I don’t know, nor am I willing to speculate on other than what I do know - the girl arrived in kindergarten with no spoken language. I’m not necessarily blaming the parents, who if they themselves are as isolated as you are speculating are very likely victims themselves. I would think that if they intentionally isolated her to the point of her not being able to speak, she’d have been removed from the home.
Only for five minutes, like Musicat said, but I also think it’s only available to members.
What does twirling your index finger while pointed at your ear signify?
That’s the ASL sign for “crazy”.
Now, guess the sign for “Fuck You!”…
I’ve wondered a bit about this, but been too nervous to ask someone in person. I mean, I know several signs for “fuck”, and the “you” bit is obvious, but is flipping someone the middle finger sufficient?
Mmmm to answer your question, yes. BTW, your rant was AWESOME!!! I too, am a parent of a deaf child and I am soo tired of all the bashing we get for deciding to implant our child. The thing that gets me the most (which you partially brought up) was that is deafness is not a disablity, then why do Deaf people qualify for SSI/ SSDI??? It’s a double standard. When it’s conveinent for Deafies to stay they are “disabled”, then they expect a handout, but yet, they are a cultural minority?
The other thing I am sick of is that all the ASL advocates claim that they get the CI children "dumped"on them. Funny , my child is in High School and is on the Honor Roll, but I am going to quash that and sent him to a Deaf school?? C’mon… and those who doubt how well a child can hear with a CI- well my 5th grader talks on his cell phone WITHOUT any assistive devices!! But I guess the device really doesn’t work now does it??
Just remember that the closer to the onset of deafness that the implantation is done, and the later the onset of deafness is, the more successful the CI will be. It’s hard to explain for those to understand why technically having hearing restored does not make it useful, but there’s a good reason why people with long term blindness who have vision restored, don’t really use their eyes.
This thread is evoking way too many memories of my parents refusing to learn sign language and not communicating with me, and then blaming it on my not practicing enough. Even now they will incredulously look at me when I can’t understand something, and tell me to try harder.
The CI is not a cure. Your son was a good candidate. That doesn’t mean that the other deaf people are lazy scum who will be instantly cured with surgery. And frankly I have to wonder where y’all were meeting all these militant deaf people who actually got into your faces (or anyone else’s faces) about the CI, I never got any grief from the deaf community when I went for a 2nd round with a cochlear implant last year. Everyone understands the desire to become hearing, and the most negative reaction was a fear of the surgery itself.
There are deep rooted issues with SSI, with deaf schools, et cetera, but the blame cannot be shared by any one group.
That is blatant bigotry by advocation of an extremely negative stereotype.
In response to your fist portion of your porst, I agree with that. I know that the CI is NOT A CURE. My son still learned ASL, because I wanted my son to use every option. Does he sign often? No, but he can sign and so does the rest of his family. I don’t say that Defif people who don’t get implanted are “lazy” because they are not. It’'s not for everyone. And success with the device comes along with a lot of hard work. I think it’s terrible for your parents to give you looks like that. I have told both of my children, if they don’t want to wear it, then so be it- but they were given the opportunity to make a choice- a real choice.
In terms ot your other statment, it may be bigoted, but it’s true. I have firends who parents are Deaf and they are appalledd because of the way the younger deaf take SSI/ SSDI. Both of my sons qualify, but I would NEVER think of taking it. They need to learn to stand on their own two feet without any assistnace- just like the rest of us. My friends father, by the way, really didn’t know ASL _mostly home signs. and yet was able to work very hard with 2 jobs (not earning a lot of money) and buy not just one, but 2 homes and raise 3 children- and still be able to take vacations every year. Maybe they are the cexception and not the rule, but a know of many of their friends, and they all feel the same way.
First of all, thank you very much for teaching your kid ASL. You’ve proven yourself to be leap years beyond most parents of deaf children.
You miss the point. No one’s denying that many deaf people take SSI (although I don’t like it, most of the ones I know who do take SSI are utterly unemployable and an employer who gave them a job would be doing it on charity).
You said:
The point is that it’s a goddamn broadbrush. Accusing a whole group of wanting handouts is a very serious offense. I can assure you that neither I nor my deaf programmer friend at GOOG have any need for handouts. Before you nitpick on the “D” part, we do not consider ourselves the least bit part of the hearing culture, insofar as one exists. We’re not marching in Deaf parades but we definitely identify more with them than hearing people.
My parents threw a real pull-by-bootstraps education for me. Didn’t provide a red cent of college money, financial assistance, etc., and made quite the point out of it, because otherwise I’d be just another deaf person wanting SSI. Meanwhile, my older brother still lives off their money…
Forgive me for responding to you even later! See my thread in MPSIMS about my hospital stay for reasons for the late response.
What I call full-blown SignWriting is better suited for computer work than for handwriting. There are both shorthand and stenographer’s versions of SignWriting which are suited for quick handwritten work.
As you do, I love the concept behind it.
I was the Gallaudet University Library’s specialist on materials and information related to deaf people and deafness for over 15 years before my retirement, and so I was in a position to see all kinds of views and data on the topic. In addition, I’ve been deaf myself since I was just a few months old; I was raised “oral” (spoken-English only)) until age 19, when my deafness proved insurmountable for college (in the days before assistance for disabled persons became mandatory). Not to mention social rejection growing up and into college because I was “different”, despite the claims of oralism. I then discovered Gallaudet and sign language, and eventually graduated third in my class. So I’m personally well-acquainted with the arguments and pros and cons for the various educational approaches and for getting, or not getting, cochlear implants. I have, by the way, chosen not to get a CI.
All of which is a rather long-winded way to indicate the strength of my answer to the quoted question.
No statistics have ever been released on the success rate of cochlear implants. (I define “success” as (1), voluntarily continuing to use a CI without coercion or pressure to continue; or (2), the CI has not been removed for reasons of medical complications or outright failure to work in a particular individual. Note that CI-implanted children don’t reach the no-pressure point until they are 18 or older and gain more independence.) The companies who make CIs, and the doctors who implant them, have great financial interest in suppressing the CI failure rate since they make big money on CIs. And there is no medical board that oversees and regulates CIs–nothing comparable to licensing boards for, e.g., dentistry or optometrists, and no umbrella organization that polices the CI companies and surgeons, nothing comparable to the American Dental Association or the American Podiatric Medical Association, that would collect and manage data for that industry. So real statistics just aren’t there.
However, from my long-time observations of the literature, of the CI-implanted students who attend Gallaudet, and of CI anecdotes, both pro and con, I feel confident that the long-term failure rate of CIs is at least 10%, and may be as high as 25%.
Since the question is 5 years old, I think it’s okay if you’re a bit long winded in answering it. 
Welcome to the boards! We call old threads like these “zombies”, so don’t be surprised if there are a few joking responses.
I’m trying to read between your lines. Are you neutral to the concept of CI, or are you advising against it due to a (relatively) high failure rate? If the latter, I think it would be reasonable to assume that the technology can only improve in so many ways.
Late to the thread and TLDR, but I wanted to chime in on education.
If the student is literate, they can (at least) attend any major university. My wife is a stenographer that sits with deaf students and does realtime translation to a computer in front of the student. It’s called CART reporting. She’s with deaf students all day every day in Drexel, UPenn, Temple, as well as community colleges (We’re in Philadelphia area). I’m pretty sure the school has to provide the service if asked as I think it’s required as part of the ADA.
Obviously, again, the student has to be literate in order to follow the discussion properly. And it’s not without it’s own challenges. For instance, my wife can’t translate slides or stuff put on the board. Additionally, if the professor is speaking too fast or too low to capture what is said, you can’t stop a lecture and ask them to repeat. So the student has to be firmly paying attention to both the laptop and what’s happening at the front of the room.
Italics added.
Quote from 2008 zombie, so, according to that poster “a few years” before then.
Fast forward. This summer I met a visiting college teacher of German Sign Language–that is, her students in Germany (I forget which city) were deaf–who had come to NYC to study American Sign Language (ASL). She was hearing and spoke English perfectly. Her ASL was student-level but correct and clear.
Why had she come to the US?
Because, she told me, this year she would begin teaching a course on written English and English/American literature to her students, who knew neither English nor ASL.
Now that’s impressive.
I just can’t fathom teaching kids to read in one language, while only exclusively using another language. I would think you’d have to at least translate word-for-word, which would effectively mean they’d be learning signed English, even if they don’t actually use it except in the same way I use word-for-word translations when learning songs in another language.
If you can actually teach kids to read and fully translate at the same time, that would just floor me.
It may be surprising to you, but it happens. Being Americans, we’re not used to the idea that children can easily speak two languages from infancy. Bilingualism is not a big thing. There are some estimates that more than half of the children in the world are fluent in at least two languages. Most academics accept that they will speak one language and write all their professional work in another (i.e., English).
Cyborgs rule
Audist.
Audist??!!!
:eek:
The societal mindset that permits such a word to even EXIST wasn’t in place thirty years ago. What the fuck.
I for one am proud to stand before the SDMB Community and declare myself to be an Audist with Cochlear leanings.
wtf.
Well. What a timely revival of this thread when I just popped back to visit. I am the hearing daughter of Deaf parents and here is something I wrote about this subject last year:
I recently had a chat with someone about British Sign Language and I thought it might interest other people too. A friend is doing a linguistics course and they’ve been covering sign language versus oralism. She said that she’s of the opinion that if oralism requires proper teaching and will never be fully effective for the user, but sign language is acquired by children like any other language would be, then the focus should be on sign language over oralism. However everyone else seems hell bent on ‘integration’ at all costs, which I find a bit offensive, surely that would be for society’s convenience, rather than deaf people’s? She asked me what my thoughts are. I said:
I am quite anti-oralism and “integration at all costs”. I have seen the effect that oralism has - and it so often means isolation for the child involved. For a deaf child, it is infinitely easier to communicate in sign language than to be forced to “talk” so that they fit in. Children who are denied the right to communicate in sign language often develop language much later - my mum didn’t speak until she was 8 years old and was never really able to communicate with her parents, who never learned sign language.
The idea behind oralism - that it is better for a child to be able to fit into the “hearing world” - is laudable in theory but in practice it means that the child often struggles because the fact is, they will never really “fit in”. It is a struggle for deaf people to join in general conversation because hearing people are so unaware of the needs of deaf people - they’re not aware that you can’t turn away from the deaf person while you’re speaking, that you can’t stand in front of a window because their face will be silhouetted and impossible to lip-read, and that you can’t put your hand in front of your face while you’re talking. Let alone knowing that you need to speak clearly, enunciate your words, and not shout. For a deaf person, the hearing world is full of people who are essentially talking to you like this: “So I er [hand on front of mouth] supermarket [turns away] courgettes mumble mumble [indecipherable fast speech] fifty pence!”. Imagine you’re in a classroom and trying to learn maths from someone whose every other word you miss!
You can learn to lip-read and talk all you like but the inaccessibility of most hearing people’s speech means that it’s often impossible to understand anyway, no matter how much you’ve been taught to put your tongue on the back your teeth to make a “th” sound. Having sign language means that you can at least have a proper conversation with someone else who signs once in a while.
There’s also the loss of a beautiful language - BSL is a gorgeous, expressive, fun, intelligent language in which storytelling becomes an epic journey, jokes can be told in a different (and often funnier!) way, there’s the poetry and symmetry of movement, and the binding together of a community of people from whom you are not isolated and with whom you share experiences.
That’s not to say that deaf children shouldn’t be taught to “speak” or to lip-read. That is of course also important, just to function in the normal world. But it should happen alongside sign language so that children can fully express themselves rather than struggle with a language that doesn’t come easily when you can neither hear how it should sound nor understand fully what noises you’re making with your own mouth.
There’s no doubt that life is easier for deaf people when they’re able to communicate with hearing people, but it’s also a lot more lonely if you’re never able to really participate fully in chat. For example, a deaf person who has been taught really well to lip-read and has understandable speech will still struggle in an office situation. Imagine a group of colleagues down the pub after work. They’re talking over each other and you can’t look at more than one person at a time so at any one point you’re probably missing what at least one person is saying. And if you have great colleagues who are helpful and try their best and take turns talking and alert you to who is speaking and speak clearly and slowly and never put their hands over their mouth, then you’re made painfully aware that this conversation is awkward and stilted for them and everyone is often just uncomfortable. They’d rather just sit and chat naturally. Instead there you are, making it difficult for them. No one wants to feel that way.
Imagine that’s it - that’s all you ever have in terms of conversation. Pretty sad, isn’t it? Now imagine that, in addition to that, you can also have conversations with your signing friends in which no one feels awkward. Conversation flows. You can express yourself fully without struggling to understand or be understood. No one has to “make allowances” for you. You’re free! You’re a normal human being. Why would anyone deny a deaf person that?
To which she replied with thanks and that she was especially concerned that the other students were equating sign language using children with immigrants who also have to be forced to learn English. And would I consider BSL to be a native language of the UK. I replied:
BSL is definitely a native language of the UK. It was finally officially recognised as such in 2003 although it is of course much older than that. It is a fully developed language with its own syntax and grammar, not to mention its own idioms and poetry and beauty. It is separate and distinct from the sign languages of America or France or any other country.
The comparison between deaf children and those of immigrants who are forced to use English is facile at best. It ignores context completely. The children of immigrants are free to use their own language at home - but the majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents who do not know sign language. Without being able to learn it and use it at school with other deaf children, they are isolated in the deepest sense from those around them. A deaf child can and does learn English of course, but they will never be able to use it to communicate with the wider community in the same way that a child with English as a second language can. A child of immigrants can still hear the people around them and can, once they’ve learned English to a sufficient degree, participate in the ordinary chatter around them. A deaf child can’t for the reasons outlined above.
Not knowing English is not a disability. Being deaf is. It’s hard for people who have never experienced it to understand how isolating the inability to hear can be. Imagine you go to France and you learn French perfectly. Now imagine that even though you know the language you still can’t access it properly because everyone around you is mumbling, turning away, speaking too fast, and you’re only catching every other word and even then you’re only catching every other word of the person you happen to be looking at and missing every other person talking and all the other sounds around you. You can learn French so perfectly you’re 100% fluent and still never be able to fully engage with anyone around you.
If you don’t allow them to express themselves in the manner which is easiest for them they will always be playing catch-up. They will be at a disadvantage. But let them communicate and learn in a language that flows, where you can really properly follow the conversation, where the words make sense and have a context, and you have a child that can really learn. Why would you deny them that because of the idea that they must “fit in”?
Up until around 30 or 40 years ago almost all deaf schools were 100% oral. Children were not allowed to sign and were punished for being caught doing so. My own mother was punished by being locked in an air raid shelter, and on another occasion was put in a straight-jacket for being caught signing. The result was that most deaf children left school with an average reading age of 8. Neither of my parents have a single academic qualification because so much of their time was dedicated to teaching them to “speak”. Hours of repetitive speaking lessons. And the result? My parents are still deaf. They still have “deaf” voices that are difficult for most hearing people to understand. Why? Because they cannot hear! You cannot teach a disabilty away.
I could go on forever. Being deaf can be wonderful - my parents are members of a rich, vibrant community with their own beautiful language. My mother was an actress/director, had her own theatre company and has translated Shakespeare into sign language. She won awards for her production of Titus Andronicus. And this is in SPITE of her oral education, not because of it. Imagine what she’d have been able to learn if she’d been taught in a language she can fully engage with!