Are you sure you grew up in the States? You use a lot of Britishisms… “aye”. “arse”… Anglophilic?

In all honesty, I don’t really expect to see a class action suit happening, partly for reasons you stated, although we might be able to find a Deaf lawyer who might be willing — we do have quite a few these days…. — the other problem would be to keep it from being thrown out of court — we haven’t gotten society to the point where a judge might be willing to entertain the idea.

As for NACPAC, she wasn’t talking about Deaf children, but Deaf adults, although your point about that “ray of hope” still applies.

I must say, though, you are a tricky one to figure out. Just when I thought I had you pegged, you come out with things like this last comment where you seem almost sympathetic to my way of thinking… Just out of curiosity… do you read Science Fiction? Ever read Orson Scott Card?

Nacpac, I do get the gist of what you are saying about about getting testimonies, but unfortunately, one singe video of a deaf child speaking would likely grab that attention of the hearing parent of a deaf child that is clueless about deafness more than 100 videos of testimonials of showing failures, simply because it offers that one single ray of hope and these parents will likely grasp onto that ray of hope. I don’t like it any more than you do, but that unfortunately is how it is.

DrDon, as much as I could entertain your idea of a class action lawsuit, the problem would not rounding up enough “plaintiffs” as you could likely find many, the big challenge would actually be finding a lawyer to take the case on a contingency basis. However it would be easy to find a lawyer that is willing to take this on a non-contingency basis and eat up your funds on an hourly basis, and trust me, they will gladly charge you up the arse.

A class action suit would really do wonders! Just gotta figure out how to make it happen and round up enough people who would be willing to sign up on the suit….

–DonG.

Yeah, my husband is like that too. He chooses not to talk with non-signers in some situations. I suspect his reason is the same as yours.

I sure hope DBC or the Deaf Community would do a film or a vlog focusing on former oralists or current oralists’ testimonies. Their testimonies should also include spoken language. See Barb Digi’s vlog with her grandmother? A powerful one, indeed. The project should also include hard of hearing people! Why? I hear the same argument over and over again that the children with cochlear implants do not/will not experience the same suffering as the oral children of yesteryear.

Oral hard of hearing people’s testimonies would be powerful as CI kids are technically hard of hearing.

How about class action lawsuit by the ex-oralists for their undue suffering growing up without sign language?

Richard Roehm

You’re probably right that AGB is referring to use of interpreters, but it is how they are phrasing things that is the problem — implying that only by having speech and hearing can one be “independent”. I notice they make no mention of the fact that some Oral Deaf use “oral interpreters”….

And yes, lipreading and hearing IS a big energy drain on all of us, implanted or not — quite a few years back, I went to a 3 day job interview at the University of Utah and was persuaded by my mom to try to use my hearing and speech in hopes that it might appeal to their audistic tendencies and they would hire me (didn’t work, which is why you know me now….). After those 3 days, I was SO worn out — physically and mentally — and amazed at how I was able to survive so long doing that before I entered MSSD!

I do have very intelligible speech — probably close to being a Hearing person’s speech, and I CAN use it with non-signers, when I choose to (for several reasons, I have chosen not to use it with most non-signers — maybe I’ll vlog about that someday….).

Really, I, like I think most Deaf people do, DO see the ability to use speech (and maybe hearing) as a nice “bonus”, if the person happens to have the hearing ability to develop those speech skills. It’s not being “colonialized” to see the ability to speak as a positive thing — the important thing is that VISUAL access to language must come first — then speaking can come with that — Bilingualism. (BTW, some wheelchair-bound people do view those who longingly yearn to walk as something of “colonialized” — ableized?)

I think there are a lot of ex-oralists who have already presented that message. Read some of Mark Drolsbaugh’s books. He has one that’s pretty recent: “On the Fence: The hidden world of the Hard of Hearing” (I think that’s the full title — the On the Fence part is definitely correct) in which he collected stories from a lot of HH people (some from Deaf families too) and many of them said just that — that signing enriched their lives and access to society….

Still, not a bad idea…. might be a good one for the DBC to produce.

The idea…..

Why don’t you and other ex-oralists or oral/signing Deaf (whatever you all call yourselves) team up and do vlogs showing you guys still can speak and how ASL enriched your lives. The message from ex-oralists would be more powerful than the message delivered by the signing culturally Deaf.

I believe what AGB meant by being independent is the less dependency on sign langage interpreters. They know Deaf people can be independent when it comes to daily living. The more speech and listening ability one has, the less dependence on sign language interpreters.

Of course there are oral deaf who learned ASL later in life in order to use sign language interpreters in situations where reliance solely on listening and speaking is nearly impossible. Not only that, those oral signing deaf find it so much easier on the eyes when communicating in ASL. Lipreading and listening is a big energy drain on an oral deaf even with cochlear implants.

Don, I’ll assume you have intelligible speech as you grew up as an oral deaf until age 14. Do you still use spoken language when communicating one-on-one with a nonsigner? If so, I would say you are more independent that I am.

My husband, who is Deaf and has intelligible speech, speaks orally to nonsigners up to 2, sometimes 3 people. If more than 3 or 4, he demands an ASL interpreter. He refuses to play the guessing game as most oral deaf always do. With his speech abiliy, he can talk to his doctor without an interpreter. He can place orders at the drive through face to face without writing on a piece of paper. He is more independent than I am.

It does not bother me, really. My remarks might bother some of you, Deaf people. You may think I am colonialized for thinking that having speech skills is desirable. Would you think a wheelchair bound person as colonialized for thinking tha being able to walk is better?

Anyway, I agree that AGB is NOT neutral. I do not know where some deaf/Deaf people get the idea that they are. They are actively telling parents that childre should NOT learn sign language or ASL because their speaking and listening skills will be slowed down. A parent of two deaf children who attend an oral school in our hometown told me a week ago that staff at that school told her not to sign to her children. She still does in secret. It is all beause of the inflitration of AGB philosophy.

Well…. I have an idea!