To quote one respondent: “I’m actually seeing big pluses of implants and correlation of implants with the ability to speak/write excellent English. ASL makes it harder for one to achieve that, not impossible, but harder.”

Whoa. Other than a successful phonics approach with SOME children, there is no proof that hearing equals literacy even in the general hearing population.

For the Deaf population, no matter what hearing devices they use, literacy is also independent from hearing!

Reading is taught visually and when it is not tied to hearing avenues, practice and love of reading becomes an unlimited access to literacy, education, sophistication and the world.

Let’s not confuse the CI with literacy. There are too many hearing illiterates to support that theory.

One day, that I hope, a new role of fed government soon will have their power/role to oversee and make decisions over our free-market policy that doctors are motivated for incentives (for their own benefit!) Tide’s still too high because doctors are very concerned about a new change. The govt will look at those doctors who did make millions and will be valued. Those doctors will be gone moving out the country once fed govt will take over.

1 whole new world of sound and language opened.

Big thanks for vlogging about this and for signing the petition.

Your concerns are very valid and ones we well considered. We did examine if the petition should be direct directly to the FDA and our examination as well as advise from folks very close to investigating CIs said – FDA is the place to hit as they r the ones who approved it and have an obligation to make sure an impartial investigation is set up to address the concerns and issues identified. Most importantly the AFA petition identifies that Deaf experts must be part of this investigative team.

The other areas you mention are important ones and surely avenues we all can pursue individually and collectively.

Thank you again for your support and for vlogging about this topic. Of particular concern for all of us whether we be people who support CI or oppose them or those who have questions about them – is the premise that many scholars have put forth that cochlear implants with the oral / aural only push is a form of linguistic and cultural genocide.

We have seen this take place in Sweden and being aggressively pushed in Australia. Just as the Milan, Italy 1880 proclamation of incontestable superiority of speech jumped the big puddle called the Atlantic in the early 1900s despite great efforts from Deaf and Hearing leaders to prevent it from ravishing the Deaf ASL-world landscape so too seems the CI / AVT mandate will reign unless we collect facts and share testimonies of the adverse impact it is having on a people and a language.

I am very thankful to the parents who have chosen to raise their children bilingually-biculturally Li-Li’s mom, Karen M., Candy etc However, you are in the smallest of smallest of minorities – and there is a huge surge of implanting infants while omitting ASL and often with the explicit purpose and hope that their bee no need or use of ASL in the Deaf child’s life. This ain’t cool folks.

Peace

Patti

I think you’re making a false analogy by example. You have more hearing than your siblings, and you have better English than them. By your logic, this means that using sound-based/Hearing-centric educational strategies is what works.

However, I would bet almost anything that your schooling did not include any ASL-English bilingual strategies. Instead, your teachers probably used such Hearing-based strategies such as phonological encoding, which would work with students like you, who have enough hearing to make use of this type of strategy, but would not work with your siblings who probably didn’t (according to you). Now, imagine if ASL-English bilingual education had been used? I bet your siblings would have English just as good as yours. And, I notice a few (minor) grammatical errors in your comment here. If you had been exposed to ASL-English bilingual strategies, it’s possible that your own English might be that much better, since you would have been able to draw on two languages — your home/native language of ASL, plus English.

Definitely there needs to be a task force of some kind to investigate this and find out why there are kids who are being implanted that are not succeeding in all areas of listening, speaking and language!!!

I don’t think AVT is dangerous. I’m not too sure about prohibition of visual language along with AVT either simply because I do not have implants (yet) and I’m not a child. I actually think that it wouldn’t hurt based on my wearing a hearing aid, having ASL as my first language, and the fact that I can speak fluently with a visual language background. But, I do understand the importance of focusing on AVT without signs in the beginning to reap the benefits of success. However, I do question long term prohibition of visual language with implants. Then again, it is possible that there are so many factors that comes into play.

Definitely parent’s involvement is VERY CRUCIAL. We agree on that.

What we see online via many parents (DR and DV) is evidence in itself. However, we are not really seeing a true picture because obviously there are parents/children out there that do not go online to share the downside or the un-success of their kids/implants. We know it’s out there. Nothing is perfect in our world. I know it’s out there because, if one is totally in tune with the deaf education as it is, one will hear/see many teachers of the deaf of a mainstream deaf program gripe about extra work and frustration of kids “dumped” at their schools. This is where I got curious and started to ask lots of questions and then when I find out most of these kids are minorities with parents who have no English knowledge, both written and spoken, I was like whoa! What’s going on here?

What really turns me off big time is the fact that many parents of successful implanted kid(s) tend to not go into this area. Perhaps, they only have time to focus on their child(ren)as it is. If I was a parent of a successfully implanted kid and I hear of these kids who fell through the cracks, I would be concerned because I would want others to benefit the same as my child so that the stats would reflect not only my child but all children who succeeded as mine did.

You would think that parents of kids who are successful would be involved to make sure these things do not happen to other kids in order to shine a good light on implants. Then again, most parents are only concerned about their own and nothing more.

I’m actually seeing big pluses of implants and correlation of implants with the ability to speak/write excellent English. ASL makes it harder for one to achieve that, not impossible, but harder. Not every child has the ability to work harder.

Using my siblings and I as an example, I have better hearing than they do. We all wear hearing aids. ASL was our first language, we are exposed to ASL everyday. We go to a mainstream school, we have speech class twice a week. I am the only one that has better English than all. Why?

How did that happen? We all read books. So, the answer to that, for me, is the ability to hear. I hear more, ergo, my English is better. no? Or is it because I am more in-tune to sounds around me and practice listening on my own, i.e., the desire to listen/speak so I can be involved with the world around me.

I find that having the ability to hear sounds helps a lot with English because of listening skills and AVT is part of that.

I know this is late, but I wanted to throw in my two-cent, so to speak.

It is also lame to blame failure of CI kids to learn English on not using the AVT method.

I feel AVT is a dangerous because it limits input in an area that is crucial to the deaf child: vision. ASL is only part of it. Also important is recognizing words in print, in fingerspelling, in any visible form.

Parent involvement IS crucial, whatever the method. So is early introduction of reading. So is a comprehensive approach involving both ASL and auditory training.

There is NO question that if one were to be able to hear, one would be able to have better English proficiency. It is a given, which is why deaf people have had to work harder to gain English proficiency.

My main concern has always been the ones that fell through the cracks and that we need to find out why and make sure it does not happen. To say that ASL is the answer is not going to solve this problem simply because the parent opted out of it in the first place and did not follow instructions for successful C.I of their child to a T. I have said before, and I will say it again: There are too many minorities being implanted and their non-English speaking parents do not involve their kids in AVT nor do they speak English at home. Then there is a newer issue that asks this very question: are the professionals prepared for an increase of implanted kids that requires necessary services such as AVT? Apparently there are not enough, just as there are not enough ASL/bi-bi teachers for the deaf.

We need to be more concerned in areas where failures are concerned and to nip it at the bud, to blame it on choice is lame. Implants are a great tool and the language of ASL is a great one too.

Be part of the solution rather than be part of the problem. Let’s look for ways to improve things rather than looking for ways to bring down a choice that parents have opted for.