Scram? No Way. We Need Voices of Reason.

Ridor attacked me on his blog and here is my response as follows:

Ridor:
"Now let’s focus on Jamie Berke, she cried a massive river last summer when the Deaf Bilingual Coalition staged a peaceful demonstration at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia."

Me:
>>>Let's get one thing straight. This was NOT a "peaceful demonstration." Peaceful yes, demonstration, no. It was a protest and clearly referred to as such by certain bloggers. I was trying to warn the deaf community that protesting against an individual organization might backfire. It might make the members of that organization defensive and protective of their organization. A general effort to get the word out that if hearing babies are encouraged to sign, deaf babies should be, too, is more effective.

Ridor:
"And honey, now it backfired in your face. See what we meant all along? We were right. You are so wrong as usual. Your complacency prompts them to tramp us all once again. "

Me:
>>Again, I was trying to make the point that the deaf community should explore alternatives to protesting against AG Bell, for getting their perspective across. Things like the International Sign Language day marches - excellent idea! Great way to increase awareness of sign language and its benefits without attacking any particular organization. Hopefully that will generate some much-needed positive publicity in the media about sign language.Like many of you, I am concerned for the future of the signing deaf community, which I see shrinking rapidly as the next generation largely goes the oral route because of cochlear implants. (I have recently heard that the total communication deaf center program my deaf kids graduated from, is down to about 30 kids altogether from pre-school through 6th grade, while the oral deaf center program reportedly has over 200 kids) Where are the signing deaf people of the future going to come from?

Like many of you, I am doing some deep soul searching, trying to come to terms with the new reality for a deaf community that is undergoing rapid change. I may not like the implantation of deaf babies, but as I learn more facts, I understand why it is being done. Quite simply, cochlear implants work differently from hearing aids. The actually work better because a cochlear implant can bypass the bad part of the ear and a hearing aid can not. So I was partially right in an earlier post where I said hearing aids were not good enough - they will NEVER be as good as cochlear implants.

So what is the best course of action for us older deaf people, to ensure that there is a future signing generation to replace us? So far, it seems to be:

a. Embrace the few parents of implantees who decide to use sign language along with cochlear implants. Right now these parents are very few. If we embrace them, maybe some of them will become advocates for the bilingual method.

Here are some CI parent blogs where the parents embrace the use of sign language. These are the only ones I know of so far where the parents are embracing bilingualism. Link to these blogs, increase awareness of them. They are an important tool in the deaf community's advocacy toolkit.

1. Ethan's World - search for blog posts on sign language
2. Issac's World - search for blog posts on sign language
3. Moot Thoughts and Musings - search for blog posts on sign language

Only three! They are FAR outnumbered by the ones who are raising their children only orally, with the auditory verbal method.

b. Attack the media, as we are beginning to do in the case of articles like the Chicago Tribune. The media must be made aware of their bias and journalistic obligation to present a balanced picture. For every successful pure oral cochlear implantee mentioned in an article, there should be a successful bilingual cochlear implantee mentioned.

c. Work hard to make the parents of implantees understand that although their children can hear and function like hearing children, they are deaf children with implants. Just like the earlier generation of orally raised deaf children could hear with hearing aids, but was still deaf.

I grew up oral. Why is sign language important to me now? It is important to me because:

1. It was the key to friendships for me in college
2. It filled in the communication gaps for me at first. As I lost more hearing, I became more dependent on sign language. I will continue to use sign language even if I get a CI.
3. It is an essential part of deaf culture, and therefore, a person's culturally deaf identity. Finding my identity as a deaf person in college, felt like "coming home."
4. It is the native language of my deaf children. (The other day I asked the younger one if he would like an implant. He screamed at me in ASL, "no way! I prefer deaf!" I asked again, "but don't you want to be able to hear music? voices?" Again he screamed, "no way! I prefer deaf!" Yet his feelings and preferences can not be compared to those of an implanted deaf baby growing up, because all the implanted deaf baby knows is sound, while my child only knows silence.)

Ridor:
"Maybe the deaf folks in the region (Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan) can stage a demonstration at the oral school and distribute the wooden rulers as a reminder of their method to oppress Deaf people by bashing their hands with wooden rulers as they did for the last 100 years!"

Me:
>>No, I am against this idea because it focuses on the past. I strongly doubt that they are doing any "punishment" of this type in today's oral schools for the deaf even if sign language is forbidden there. If we try to portray oralism as "oppressing" deaf children at the same time that parents of CI kids are declaring that they are giving their children "opportunities," this tactic could backfire.

Ridor:
"Jamie, your ideas of unification between us and them fell … on deaf ears, literally and figuratively! Now scram away!"

Me:
>> I still encourage some form of unification. If not on cochlear implants, then on other issues like technology and accessibility.

I am not going to scram away. We need open, honest, cordial discussion and debate on the issues, and cochlear implantation is certainly presenting the deaf community with issues and challenges. We need voices of reason to balance the passioned thoughts being expressed by culturally deaf people.

As has been discussed before, some of the kids growing up implanted *may* cross over to the deaf community as adults, but many if not most, probably won't. How is the National Association of the Deaf going to survive? How are total communication center programs for the deaf going to survive? How are signing schools for the deaf going to survive (the trend is for them to close and become outreach centers)? How will Gallaudet University avoid the need for more layoffs beyond what has already been announced? How will the National Technical Institute for the Deaf keep up its enrollment? How are deaf social events going to survive? At the ASL dinners I go to, I have started to see some cochlear implantees, but so far it is only deaf adults with implants - no parents have brought their implanted deaf children yet.

Last but not least, Ridor, stop calling me "honey." If you must attack me publicly, just call me Jamie - nothing else. Otherwise, I might come up with a few choice names for you. I already have one in mind, but if I posted it here, it might violate DeafRead's guidelines (item 8: We will not post anything that is an attack on a specific race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orienation, age or religion).

Chicago Tribune Gets It All Wrong

Today's article in the Chicago Tribune, "Lending ears to learners," gets it all wrong. I take issue with specific statements in the article:

• "He has no deaf friends." Taken in the content of the article, a hearing reader would get the impression, that not having any deaf friends is something to be proud of. It is important for deaf kids' social development to associate with other deaf kids, e.g. signers with signers, oral with oral.
  
• They cite that often-trotted-out "4th grade reading level" statement, throwing a scare into parents who are reading this article. We've got to get the media to stop focusing on that because very soon it will no longer be true and as of now it is probably not true anymore.
  
• It says the students at the oral school are "prohibited" from learning sign language, without explaining why the students are not being permitted to learn sign language. A paper has an obligation to present all the facts so that people can form their own opinions. The paper should have added the statement that sign language was being prohibited in order not to hinder oral language development, not because sign language is bad. Instead, when I read the article, it gave me the impression that it was saying that sign language is bad.
  
• The paper pushes the fact that not everyone does well with implants, to the very end of the article where it is likely to be overlooked or ignored.

Bottom line, this was not a well-balanced, well researched, or well-written article.

While I am getting to know deaf adults with implants, I have not had much exposure to deaf kids with implants and only know what others tell me. Yesterday a teacher of the deaf, told me that in San Diego, the parents who implant their kids must sign a paper promising not to use sign language (sound familiar?) . This teacher described an experience at a school for deaf kids. The teacher found that of the implanted kids, some did very well, while others could barely communicate.

Last, at the very end of the article, they call it all an "oral deaf experiment." Some of those kids will do great... but what happens to the ones who don't do so great? How are they going to feel when they are finally exposed to sign language and the deaf community?

I want to see the media send the message that sign language is not a bad thing. Even for oral deaf people, minimal sign language can fill in the communication gaps when something to write on is not handy.

Future of Deafness?

I have been reading (and enjoying) several CI Kid blogs. I am reading them to get a feel for what it is like for kids growing up today with cochlear implants. How is it different from the way it was for the older deaf generation, and how is it the same?

The more I read, the more I see that an implant is like the hearing aids of yesterday, only better as the kids seem to hear so much better with their implants than deaf kids did with hearing aids long ago. (Not to mention that they don't have to deal with earmold feedback) Substitute the word "hearing aid" for "implant" in many of the CI kid blogs' experiences (like losing or misplacing an implant), and it will seem familiar to the older generation.

What is different is that these kids overall seem to do really well with their implants. They pick up language so much quicker and easier. I expect that the old "fourth grade reading level" statistic will be history within five years. Some of these kids are even reading and writing better than their hearing peers.

These kids seem very much like the oral kids of yesteryear. Will enough of them "cross over" to the signing deaf culture as they grow up to help keep the deaf community alive? If it were not for formerly "pure oral" deaf people who cross over, the signing deaf community would be much smaller than it already is.

As far as parents raising their deaf children bilingually, out of about 20 CI kid blogs that I am following so far, only a few are raising their children with both sign language and speech. One reason I am following the CI kid blogs so avidly is because I want to see how well the ones who grow up bilingually do both academically and socially, compared to the ones who grow up without sign language as a major means of communication. I use the term "major means" because I can see in several of the blogs that the parents use minimal sign language as a "bridge" when their children do not have the implants on.

Another difference I am seeing, is that many deaf people in the older generation who grew up oral had difficulty with their social lives and social skills. The implanted kids don't seem to be having this difficulty, so far. The parents who write these blogs describe their children as having no problems playing with hearing children.

Will these kids have a much easier time getting hired for jobs than the previous generation of deaf people when they grow up? I'm betting that they will, because they will have the benefit of: better speech, better language skills, better education, and better social skills.

Will More Schools for the Deaf Become "Dumping Grounds?"

According to this newswire, California School for the Deaf has agreed to set up a day class for deaf students with additional needs. California is a bellweather for the rest of the nation, traditionally. Does the settlement of this lawsuit by a family with a deaf autistic child, mean that more schools for the deaf will have to set up classes for deaf students with additional disabilities?

What does this mean for administrators of schools for the deaf that are trying to prevent their schools from becoming "dumping grounds" for the hard-to-educate deaf students with special needs? I can not remember where I read it, but I once read somewhere a statement by an administrator of a deaf school who said he did not want his school to become a "dumping ground" for multiply-disabled deaf students.

Here is an earlier blog post (November 10, 2006) from my site at About.com that addresses the same topic.

Hearing Aids Not Good Enough for Deaf Babies

When I was born, I was profoundly deaf. That was not known until I was a year and a half, and got my first hearing aids. According to my mother, I showed immediate response to the hearing aids, acting as if I wanted them in my ears. Today, my parents probably would have waited only a few months, then gotten me a cochlear implant.

Just today, I read about a baby that was suspected of being deaf at 14 months, and by the time the baby was two years old, the baby had a cochlear implant. Before the implant, the parents did try hearing aids. So that means hearing aids were given no more than six months' time to produce results, probably less time than that.

One reason it is so difficult for many in our generation (born before the 80s) to accept the cochlear implant in babies is because all we had were hearing aids and/or sign language. Cochlear implants were not an option for us. Our parents had no choice but to wait longer to see if we responded to the hearing aids. Many in our generation did okay with hearing aids, but many of us also came out of our growing up deaf years with less developed English skills.

Today's hearing aids just apparently are not good enough for deaf babies. The parents wait a few months, and if the baby does not show response to sound or start producing language, it's off to get an implant. Who can blame the parents? Time is of the essence if their children are going to develop good English skills.

Instead of getting so upset over cochlear implants in babies - something that admittedly bothers me, but I accept because there is no choice but to accept it with the majority of deaf babies getting implants today - should we be pressuring the hearing aid manufacturers to improve their technology? After all, if hearing aids worked better, there would be no need to implant the deaf babies.

Hearing aids worked for me as a profoundly deaf toddler. What I do not know and may never know, is did they work for me because I was older, and more aware of my environment? Did they work for me because I had just enough hearing left to be able to benefit from hearing aids? What if I had been a tiny infant under six months old? Would hearing aids have worked for me?

I've even asked myself an analogous question. What if I had a blind baby and I had two options available, a pair of strong glasses and surgery to give my child artificial eyes? How long would I be willing to wait for my child to be able to see with the strong glasses? Would I rush to get my child the artificial eyes? It is not a matter of wanting my child to be "normal," but a matter of wanting my child to be able to see.