kristy2078
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TODtobe:
OK. I have been a TOD for five years, and I am Deaf. I was mainstreamed, but attended the same school with a HOH brother, a Deaf best friend, and two other Deaf students. I was raised with PSE and ASL, and my mother did attend a college 45 mins from home to take ASL classes when I was very young. I don't know about your background, but I have seen a lot of things about the "wonderful" technology and how well Deaf people do with or without them.
1. HAs serve to amplify, that's it. Depending on the way the audiogram looks for a given person, there are gaps and smooshes in how sounds are perceived. HAs (and CIs) in no way are comparable to glasses, where glasses make everything clear and HAs don't. With HAs and CIs, listening to someone speak is a lot like perceiving a foreign language. We may understand a few words here and there, but the entire conversation? Over our heads. There will always be words that get mistaken for others. Sweat pants vs dress pants, Sally vs Silas, marbles vs war boots, Nazi score cards vs Yahzee score cards, etc. These are the mishearings I experienced myself.
CIs are no better, either. Because there are separate electrodes on a wire (I believe the most there can be is 22 or 24 these days, I think), neighboring frequencies will get smooshed together and there are gaps in frequencies. For an invasive, elective surgery, what failure rate is acceptable? Look up CDC's medical device failure reports database, and there's quite a long list of reports regarding CIs considering the small size of the implanted population in the US.
Whatever hearing technology you look at, it's *not* a miracle and it's nowhere near perfect. If you have never heard what a CI-aided speech would sound like, Google for sound files for CI users. There's some videos on Youtube with sound stimulations.
No deaf or Deaf person *ever* will have 100%, or even 80%, speech comprehension just by listening. Speechreading is a bit more effective than stand-alone listening.
2. Whether a child will succeed or fail depends on the *entire* system. I have seen implanted and aided and nonaided children fail because their families provided no support nor would learn ASL for communication at home. They failed also because they had nobody to interact with that involves easy communication.
3. If you truly think that ASL has never been taken away from a Deaf child, you are dead wrong. Get out there and interact with more Deaf people. Don't forget that a Deaf child's parents don't have much exposure to ASL themselves for various reasons. Some of these parents have also been told (lied to, even) that ASL is evil and would cause language delays.
4. Even if a Deaf child manages to listen fairly well, that kid will always be isolated. It's hard to listen in on a group conversation, and using the phone is an arduous chore. When there are more Deaf children in the same place, they have an easier time communicating. Listening is exhausting, it will never come naturally.
5. Oral students seem to be "successful" only because their oral schools kick out the underperforming students. You won't hear an oral school admin admit this, but I have seen this first and I have heard about this from a Deaf man who works with the state department of education. They will always continue to need services. It's pretty rare to see an implanted person watch movies or the news without the captions, and it gets rather exhausting for the implanted student to just listen to the teachers and peers while processing all the speech sounds.
6. "English can be acquired as a first language" Depends on if you are talking about *spoken* English or *written* English. Written English is definitely possible to acquire early on, since it's all visual. Spoken English is riddled with so many issues. Speaking of written English, literacy skills depend on early exposure and how well content is conveyed to the child from a teacher or parent. Profoundly and severely Deaf children don't do well with acquiring spoken English just by hearing. Children are actually adept at adapting, so some do pick up on speech reading and some become experts at filling in the gaps with context clues.
OK. I have been a TOD for five years, and I am Deaf. I was mainstreamed, but attended the same school with a HOH brother, a Deaf best friend, and two other Deaf students. I was raised with PSE and ASL, and my mother did attend a college 45 mins from home to take ASL classes when I was very young. I don't know about your background, but I have seen a lot of things about the "wonderful" technology and how well Deaf people do with or without them.
1. HAs serve to amplify, that's it. Depending on the way the audiogram looks for a given person, there are gaps and smooshes in how sounds are perceived. HAs (and CIs) in no way are comparable to glasses, where glasses make everything clear and HAs don't. With HAs and CIs, listening to someone speak is a lot like perceiving a foreign language. We may understand a few words here and there, but the entire conversation? Over our heads. There will always be words that get mistaken for others. Sweat pants vs dress pants, Sally vs Silas, marbles vs war boots, Nazi score cards vs Yahzee score cards, etc. These are the mishearings I experienced myself.
CIs are no better, either. Because there are separate electrodes on a wire (I believe the most there can be is 22 or 24 these days, I think), neighboring frequencies will get smooshed together and there are gaps in frequencies. For an invasive, elective surgery, what failure rate is acceptable? Look up CDC's medical device failure reports database, and there's quite a long list of reports regarding CIs considering the small size of the implanted population in the US.
Whatever hearing technology you look at, it's *not* a miracle and it's nowhere near perfect. If you have never heard what a CI-aided speech would sound like, Google for sound files for CI users. There's some videos on Youtube with sound stimulations.
No deaf or Deaf person *ever* will have 100%, or even 80%, speech comprehension just by listening. Speechreading is a bit more effective than stand-alone listening.
2. Whether a child will succeed or fail depends on the *entire* system. I have seen implanted and aided and nonaided children fail because their families provided no support nor would learn ASL for communication at home. They failed also because they had nobody to interact with that involves easy communication.
3. If you truly think that ASL has never been taken away from a Deaf child, you are dead wrong. Get out there and interact with more Deaf people. Don't forget that a Deaf child's parents don't have much exposure to ASL themselves for various reasons. Some of these parents have also been told (lied to, even) that ASL is evil and would cause language delays.
4. Even if a Deaf child manages to listen fairly well, that kid will always be isolated. It's hard to listen in on a group conversation, and using the phone is an arduous chore. When there are more Deaf children in the same place, they have an easier time communicating. Listening is exhausting, it will never come naturally.
5. Oral students seem to be "successful" only because their oral schools kick out the underperforming students. You won't hear an oral school admin admit this, but I have seen this first and I have heard about this from a Deaf man who works with the state department of education. They will always continue to need services. It's pretty rare to see an implanted person watch movies or the news without the captions, and it gets rather exhausting for the implanted student to just listen to the teachers and peers while processing all the speech sounds.
6. "English can be acquired as a first language" Depends on if you are talking about *spoken* English or *written* English. Written English is definitely possible to acquire early on, since it's all visual. Spoken English is riddled with so many issues. Speaking of written English, literacy skills depend on early exposure and how well content is conveyed to the child from a teacher or parent. Profoundly and severely Deaf children don't do well with acquiring spoken English just by hearing. Children are actually adept at adapting, so some do pick up on speech reading and some become experts at filling in the gaps with context clues.
