It is an interesting discussion about learning ASL as another language. I can not speak for any other parents but I certainly have never made any derogatory comments about ASL (or where we are Auslan) to my son. We chose to use AVT and work on the development of his spoken language. Interestingly at one point in his preschool times they learnt Christmas songs in different languages for their concert English, French, Italian and Auslan. He actually said that he found the Auslan the most difficult to learn, so for him it wasn’t a “natural thing” but to be fair that may also have been due to the capabilities of those that were teaching it to him.

He is now about to enter the International Baccelaureate Program at school and because it is in an international program a second language is compulsory, so he will be learning Italian this year. Before anyone asks me why it can’t be Auslan or ASL, it is because that is not one of the accepted diploma languages. Notionally the diploma is a “one world” concept and so the addition of a language and exposure to the culture of another country is a pre-requisite of this program and it has to be another country.

I am not in anyway trying to diminish ASL (Or Auslan) as a language however this generation of CI kids who have developed oral speech and language look at a second language as a vehicle for travel and going to another country, to see the world. From my own experience I know that this is not because I have ever said or indicated in unspoken cues anything negative about Auslan or ASL. If my son decided at this point that he wanted to learn it, then I would completely support him in doing that. He is old enough now to make his own decisions and being the articulate young man that he is, he would most assuredly tell me that too!

I want to make one more point here and I will do my best to do it in a way that won’t offend or insult anyone here. If I choose the wrong words and some one is offended then I apologise right now because this is most certainly not my intent. In my son I see a young man who sees himself as operating and living his life in the “hearing world”. He is under no illusions that he is deaf and if people ask about his hearing loss he will say that he is deaf, because he is! However he sees himself as part of the hearing world but as someone who hears a little differently to way other people do, sort of in the way people in wheelchairs see themselves in the same way that able-bodied people do, but sometimes just have to do things a little differently. His deafness is a part of him but it is just one part of what makes him the sensational young man he is, one part that is joined by other parts like being very tall, having blonde hair, a wicked sense of humour, a love of the TV show MASH etc etc etc. So the point I am trying to make is I am wondering if it is because kids like him see themselves in this light and seem very happy coping with the rigours of having a hearing loss and communicating on a daily basis with others that use spoken language, that they don’t seek to search out deaf culture or ASL. This is simply an “I wonder if” statement not a generic everyone feels this way or this is the reality because I said so……just a thought to put out there as a point of discussion.

first #45 Jean, Thank you for your compliment

2nd # Melissa, thank you for your reply. I do want to comment what you said. You started off by saying you do hear what some of us deafies went through… thats what I wanted to see.. to know that you do hear us. I also want to say that for me personally, I am learning to see from other parents with CI babies. I dont think I ever really talked to a parent like you before. I cannot speak for other Deafies but Im speaking from my own self that I do not think anything is wrong with CI for your kids. It is my biggest fear that the CI kids grow up not acknowledging deaf culture and ASL. ASL is very important part of the deaf culture and it will always be cherished. I did not grow up with ASL and its obvious im different from other Deaf who grew up with ASL. I fully accept that ASL is a language and so did most of the country. Many educators allow sign language as their 2nd language. When I first was exposed to sign language I was not ready to accept ASL but later i was eager to learn ASL from my deaf coworkers. I was brainwashed by my mother that ASL is for not smart deaf people and I am way too smart to use sign language. Boy was I wrong to even think that! It was at Gallaudet when I finally realized hey that kind of attitude was wrong. I have learned and changed over the years. Same goes with CI I was wrong and now i accept the value of CI but it is not without risk.
But the whole point is ASL is a valuable language for deaf and hearing people as well as CI giving kids opportunity to be able to hear spoken language. And we do need to lay out both negative and positive outcomes of CI. i agree that CI is so much better today than it was before, no doubts at all; however, any surgery of some kind is invasive and risky, it is scary!!!

As a French tutor, I have observed that there are two groups of college students: one group have an easy time learning a foreign language because their multi-linguistic background has already been established during their childhood days (remember that they have a plastic brain) whereas the other group have a difficult time doing the same because they lack thereof. I take Pinker’s version to the bank because I was exposed to my mother’s sign language and to Daddy’s French and to Latin at St. Francis Xavier’s. It is much easier for me to go on to study the fourth language if I so desire.

Jean-François Grosjean of Paris, France, where he was educated at the Sorbonne, says in his article, “The Right of the Deaf to Grow Up Bilingual (2002), that European children pick up multi-languages from their parents and grandparents and European neighbours sans learning from a textbook and says that the deaf child has the right to grow up bilingual. Grosjean would thank Karen and Brian Mayes for raising their son bilingually.

Babies, I must once again repeat, are brainer than their parents. In the closing, I would like
to mention what Victor Hugo, one of the all-the-time greatest French writers (Les Misérables) said in 1845:

In defence of a genius deaf French teacher, Ferdinand Bérthìer, Victor Hugo said to a mypoic French judge in 1845:

“What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears. The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.” *

*To read more about above, see a compendium deaf history, “When the Mind Hears,” (1984) by Harlan Lane

The status you provided is not the reliable source.

i had to stop reading all the comments

i found it too painful – the tone of some commentors is really defensive and spiteful

it seems many people are suffering here – not just physically but emotionally

this is a VERY sensitive topic

MZ = will u be reporting on the number of deaths as a result of CI

when i first learned of this (children and elderly mostly) i was so saddened

i was like oh my gosh

mostly due to contracting meningitis as a result of infection from the surgery

very ironic due to the fact that many children become Deaf as a result of meningitis and to then have the parents choose to try to rectify / improve this condition by restoring hearing via CI only for a child to DIE from meningitis WOW

i know the numbers are low but still one DEATH is really too many

my heart just totally pains when i think of those parents – really it just aches in my being similarly for those parents whose children grow up with some complications or side effects from the CI – that is the last thing in the world the parents would have wished upon their darlings

i believe now they r having implantees get the meningitis vaccine before they will do the surgery to prevent the death-risk via meningitis infection but vaccines can cause some problems for individuals themselves

my heart goes out to:
parents and/or family members who have lost their loved ones as a result of the CI surgery

parents whose children have experienced complications / side effects from the CI surgery

the children who are no more or who are living with these adverse effects

as i can be happy for the parents and children where CI have been a positive experience, i must also mourn for the opposite cases which are sadly much much more profound and irrepairable

patti durr

there are over 30 MILLION hearing people that cannot read and write!!!! illiterated hearing people.

Why?

And nearly no illiterate deaf people!

HIGHEST LITERACY:
1. France
2. Germany
3. Japan
4. Taiwan
15. Great Britian (used tod be the first)
16. USA (used to be the second)
Last: Somalia

It was in 1963 when an author ran a cover story
about students’s extremely poor reading
comprehension in TIME Magazine: “Why Johnny Can’t
Read.”

Again 30 years later — in 1993 to be specific –
another author wroted a cover story about students’s extremely poor writing in TIME Magazine: “Why Johnny Can’t Write.”

The authors (vide supra) were NOT referring to
deaf students; rather, they were referring to
hearing students who cannot read and write.

Again two summers ago in The Washington Post,
an article on the op-ed page said that more and
more adults CAN read, but they CANNOT read
WITH COMPREHENSION. Again, the author was NOT
referring to deaf adults, but to hearing adults.

Very matter-of-factly, more and more schools in
the USA asked Gallaudet University’s English
Department for help about the University’s
literacy project in 1997. Why? Simply because
Gallaudet students are deaf, but they and hearing
students are at the same grade level of reading.

Why?

For the record I am the co-founder of the list serv that has 1400 members. Of the members there, we have happy kids, with active social lives, achieving amazing things and not just academic success or speech and language success. I don’t see that embracing & acknowledging the all round success of these kids and equally acknowledging that some children raised orally in the past have had incredibly painful experiences (like Aaron) are mutually exclusive. However if there is a continued comparison between the 2 I feel the discussion will not get that far.

If we what we are seeking to determine here is whether cochlear implants in young children are leading to happy, healthy and well rounded young adults, then that is what needs to be looked at. That is cochlear implantees today and their outcomes. Trying to evaluate their outcomes through the eyes of past mistakes or injustices is never going to produce a truly objective answer.