchand, said when Joey was 2. "I want him to be in the hearing world."
Going back to document Joey's progress in the years since his implant at UC Davis Medical Center, The Bee found a happy boy who does talk, sometimes incessantly though not always clearly.
But in the spacious special education classroom, as dying batteries left Joey without sound, the value of straddling the two worlds is completely clear.
"What does it mean, 'compound?' " teacher Alicia O'Leary asks him in speech and sign language, pointing to words like raincoat, cookbook and snowman.
"Two words," Joey responds, holding up two fingers.
Being able to use both modes of communication doesn't just come in handy when something goes wrong with the implant. Experts say it also allows deaf children to access the deeper meanings of the world around them, which could increase their future academic options.
"The goal is not just to get them graduated and onto Social Security (Disability Insurance), but to make them healthy and happy adults," said Richard Horrell-Schmitz, who teaches deaf and hard-of-hearing children at Joey's school.
After years of wanting Joey to rely primarily on his implant for hearing and speech, Joey's parents now see benefits in the dual approach.
"I realized, what good is speech without language?" said Joey's mother, Christina Marchand. "If you can say everything perfectly but you can't understand what you are saying, there is no use in saying it."
When Joey received his cochlear implant, he joined about 32,000 deaf people with implants worldwide, about half of them children. At the time, the technology deeply divided the deaf community, with many characterizing the invasive procedure as an attempt to "fix" deafness.
Although the subject remains controversial, acceptance of the device has grown along with its use. Today, more than 50,000 people have been implanted. Among children with the implants, the vast majority, like Joey, have hearing parents.
Cochlear implants stimulate the hearing nerve, which then fires off electrical impulses that the brain interprets as pitch and loudness. It takes months of training to make sense of those impulses, which people who became deaf later in life say sound robotic, like Darth Vader.
Still, the implants are not a cure for deafness. Dead batteries or lost pieces from the processing apparatus worn on the outside of the body can render the device ineffective, and most implants can't be used during rigorous sports.
When Joey practices with his swim team, he dives into the water minus the fanny pack that carries the processor and without the headpiece that receives the processor's coded signals.
Instead, he watches his coach, who does his own version of sign language to indicate which stroke Joey should swim.
Profoundly deaf at birth, Joey lost nearly three important years of speech and language development before his surgery. While his hearing sister, Chloe, now 11, was hitting regular developmental milestones, Joey knew only a few rudimentary hand signals and tended to express himself with grunts and crying fits.
Now 9, Joey attends Fairfield's Cordelia Hills Elementary for a special program operated by the Solano County Office of Education. His class has six deaf or hard-of-hearing students at various grade levels. Four use hearing aids; Joey and one other student have implants.
Cordelia's approach is not purely oral education, where children are trained to rely completely on their mechanically enhanced hearing. Nor does it represent the more traditional approach, where speech is eschewed in favor of sign language and immersion in deaf culture.
Instead, Cordelia uses "total communication," offering students a buffet of language choices they can later choose to abandon if they don't need them to comprehend or communicate.
Horrell-Schmitz, who is deaf and fluent in both sign language and speech, described the approach as a way of taking learning beyond labeling.
A deaf child can learn to say the word "apple," for example. "But he can also learn to count them, learn the names of the different varieties, discover the ways they are grown," he said. "We are so happy when he just says 'apple,' which in the grand scheme of his life is the least important."
The approach is especially important for kids like Joey, who had virtually no language for the first three years of his life, said Lois Keenan, the Solano County district's program director.
"Eighty percent of what we learn is overheard," she explained. "If you haven't overheard English from birth to 3 you have all kinds of holes, especially content holes."
Joey is now learning English much as a non-native speaker learns a second language, she said. And there are limitations in the quality of his emerging hearing. Sign language, she explained, fills in some gaps while he grows more proficient in all aspects of English language.
Figures of speech are especially hard for deaf kids to grasp, experts said, but essential as curriculum gets more sophisticated. That's why idioms such as, "It's raining cats and dogs," are a special focus in Joey's class.
"I have so many deaf kids who actually believe it is raining cats and dogs because they have never heard that before," O'Leary said.
Joey and classmate Alicia Patron hopped up from their desks to demonstrate a favorite: "I'm pulling your leg."
Joey approached Alicia, signing and saying "Alicia, look, a monster!"
Alicia responded: "Where?" then pretended to look for it in the distance.
Joey grinned mischievously, signing, "I'm only teasing you," but saying, "I am pulling my leg!"
O'Leary, a strict and persistent teacher, is encouraged by Joey's progress in both language development and behavior.
"It was a bit of a battle at the beginning, but I remember thinking he had a lot of potential, and I couldn't wait to tap into it, to settle down and get him focused."
Joey's mom also has noticed a change. "He has no choice but to pay attention and listen and understand what they are teaching him," she said. "If he doesn't, they make sure they get through to him."
Although still substantially behind in speaking, writing, reading and understanding, compared with boys his age who can hear, Joey is an eager learner. He always is among the first to respond to a teacher's question, and takes great care writing his name, coloring or labeling a picture. He excels in math, tackling increasingly complex problems with enthusiasm.
Despite a lot of yawning the morning after Halloween, Joey maintained that focus during a tricky listening drill.
O'Leary used only her voice, amplified by a small microphone. Each child had a piece of paper with several lines of words, shapes and simple drawings. Slowly, O'Leary gave them instructions:
"Write the letter T in the white circle and draw a line connecting the snowflake to the telephone."
Joey concentrated, found the white circle and wrote the T. But he and the other students got stuck on the second part of the command.
O'Leary repeated it, this time adding sign language. Joey quickly looked down at his paper and drew a line from the snowflake to the telephone.
"Yes!" he whispered, shooting a thumbs-up sign.
Whether simultaneous use of sign language and speech in implanted children restricts their ability to become fluent in either is a subject of debate in the deaf education community.
Even Keenan, the district program director, acknowledged that a deaf child who learns both will progress quickly only if the two modes of communication are reinforced at home.
That's a struggle for Joey's family. Christina Marchand said his sign language has progressed further than the rest of the family's, and that Joey is always trying to teach them how to sign. At home, she said the emphasis is on speech and enunciation.
At times, she said, she can't help Joey with his homework, sending it back to school with a note that she couldn't get her explanation across to Joey, stymied by either her limited sign language or his limited ability to understand her when she speaks.
More than that, Joey's mom wrestles with her son's inability to grasp life lessons others take for granted.
Joey still can't distinguish between strangers who may be dangerous and everybody else. Catching the eye of someone at a local store, for example, Joey ran to his mother shouting, "Mom, someone take me," she recalled.
And Joey wants to go to church, but has no concept of religious faith.
"I don't know how to explain that without the language – who Jesus was, and that God is watching over us," said Christina Marchand. "I want him to understand why people go to church and why they pray."
Joey's parents still hope Joey will catch up with his hearing peers and join them in the classroom, on the playing field and in every other aspect of life. Mostly, she wants him to be accepted.
"I remember going to school and seeing kids who were a little different and who rode this short little yellow bus and got teased," she said. "I just want him to fit in."
, Miss-Delectable! Great post! 
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