Stop the Insanity! The Signing Crusade of Deaf Advocates
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A new blog appeared on the Deaf blogosphere today called Children of the Eye. It is subtitled Children of the Eye’s Deprivation of Natural Sign Language. For years many in the culturally deaf (Deaf) community have been crusading ostensibly for deaf children. In their discussions, they state that all deaf children should learn American Sign Language, what they consider every congenitally born deaf child’s natural language.
Essentially, pre-lingually deaf adults who grew up without access to early language of any kind (oral or sign) and without the benefits of today’s technology are bitter, as they should be. I find it cruel that children for whom the oral method did not work for one reason or another were kept from learning any form of communication until later on, after years of struggling. But I have to believe that parents and professionals just didn’t know any better. What decent parent doesn’t try their best to help their child? The technology just wasn’t there for profoundly deaf children unlike today.
When a child is diagnosed with deafness or a lesser form of hearing loss, they turn to the professionals, audiologists, deaf educators and others for advice. But what works for one, may not work for another. Parents need to seek professional opinions, gauge their own child, and listen to their gut instincts. If something is not working for their child, they need to change it. Change therapists, change schools, change communication methods if necessary. Don’t be afraid of change.
The Children of the Eye blogger posted his purpose for blogging which is to “Stop the deprivation of education and language for deaf children in school.†Here’s how I responded to him:
“Stop the deprivation of education and language for deaf children in school? Your childhood and that of other deaf students in your generation is vastly different than the deaf children growing up now. Today, there are thousands of children who are deaf and hard of hearing who have or are successfully learning oral language [due] in great part to earlier diagnosis of hearing loss, digital hearing aid technology and advancements in the quality of sound and speech delivered by cochlear implants.
If parents decide to teach their children ASL then that’s their choice, as it should be. After all, parents don’t have children so other people can tell them how they should be raised. Haven’t doctors been doing that for decades, telling families to send their children with disabilities away to hospitals, special homes and schools? How well did that turn out?”
Oh, and that animated guy up top? He’s saying “Accept” in American Sign Language. As in, “Accept me for who I am.” I think oral deaf kids should know that sign when they encounter the crusaders, because they will.
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The health care industry is already doing a great job at taking care of the insanity from the ASL advocates. Give them 10 more years and the scourge from the ASL along with the insanity will fade away.
Your subject is interesting theory. Did you know that all doctors, professionals, audiologists and I.D.E.A. hardly or don’t mention about deaf community or ASL or deaf educators to the new parents at first born? The reason is we build a bridge between deaf and hearing worlds. And give them to have opporunities to know more about deaf community or ASL education. What are thev doctors, professionals, audiologists afraid to tell the truth? Do they earn commission to mention about the devices would work? My guts tell me something wrong about the bridges fall apart so long. ASL is nature language for all deaf children and adults. I do support Oral or CI but they don’t guarantee them understand the whole English spoken language.
Some parents nor the professionals knew about the other options back then. From my experience, they knew but refused to consider the other options since they weren’t acceptable at all. Back then, we the oral students were taught that ASL was bad and that Deaf kids using ASL were very stupid. How awful that we were taught to look down on ASL and Deaf kids. We were distinctly forbidden to use ASL and were punished severely if we were exposed to sign language or used signs.
The children of 1960’s and 1970’s and part of 1980’s had a rough time with AVT, since not much was known about Deaf culture back then. But from 1990’s onward, things have changed and CIs have been proven successful for more and more children nowadays and thanks to internet and disability awareness and ADA, etc., deaf children have more opportunities. I am with you, that parents have to FOLLOW their child’s lead.
I am so glad to see all of your comments. Richard, I have never said nor implied that people who practice or preach ASL are scourge. What I said is that I “hear” where they’re coming from and understand why they feel this way. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, which are largely formed from their personal experiences. What they’re not entitled to is to make parents feel their choices are wrong or that they’re depriving their children of language when they are actually teaching them oral communication. Method of communication is a CHOICE, it is not something to be imposed upon by one group of people on another.
Mishkazena, Being punished severely for being exposed to or using signs is an outrage. People did not know better about the long-term ramifications of forcing children to speak when they clearly couldn’t. I agree with the comment made on the Children of the Eye site that there is a need for all options. One method is not the right one for all deaf children.
Paula,
I strenuously object to your characterization of an entire group as “bitter” and “angry.” I am angry that people were deprived of access and of finding a solution that allowed them to have language early on. You and I are on the same page on this aspect, based on your blog entry today. But I am aghast at your willingness to say an entire group is bitter, angry, and full of “crusaders.” With this type of heated rhetoric, how can we ever hope to work together, to talk this out, and to listen, and if necessary, disagree with respect?
Thank you for your time.
way to go paula! my child and i have been surfing the hearingexchange for tweens, trying to link up with new buddies to share experiences and ideas. thank you for such website!
by the way i do understand where you are coming from. i appreciate your moderate stance on the whole issue. asl should be made available whenever a deaf child/teen/adult wishes to learn it. it is a beautiful language. learning signed English is equally as neat. ive seen a couple of ci teens huddled in a circle speaking, lipreading, listening, and dropping a sign or two here and there. its really neat to watch especially from a deaf mom to a deaf child with a ci. i would just hate to see a deaf ci teen avoiding sign language as much as possible so not to identify with “them”. hope all of us parents with ci kids would teach our kids to understand and accept sign language or asl and the people who depend on them to communicate and hope that the ASL advocates will mellow out a little.
Jenny, your statement, “With this type of heated rhetoric, how can we ever hope to work together, to talk this out, and to listen, and if necessary, disagree with respect?” is exactly what can be said of the numerous deaf bloggers who send out posts on a daily basis railing on “oralism” and “audism.” I don’t see those people agreeing to disagree with respect. Do you?
Some aren’t, I’ll grant you that. Some are, which is why your painting an entire group with the same brush is unwarranted. What would work best, for everyone, no matter what their perspective is, is to pinpoint behaviors that we want to see and what behaviors we feel are counterproductive, explaining why these behaviors are productive/counterproductive.
Great blog Paula. The language the child learns first and best is their “natural language”. It may be ASL, but in our case, it is spoken English. Our daughter learned S.E.E. as part of the Total Communication approach we used. But she preferred spoken English over signing, and we followed her lead. If she wants to learn ASL, I am fine with that. But I do resent it when someone who doesn’t even know her tells me that I am depriving her of her “natural” language. Respect for each other’s choices is a very important part of working together.
Paula,
I also gave this message to the blogger on “Children of the Eye” so Blue Eyes will understand better h/herself better. Please do read this book too as it improve my perspective about my deaf child.
http://www.simonsays.com/content…b=22& pid=367393
Hearing mother,
Patty
Jenny, the group I painted as bitter was the group that feels the need to dictate their ideas as the only way to go. I wasn’t referring to the entire set of culturally deaf people in the world.
K.L., I agree, we need to listen to our children and help them follow the path that is best for them.
Patty, Thank you for the book suggestion.
[...] to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!It seems that my recent HearingExchange blog post, Stop the Insanity! The Signing Crusade of Deaf Advocates struck a chord with many in the deaf and hard of hearing community. I’ll admit that the title [...]
Paula, I\’m sorry but you just don\’t understand.
You are postlingally hoh. It was VERY easy for you to pick up speech. We deafies understand. Many if not most postlingals don\’t identify with ASL and Deaf culture.
I am \"only\" hoh. But I was BORN that way. I learned speech decently….BUT there are still TONS of disadvantages to oral only. (deaf voice making hearing people think I\’m MR, being yelled at b/c my voice is too loud among other things)
Those of us who are Deaf activists believe that dhh babies and kids need to be introduced to BOTH languaes so they have a FULL toolbox of options. You wouldn\’t educate a kid who was smart in English but defiencent in math by concentratin solely on their math definecey would you? Exactly….so why do we educate dhh kids by focusing solely on their speech skills?
Besides oral only kids only have THAT tool in their toolbox. If their hearing aids/CIs are broken, they can\’t function too well.
Also think of it this way. ASL is a language. If fluency in ASL was pushed as \" YAY! Your kid can be BILINGAL!\" I know so many kids who were mainstreamed and oral (and by kids I mean more recently like the 90\’s and 00\’s) and they were just dog paddling in terms of acheivement. When they learned ASL they did REALLY WELL!
Kids deserve the chance to be bilingal. Heck many oral kids have tons of social issues…..and the ASL really helps that!
“Many oral kids have social issues.” Where in the world did you come up with that? Sorry, let’s just agree to disagree. I don’t engage in the oral vs. bilingual debate. Each family has the write to choose what they think is best for their child and their situation. Period.
I meant \"right\" not \"write.\"