Monday, November 12, 2007
Benefits of the Dual Approach
I really enjoyed and appreciated this article from the Sacramento Bee: He Lives in Two Worlds. The article is a follow-up to the implantation of a deaf toddler boy. Today he is 9 years old, and relies on both sign language and speech. His parents, who originally wanted him to be only oral, now understand the importance of sign language for their son. Key quote: "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."
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3 comments:
Great article. We need to see more of these in the media!
It was a great article, with parents trying to give their child the best chance of being able to interact with both the hearing and Deaf world. But what I see in the comments are so many Deaf people who are not happy with anything less than full ASL integration first and foremost. SEE is a better sign language option for the TC approach, since the child can see and hear the same words at the same time. Learning ASL is not difficult if the child is fluent in SEE.
Some people commented that they had been in the child's shoes. They haven't. The implant changes the rules. Unless you were implanted at the same age, you did not walk in his shoes. He has much better access to the hearing world than hearing aides could have provided him. Please don't assume that he will reject his hearing family or world as he grows older. That is far from a given.
K.L.
[This is a comment from Tomato Lichy from the UK]
I'm happy the child in the article is doing so well.
I'd like to respond to Anon above.
SEE is not a human language. Children do not use SEE as a native language.
SEE is an artificial, created language, and as such, does not contain the freedom of thought and individual self-expression possibilities that human languages do.
Real human languages are English and ASL.
Studies show that children who have been taught to use SEE or SSE, when speaking between themselves, gravitate towards an interlingua that has more of the linguistic features of ASL.
ASL and English are seperate languages. All Deaf children need to learn BOTH to as high a level as possible. Not some intermix like Spanglish or Franglais or Chinglish.
I have personally never met an ASL user that was against deaf kids learning English to as high standard as possible. They are open minded, multi-lingual in the language arena.
Why is it then that so many oralists (not all) are so against deaf kids learning ASL to as high a standard as possible? Why do they seem to want to restrict the language use of deaf kids? Why do you want to cut off avenues of communication and force deaf kids to become mono-lingual? You're letting your side down.
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