After decades of trying to hide hearing aids, the manufacturers could start blinging them up. They wouldn’t need the same size restrictions so maybe they could be cheaper (small high tech is expensive high tech). They could finally make wearing a hearing aid somewhat cool and attractive, if Misses America 1995 and 2005 didn’t.
As much as I hate to admit it, jayjay, we’ve lost the Bluetooth War. Like with cell phones, the douchey early adopters aren’t the only people using them.
That doesn’t logically preclude the later adopters from being douchey, too…
They already do, a bit. 
Some models of hearing aids come in a bunch of colors, and the earmolds (the silicon bit that goes in your ear) can be customized to use different colors – rainbows, flesh colored (in most of the shades that people come in). Frex, the plastic chassis of my behind-the-ear hearing aid is bright purple, and the silicon part is clear. I was torn between purple and blue instead of the beige that my previous HA was, and finally went with purple.
Regarding the ‘toolbox’ issue, that would mean requiring people to use common sense, sadly.
That alone is a breakthrough.
Blegh.
I’ll stick with my Flesh colors any day. 
:shrug: But to each their own.
Several years ago I realized that I rely to a great degree on lip reading. I have some hearing loss. In a noisy room, I struggle to understand someone unless I read lips. (Consequently, having a conversation in a dark, noisy bar is almost impossible for me.) And I make a lot of guesses at context. Occasionally bad guesses, which makes for some bizarre conversations until I realize where I went wrong.
My lip reading used to be unconscious, but now I make a point of having clear sightlines whenever possible.
Oh TubaDiva, I will get my own screenname soon. Don’t worry, I just wanted to use this to post about this, since its an issue I care deeply about. When are they going to switch to free posting? I would totally love that.
Lemuer YES! My hearing friends (well correction…my close hearing friends like my summer camp gang and my college friends) can have a “spoken” conversation with me without even making a sound, b/c they’ve picked up speechreading from me.
Subway Prophet it’s good that you’re not an AG Bell member. I do know that there is a subpopulation of members who are kind of moderate. Like they aren’t oral ONLY. It’s more that they were oral first, and had their kids learn Sign as a second language/addtional skill. Most orally trained kids do develop Sign abilty. I think really that the debate isn’t nessarily about methodology any more. It’s more about what language should be first for a dhh kid.
You did seem to be kind of like the more moderate type of AG Bell parent, from your comments. inserts foot in mouth Sorry about that. My mistake. I do think that the extreme militants are really hurting CI folks from investigating ASL and Deaf culture as a possible option. I mean if someone like me (hoh with aids) can be accepted in Deaf Culture, then why not CI people? What part of the country are you from? I have noticed that people tend to be more openminded about accepting CIs in and around the larger cities with a larger Deaf population.Like Rochester NY is very accepting (someone told me that something like 20% of dhh undergrad first years are intially oral only!)So is Boston, NY etc etc.
I have to admit, I can see both sides…I honestly honestly think that a lot of Deaf militants may have been victims of the “once bitten twice shy syndrome.”
They may associate CIs with the stereotypical AG Bell type. NOT the more moderate parent that I described. But, the stereotypical oral kid who needs the “most moderen CI/HA the SECOND it comes out”, and who is very oral supermatist. (eg I’m “better” then those dhh who have to “depend” on Sign)
However, it is slowly getting better. Don’t let the militants scare you away…I know some militants…BUT, I also know audilogically hoh people who feel blessed to be a part of both the hearing and Deaf worlds.
You’re doing awesome…you really are.
Even thou the resources I gave you are online, I’d suggest contacting them. Maybe you could find people in your area who you didn’t even know were there. Plus there’s the advantage of all the conferences and things offered that could be of benifit to your daughter. Heck…just knowing that there are possible resources and things…like it might be a good idea to get in touch with your state’s School for the Deaf, just in case (and not all schools for the deaf are bad…there are some quite good ones out there) I know how the miliants are. (although I’m unsure who you’re talking about on alldeaf…I don’t really remember anyone as hugely miliant…or maybe you’re talking about another board or even Sweetmind (aka Sourmind who would turn ANYONE off of Deaf culture, seeing as she’s a hardcore militant)
Oh and I’ve got the purple aids too…lurve them…The earmolds are tie-dye and sparkley.
The thing is with language options, it’s always going to be very political. I honestly think its best to start out a dhh kid with a full toolbox, and kind of let THEM decide which tools are the best.
You really are doing well…Ignore the miliants. Concentrate on what’s best for YOUR child. In five or ten years, I can guarenteee that many of those miliants will be a hell of a lot more accepting of CIs.
I think many of the miliants seem to think that it’s some sort of cure. Like the old language used to descibe implants was “Deaf kids can HEAR!” …Well not quite…They can hear, but virtually all of them are functionally hoh. This is a popualtion that hasn’t really found its deafness. Some hearing “experts” said that we hoh kids were more hearing then deaf, and some Deaf Miliants fell for that.
Sorry, but althought I can hear, I still can’t hear like a hearing person. I will never know what it’s like to experiance hearing the way a hearing person does. My hearing prolly resembles hearing person hearing, the same way someone with low vision’s sight resemebles what sighted people see. Most hoh kids never really get the benifit of being Deaf…we’re pushed towards the hearing world…and unfortunatly very few of us have been able to totally assmilate into hearing culture.
Deaf education is very political, and to paint deaf people as villains is very unfair. In many instances, they have good reasons for being wary of hearing people…
I taught deaf kids for close to 20 years, and had to deal with many of these issues…
I would say perhaps 3 percent of all the deaf kids I taught had parents who bothered to learn to sign… Many of my students could not tell me what they did on the weekend, where they went, or who they were with because no one in their families would tell them, or could even communicate on a basic level. Many did not know their brothers’ or sisters’ names at age 10 or 11, or even their address… They were put on a school bus, sent to school and back, then put in front of a television (without captions) or a video game night after night because it was easier for their parents than conversing in sign language.
I had parents who came into my classroom and asked me if I could tell their deaf child that their grandparent had died. I had students who started menstruation and thought they were dying, and no one in their family could explain what was happening to them - and it was left to me to try to tell a terrified child what was going on weeks later.
Parents who learned to sign were very rare indeed… Most of the time, if they were lucky, a sibling was able to sign or fingerspell enough to tell the deaf kid some very basic information.
I had a student who was in the 5th grade, who was given a cochlear implant and pulled out of the school for the deaf and placed into a hearing school and told he was now hearing… Never mind that he had no idea what was happening, and was unable to speak or understand what was happening in his new school. When he came back to the deaf school for a visit, he looked like a thirsty person desperate for a drink.
Until very recently, there were very few teachers who could communicate with their deaf students. I was always horrified at how badly many hearing teachers of the deaf signed… and they were often helping to make important decisions at IEP’s and meetings on students’ futures, evaluating students’ signing skills and cognitive abilities.
For many years I was given the class of the “slow” or “low functioning” deaf kids - who were anything but… I still remember meeting with parents and school officials and having to fight to try to get them to understand that just because a student didn’t have great English, it didn’t have anything to do with their intelligence… Some of these students could discuss almost **anything ** in ASL, but not in English, so they got called “stupid” by people who couldn’t even communicate with them.
I recently ran into one of my students from 15 years ago who I had been told time and again was “retarded” at meetings… I met with his parents many times when he was young to try to make sure they understood that he was **not **retarded, slow, stupid, etc… From the first time I met him, I could tell he was absolutely brilliant at visual skills and tasks…
He is now a tool and die maker, finishing his apprenticeship and yet was being told by many of the staff at my school that they “hoped he could one day live on his own”… Of course, these “professionals” have now moved up and are controlling large sections of deaf education… some things never change, unfortunately…
I don’t even know if it exists outside of the USA; if it exists in Spain they must have their own tiny cabin up on some mountain. ONCE* funds research on items ranging from disability-assistance software to cochlear implants or implanted artificial hands which the owner can close and open (thanks to electronics similar to those in cochlear implants).
Of course it exists outside of the USA…
I have met deaf people from the U.K. who were taught using invented signs that were only used at one school who graduated and were unable to communicate with any other deaf people until they learned British Sign Language…
In France, Sign Language was not even allowed in classrooms until the 70’s. In Germany, Sign Language was not recognized as a language until a few years ago.
I guess that “tiny cabin up on some mountain” in Spain is actually a large apartment building… Spain recently began implementing bilingual education (Spanish Sign Language and Spanish) due to pressure from deaf adults who had grown up being forced to talk instead of allowed to sign.
Daffyd, thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us. They’re absolutely horrifying, and I can understand how a deaf person who’d come through that could be defensive and biased against the hearing world.
I didn’t want to take away from the OP, but in this instance, there really are two sides to the story. I understand the frustration parents of Deaf kids go through, but it’s the kids who often pay the price.
Here in Ontario, the government has encouraged all parents of newly diagnosed Deaf kids to get implants… and as a result, the school for the deaf here is actually closing. At one point it had 13 classes of deaf kids, now there is one. The Deaf community here is being decimated… These kids in many instances are not accepted by the hearing kids in their classes, and yet have no peer group.
I applaud the OP for taking sign and making sure they explore every avenue of communication - unfortunately, a cochlear implant for many parents is just a way to pretend their child is not deaf/Deaf…
I’ve banned AFunnyNameGoesHere for violating the sock/one person per account rule. If she’s reading this, she can rejoin fulltime by resubscribing or asking us (by emailing me or another Mod) to make a post requesting sponsorship for her subscription. Or she can ask and rejoin when the board goes free. We’d like her to stick around,but continuing to post under this account is not an option.
Subway Prophet, I’ve heard that there is a thriving YouTube community of Deaf people who make videos signing back and forth. I can’t remember now where I got that information, but if you do some searches, you might be able to find some stuff to watch during your non-class hours that would help you develop some extra fluency.
I learned some really basic ASL before I got my daughter. We had no spoken language in common, but within 24 hours she was able to communicate basic needs in sign. We’ve kept it up in a desultary way. (She attends a Chinese immersion school, and I have studied Chinese, so we’re already a bi-lingual household. She loves sign though, so we use it as much as possible.)
Several of the local high schools have ASL as a way to meet the foreign language requirement. The local Barnes and Noble has an ASL discussion group every week which combines Deaf and hearing (who are mostly in high school). I wonder what the effect of a cohort of hearing people with at least some fluency in sign will be on the culture?
In light of that, I’ll second Dropzone’s offer to assist anyone who wants to sign up but can’t pay the fee. Any member (including mods and admins) can email or PM me if/when the need arises.
I’m late to this party but with my own rant.
My daughter (going into 3rd grade) has such a little girl in her class. The deaf parents never exposed her to language. She arrived in kindergarten not knowing any English, just ASL. This is a seven year old girl who has the language skills (after three years of work by the school district) of a two year old.
Did the district put her into an ESL class? Because that sounds like that’s what her situation was - she likely had language skills appropriate for a 7-year-old, just not in English.
From what I hear (which is gossip - much of it filtered through my own second grader - it isn’t like the school district is going to invade her privacy to give some other kids parents good explanations or details of her learning plan - but my next door neighbor subs at the school, so my adult gossip on the kids tends to be pretty good), yes, they had her in ESL as well as Speech Therapy, the problem is that in addition to not knowing the language, she never learned vocalizations. Somali kids can use their mouths to form words - and they are young enough that they don’t even end up with an accent in either language. For her, she’s starting from scratch in terms of vocalization. And, her parents are apparently part of the illiterate deaf population - she didn’t have much (if any) exposure to WRITTEN English either - so a lot of kids start kindergarten being able to recognize and write half a dozen (or more) letters - to her, the concept of written language was alien - as was the idea that sounds conveyed meaning. My impression is that you have deaf, illiterate and economically disadvantaged parents raising a hearing child. And the teacher gossip is that the parents don’t see any reason why their daughter should learn to speak or read - they’ve done fine without being able to do either.
So now this thread has turned into “bash the deaf”…
I have to say this “rant” is highly offensive… You know nothing about the real background of the girl, and just because her parents are deaf, you’ve decided it’s their fault? It’s virtually impossible for a child not to be exposed to language - are they hiding her in a closet 24 hours a day?
Nice to see your school is filled with parent assholes who do nothing but gossip like their 3rd graders.
This kid has been in your daughter’s class for three years… and instead of offering maybe to take befriend the kid and maybe have her over to be exposed to your *wonderful *language filled home, you’d rather sit back and blame her deaf parents for everything.
So, have your read her IEP? Oh wait, that would be illegal… and if someone at the school is sharing information from her IEP, they should be fired. More likely no-one knows anything true, and you’re spreading crap you know nothing about, so fuck you!