A CI requires an earpiece to function. You can just not put on the earpiece. And, yes, many CI implantees don’t wear their earpieces.
This is again off topic, but this thread seems to be the place the question could get answered.
I’ve heard a lot of mention of hearing parents with deaf children. Does it ever happen the other way around? I mean, deaf parents with hearing children. How would those kids linguistic education go? I presume they would learn to sign, and there would almost certainly be other hearing adults around. But what about other early language learning skills?
Most deafness isn’t genetic, so most deaf parents have hearing children, something around 90% IIRC. And even if two people have genetically caused deafness, they might not have the same type, and so the kids would be heterozygous carriers for both alleles rather than deaf.
Hearing children of deaf parents typically learn to sign from birth from their deaf parent/parents, and learn to vocalize normally from everyone else. Lots of babies are able to sign and understand signs before they can speak. You’ve probably seen pre-verbal babies that haven’t been consciously taught any signs who are able to communicate via sign that they want to be picked up.
Well, that makes the experiment easier.
I can understand the desire to turn off sounds on occasion (I wish I could do that sometimes!), but I wonder if any CI wearer has decided not to use the earpiece at all, ever again? And if so, does the reason match the ones given by the anti-CI militants?
Thanks! That part about the babies is very interesting. I asked because a long time ago I saw a movie, can’t remember the title, (and it was B&W), where a guy was praying in sign, although he was hearing. He said his parents were deaf. I don’t remember anything else, so I don’t know if it was supposed to be fictional or “based on a true story.”
Yes, I know a few who gave up on their CIs. They were prelinguistically deaf and not implanted as babies. I have heard of many CI implanted babies that go on to lead normal lives, can talk on phones and watch TV without captions, and in that sense I am a very strong advocate of implantation with CI at as an early age as possible.
However, CI at a later age (mine was at 6 and at 26) is generally not too successful because there’s not much plasticity in neurons if you’re prelinguistically deaf. Those cases simply don’t help. In my case, the newer implant picks up on far more sounds and does a lot better of separating sound signals, but I still hear voices better on the ancient implant. It’s my brain refusing to adapt, period. And in those cases, yes, I totally empathize with those who take off their earpieces permanently. Sound is not pleasant through a CI and hearing chatter in the background you know you’ll never understand is just depressing.
The blind have a similar problem–after about age 7 or so, you cannot learn to see. Oliver Sacks did a great story on a man whose sight was restored through an operation (the details escape me), but who could not make sense of the images that now surrounded him. He had coped well with blindness, but his brain could not process this new sensory information. IMS, he elected to either stop treatment or refused more surgery or something so that he could go back to being blind. Fascinating.
It sounds to me like CI people (after a certain age) have the same trouble as those with hearing aides–we automatically screen out background noise (some are better at this than others) etc, but some hearing aides don’t allow for that and this makes it difficult for the user to actually hear.
I hope the above post that alludes to “deftness” as a disability is a typo or a bizarre in joke… I kind of like “deftness” as a disability–Klutzes of the world, unite! (just don’t get hurt when we do). 
Like other posters in this thread, I’d like to thank Lemur866 for his great contributions to this discussion. Once again, you demonstrate why you are one of my favourite posters on this message board. And I’d be interested to know how you came to learn so much about Deaf culture.
Agreed. And I might be assuming to much, but I was assuming that he’s deaf?
Well, I’m not deaf. Like most hearing people who have opinions about deafness, I have a close deaf relative. My nephew, who unbelievably is now 14 years old has been deaf since around birth, cause unknown. And my brother is a teacher for deaf kids at the elementary level, and my sister in law is an interpreter.
I’m just sort of peripherally involved. I can barely sign. Well, and I’m able to generate signs, but my receptive skills are totally weak. I was pretty good when my nephew was 4 years old, now that he’s 14 I can’t keep up. It’s something you need to practice at.
A funny story about my nephew is that when they were testing his hearing at around age 18 months, he kept passing the hearing tests. Turns out it was the Clever Hans effect…he knew that he was supposed to show when he heard the signal, but he was using cues other than sound. Smart kid, except it confused the hell out of everyone for a while until they figured out that they had to remove all other environmental cues.
Thanks for your perspective Lemur, it’s very enlightening.
That’s very interesting. But I wonder if perhaps he COULD hear then, and lost that ability shortly after the tests? That’s an alternative explanation.
Especially since you said the cause of his deafness was unknown – if so, wouldn’t the progress timeline of the malady also be unknown?
Well, the retests happened later that week, so I doubt it was because his deafness had progressed.
Hi, it’s DeafDyke from the AllDeaf messageboard. I DIDN’T create a sock account or anything. I don’t want to be banned. I would like to engage in constructive debate, and have a way to do so easily. To whoever offered me a paid membership, I may have to hunt you down as soon as the summer is over. I’m quite busy with things right now (academic classes and such) Right now I don’t need another CrackBoard…lol. (right now its Alldeaf which I spend TOO much time at) I love lurking here though. One of my friends registered this screenname, and I asked if I could use their account to post some thoughts. Especially as nobody has gravitated towards Alldeaf to debate with us.
First, of all Subway Prophet I do understand your animonsity towards some Deaf people. It’s very difficult to believe that there are still some people who make a fuss about CIs in this day and age. However, they ARE getting a lot more accepted. Even the NAD (National Association of the Deaf) is OK with them!
Heck, just come over and look at Alldeaf. MANY Deafies are getting them.
I’ve been on Deaf messageboards since about 2000, and I can tell you that back then, almost everyone was against CIs. Now its more positive. Heck, quite a few of the people who were hardcore against them are now getting them! I do know from friends at NTID, that CIs are a pretty common sight around campus.
Opposition to CIs really is dying. Don’t let some extremists scare you off. You’re doing an awesome job. You’re equipting your child with: oral skills (which are VERY important), ASL fluency (you really have NO clue how many oral-only kids wish they’d had that tool growing up), and a way to hear (and MANY dhh people I know including the Deaf ones LOVE being able to have some access to sound, although its prolly not even close to what hearing people think of as “hearing”. Matter of fact, right now I’m listening to things like Weird Al, Indigo Girls and musicals like Les Miz and Gypsy on YouTube)
I actually know a lot of stuff you’re going through with your daughter. I’m actually more hard of hearing. (moderately severe loss and wear hearing aids) I’ve gotten the attitude that I’m “not really deaf” from some of the same people who are bashing your decision to get your child implanted. Far from it. Just b/c I can hear somewhat does not make me Hearing or mean that I fit into the hearing world.
It will die down. Back when hearing aids were first introduced, Deaf people were against them, just as some are now against implants. Now you’d have to dig pretty deep to try to find people who are anti HA.
I’ve found that generally most Deaf people will accept those with oral skills and or CIs, just as long as they don’t act like they are better then dhh people who use Sign. There are some people however who get oral supermacy mixed up with use of a CI or hearing aids or oral skills. Heck I’m as orally skilled as they come, and I have tons of friends who are non oral and don’t use HA or CI, and they accept me.
I honestly think you’re doing well. You’re equipting your child with a full toolbox of tools. That is SO awesome! Believe you me, you would be feted over at Alldeaf for that. Please do not bash an entire community for the beliefs of a few indivduals. That would be like bashing the Black community for the beliefs of a few Black Panthers. I think too that you might be a bit mixed up with your definitions. Deaf does not mean non orally skilled or non CI/HA user. It just means they use Sign and identify strongly with a VISUAL culture. Believe it or not, there are Deaf people who have perfect hearing but who use Sign as a second language due to things like apraxia or tracheostomies (not talking about the MR or autistic indivduals who use a handful of Signs) There’s a professor at Gally who says that we shouldn’t call ourselves “Hearing impaired”, but rather as "Seeing/Sighted people.
Two things: Mostly agree with entire rant about Deaf community. I do have sympathy for those who suffered during the era when “oral” became popular, signing was discouraged, and for whom “oral” did not work – because their loss was too severe, or they were not given therapy, or whatever. These people were often just cut off from communication – their families did not sign to them, but neither did talking/lip reading/amplification work for them-- so they were just sort of nonpersons in their households and communities. Obviously, very damaging, and one can understand their embracing the Deaf community when they discovered it. But that said, I have to respond to the question about literacy and the strange comment about Gallaudet.
My two nephews, aged 12 and 10, have had implants since ages 2 and 18 months. For most practical purposes, they are like typical hearing people. They can speak and hear well. The one who was implanted at 18 months has perfect speech. The other one mumbles and does not enunciate enough, but he does not sound “deaf.” Both do miss things sometimes, such as in a crowded, noisy room, or when more than one person is speaking, or when you speak to them from another room. They do not need to lip read. Literacy? They are way ahead of their peers in reading, writing, etc. (In part because they love to read, have no TV, and have very language-oriented parents.) I cannot beat the ten-year-old at Scrabble (he plays online at International Scrabble Club site and knows a million words. I play there too, but his brain just soaks in every word he sees and he never forgets one). Obviously, their operations were wildly successful, but not without years of hard work, a great school, and therapy. We have been derelict in teaching them to sign (we all started signing as a family and began teaching them sign when they were babies and before we knew about implants – but then were advised to stop signing until their language acquisition was much better, because they would rely too much on signing rather than training their brain to interpret sound.) So we focused on oral communication, but we never went back to signing. They still plan to learn it, but in the meantime, wow – I suppose if they went near a Deaf community function, they might not get out alive.
But the comment about Gallaudet? Since getting their implants they went to a very good oral school whose purpose was to mainstream them, and they have gone to “regular” school for years now. Now that I read this comment,
I see that they would be the most shunned of the shunned. “Mingle”? They ARE hearing folks. The focus was to see if they could get into regular school by kindergarten – and if I remember correctly, they did. College? Since their first years in school, it has never even entered our minds that they would go to a college for deaf people.
Afunnynamegoeshere, I saw your post after I had posted mine – I know your comments and insights were directed at Subway Prophet, but I wanted to express my appreciation for them anyway.
For those wondering about a written form for Sign Languages, there is SignWriting. That seems to be gaining some acceptance.
Ack, I have to post one more time to say that like an idiot, I didn’t even notice the thread had FOUR pages before I posted…I had only read the first one…
Thanks for this insight, AFNGH. Does the Deaf community resent the (pardon the pun) vocal minority who are anti-CI extremists? Presumably their rabid views are doing a disservice to the community.
I’ll admit that my views above were informed over the last five or six years by a few Gallaudet students, an audiology PhD student who deals with the DHH, and a terp who worked with an expert in my field who was DHH… but while none of them was extremist, they all gave me the impression that the rest of the Deaf Community was very much extreme. Has the change been pretty recent, or fairly fast? Perhaps it’s linked to the growth of DHH internet use?
Quick, shun the nonreader! Shu-u-u-unnn!!! 