I am from Atlanta, and I work at a signing school as you mentioned. What main organization that provides support has more information that is somewhat biased toward TC and ASL?

What does this mean? Do you mean the program called Georgia PINES? Or Baby Can’t Wait? Or?

I am intrigued.

Amy Cohen Efron

It’s interesting to read what you say about Massachusetts because we lived in Boston until Rachel was 4, and her deafness was diagnosed at Mass. Eye and Ear. For us, the experience was exactly as you described,and The Learning Center was the only referral they gave us. I do think it is a shame that things still seem to be unchanged 20+ years later. As I’ve said before, I think that the professionals need to present parents with unbiased information on all of their options and, in addition, maintain a list of parents using the various options that they can refer them to for support. This is closer to what happens here in Atlanta because we do have a major oral school and A-V Center in addition to a signing school. However, even so, the main organization that provides support here provides more information about and is somewhat biased toward TC and ASL.

Thanks for your comment – I think the Deaf Community needs to hear that. I’ve personally often wished the same, and I think an organization is in the works to provide more professional information and support system. But that does require money, and well, a lot of us in the Deaf Community are poor, because of our weak education leading to barely self-sustaining jobs.

It would be great if the Deaf Community could band together with parents like you, so we’re able to build that professional support system. Hopefully the organization I’m hearing about, will take off and do what you and other parents are saying here.

So I guess we all should keep our eyes peeled for that…

Building bridges goes both ways, and wrongs done in the past have to be acknowledged before they can heal. Again, this goes both ways. I am very encouraged by blogs like this that are trying to do just that.

We faced the same decision — and it’s a very tough one: we know that by taking a different, visual approach (teaching our daughter ASL as a primary language and immersing her in a daily ASL environment, teaching English as a second language), we are likely slowing her early acquisition of spoken language with her CI, because in effect, we spend only half the time an Oral family would normally spend immersing their child in one particular form of communication.

Before we found that she was profoundly deaf, we were planning to take a similar approach with English and Mandarin, so this approach is one that we thought through extensively.

Our hope is that by the age of 4 or 5 that discrepancy will balance out, she will never go without some means of communication, and she’ll have a strong foundation in both languages. We’re working very closely with language professionals who are coordinating in this process (Speech, ASL, and CI-specific speech professionals), and they are very optimistic, so I don’t mean to indicate that we are taking a risky and unproven experiment.

Before we found that she was profoundly deaf, we were planning to take a similar bilingual approach with English and Mandarin, so this approach is one that we thought through extensively.

But it’s much harder for us, and its harder for our daughter to take the ASL approach. Because frankly, the ASL world doesn’t provide the resources and well-organized and supported path to educating our daughter bilingually that the Oral or A-V methodologies provide. I think this might be why the pro-ASL community is having trouble reaching the parents of deaf children: because you aren’t reaching out with a formal and well-organized support framework. Oh, of course I know that it’s my responsibility as a parent to find the resources my daughter needs, but those resources are more easily come by and better organized on the A-V side. And getting a series of publications filled with the latest studies on language acquisition, case studies, and a network of professionals in your area from AG Bell vs a badly-photocopied leaflet about an ASL language class offered by the local community college (rarely taught by a native deaf signer) can make a big difference when you are trying to assess which methodology has the most credibility.

I think Mass. is unique in that we have a strong state- and medical community-supported push for ASL right out of the gate and *no* mention of CI unless initiated by the parent (sorry Melissa — I know that was actually not a positive for you ), but even with that advantage, we are now in a position of building Li-Li’s ASL + English early educational program piece by piece from scratch, which wouldn’t be the case if we had opted for the A-V method.

Honestly, if we weren’t living in this particular state and we weren’t head over heels in love with the program and Li-Li’s teachers at The Learning Center for the Deaf, I could see us opting for the A-V method over the bilingual approach because that program seems to be showing a whole lot more real support (scholarships, high quality information, a well-researched curriculum, trained professionals, lobbyists, alignment with schools, ACCEPTANCE, etc.) for deaf children than any ASL-based organizations I’ve seen.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m firmly committed to ASL as our language methodology — I hope our daughter will be a strong, culturally attuned, native ASL signing and English writing/speaking, Deaf-identified woman who interacts across both the Deaf and hearing worlds and sees her Deafness as something that makes her unique, not ever as a limitation. But it’s very hard to see people arguing for the ASL approach versus the A-V or oral methods without putting their money where their hands are. (And I don’t mean money literally, I mean that we need to back up that argument for ASL with a whole range of educational and informational resources). Where’s our AG Bell counterpart? I want to sign up.

One correction – Rachel was not old enough to ask for a CI. She was implanted initially at 2.7 years old, and my husband and I made the decision to implant her. It was her bilateral implant that she asked for when she was older.

While I realize that you and others believe that ASL will not hinder the development of spoken language, that is by no means a fact but, rather, a theory. The jury is still out on it, and there are those of us who believe the opposite, and there are studies to support our stance because the children will end up relying on the visual. Once the auditory part of the brain is fully developed, it’s another story for those who choose to then add sign.

Regardless of what the studies say, though, I could never have done both. A-V is not just a method or therapy technique. It’s a way of life that encompasses our lives and, by definition, does not include any visual form of communication. Thus, it is impossible to do A-V with sign. I spent so much time feeding in spoken language to Rachel. Had I had to divide that time not just in also teaching her sign but learning it myself, I never would have been able to work on her spoken English skills to the extent that I did.

When parents want their normal hearing children to learn a foreign language starting at a very young age, it is a well known educational fact that immersion programs are the best way to do it. Similarly, we immersed Rachel in spoken language, and she has done as well as she has because of the approach we took, not in spite of it.

The other issue here, though, is that what parents like me are also saying is that it is okay for deaf children with CIs not to learn sign. We are not harming our children, and they grow up fine and happy. Rachel is evidence of that. It is not a given that they need sign to be fulfilled or that they need the ASL community to feel a sense of belonging. It is a choice and not a must. That is the main point. The Deaf community is going after parents and professionals for not teaching our children ASL, saying that it is wrong, that they need it, that it is their natural language. It is time to recognize that things are changing for deaf children and they are changing very rapidly. Whether you want it to happen or not, it will not change. Many of these children are being implanted as babies and are not learning sign, will never feel a need for it, and will lead happy, productive lives where they feel a sense of belonging with their family and friends in the hearing world.

Look at what is happening in Australia. Deaf babies are being implanted at record rates. The medical community and the CI companies are getting to families earlier and at critical influential stages during the grief process.

I am not saying that AVT programs and their teachers are getting rich. I am not saying that these teachers do not care for the children. What I am saying IS that AGBell has lots of money, hires good public relation consultants, and has many corporate sponsors from the CI industry and medical community. They will continue to support AGBell because this is how they make their own money.

I am not saying that I am against CI’s totally. For some people including your daughter, it obviously worked. She was also at the age to tell you that she wanted it. Babies do not have that opportunity.

Not only that but there are plenty of people that have been implanted and do not benefit. That data seems to be missing from everything we try to read. It is shuffled under the table. How can we really get an honest picture of what CI’s are all about?

Now..THIS is what I am against…. people who look down on ASL and will not even try to see it as equal to spoken English.

This is what I support….ASL for all deaf babies regardless of the choices that will be made later for amplification. ASL does not hinder speech and research has proven this over and over again. ASL provides the earliest possible acquisition of language.

AVT programs are forcing parents to choose “oral only” and “no sign”. (This is stated on AGBell’s website.) Not only that, this is the only way families that need scholarships for financial support can enroll. If a family wants to use ASL and AVT, then the family must come up with the money to pay for the AVT program….sorry no scholarship will be given. Well take a guess what parents will choose after they have just implanted their child? How has the “system” been set up? Looks like “oral” only to me?

So once again, where is ASL? Haven’t the last 100 years of oralism done enough damage? When are we going to bridge the gap and embrace technology while also embracing ASL and Deaf Culture and English?? When are we going to work together?

When are we really going to start listening to the people that know the most about being Deaf???

I wish your daughter the best.