How Wired Are You?
this is a copy of the response I submitted on www.ridorlive.com when he and other respondents mentioned about deaf people with CIs who seemed to pretend to be something else besides being deaf or put on attitudes and yet still having one foot in the deaf community.
"...I’m a 4th generation deaf myself and I have a CI. Been using for 3+ years. To make a long story short, I call CI nothing more than a glorified and expensive hearing aid. I chose it because I had expected better out of it; it didn’t come out as I thought it would be. Yes it’s helpful especially at work (I work in a hearing environment), enjoy some music and sometimes when watching movies. But it was/is not a boost as I originally envisioned. BTW, I had worn hearing aids all throughout my school years until I went to college. In other words, I’ve had auditory experience but I never reject deaf culture.
Choosing to have a CI was to add or broaden my horizons/experiences, not to diminish deaf culture or deafhood. There is indeed a few exceptions like myself (and 4 other 2nd/3rd generation deaf CI users) that I never pretend to be hearing, never expected to use a telephone and yet chose to have a CI. The world is basically designed for 5 senses, not 4. Strictly speaking for myself, there’s no harm in wanting to experience what is like to have the 5th sense. That has nothing to do with acceptance or rejection of deafhood. To echo the actor Ben Affleck’s words that he once said in an interview, “I’m not responsible for your successes or failures.” In other words, having a CI is a personal decision.
But when it comes to hearing parents deciding to hear-ize their deaf children through CI and deprive sign language, that’s where I draw the line. Of course I become uncomfortable with this. I do cringe when I see toddlers and very young children with CIs. That’s a strong part of deaf culture/deafhood in me which I respond to.
(Below is a couple more paragraphs I added here on my blog, not in the comments box on ridorlive)
I once tutored a hearing couple who has 3 children, the eldest daughter being deaf and has a CI. They were open to both choices. (at that time I didn't have a CI but got it about a year later). At first, the father insisted that I teach SEE. I was caught off-guard and naturally I wasn't enthusiastic myself. (SEE does give me the creeps, by the way) I told him I don't teach SEE. I drew a line across. to demonstrate the continuum. At one end of the line, I wrote below "ASL" and the other end, "English." I also added some more words in between like "PSE," "SEE," "Cued Speech," and "fingerspelling." I told the parents that it's entirely up to them to move in either direction along the continuum. (Later on over time with them, I discovered what the father said about SEE was that he actually thought it was PSE. I explained that PSE and SEE are two different things. He was leaning toward PSE, not SEE after I had clarified the difference) After several weeks of lessons (I used "Signing Naturally" book developed by Ken Mikos, Ella Lentz and Cheri Smith), the father finally came to realize that ASL does make sense. I felt it was important not to cram down their throat but let them, especially the father, to realize that on his own. And it paid off. Soft-pedalling sometimes is useful rather than playing hard-ball about teaching ASL.
About less than 2 years ago, I met a young mother with a newly-implanted toddler. It was extremely an uncomfortable sight for me. I didn't want to antagonize the mother. She knew I come from a deaf family myself and that I have a CI. I simply told her that the best way for her child to learn is to read, read, read books. Based on my experience in the paragraph above, I did not want to drag her into the controversy of sign language vs. oralism, deafhood vs. audism. I felt it was best to let her and her husband (he was already occupied with somebody else a few feet away from us) to travel their own path and come to their own realization (I hope) that they may need to include sign language to go hand in hand with the CI.
Take your pick but wire your battles wisely.
"...I’m a 4th generation deaf myself and I have a CI. Been using for 3+ years. To make a long story short, I call CI nothing more than a glorified and expensive hearing aid. I chose it because I had expected better out of it; it didn’t come out as I thought it would be. Yes it’s helpful especially at work (I work in a hearing environment), enjoy some music and sometimes when watching movies. But it was/is not a boost as I originally envisioned. BTW, I had worn hearing aids all throughout my school years until I went to college. In other words, I’ve had auditory experience but I never reject deaf culture.
Choosing to have a CI was to add or broaden my horizons/experiences, not to diminish deaf culture or deafhood. There is indeed a few exceptions like myself (and 4 other 2nd/3rd generation deaf CI users) that I never pretend to be hearing, never expected to use a telephone and yet chose to have a CI. The world is basically designed for 5 senses, not 4. Strictly speaking for myself, there’s no harm in wanting to experience what is like to have the 5th sense. That has nothing to do with acceptance or rejection of deafhood. To echo the actor Ben Affleck’s words that he once said in an interview, “I’m not responsible for your successes or failures.” In other words, having a CI is a personal decision.
But when it comes to hearing parents deciding to hear-ize their deaf children through CI and deprive sign language, that’s where I draw the line. Of course I become uncomfortable with this. I do cringe when I see toddlers and very young children with CIs. That’s a strong part of deaf culture/deafhood in me which I respond to.
(Below is a couple more paragraphs I added here on my blog, not in the comments box on ridorlive)
I once tutored a hearing couple who has 3 children, the eldest daughter being deaf and has a CI. They were open to both choices. (at that time I didn't have a CI but got it about a year later). At first, the father insisted that I teach SEE. I was caught off-guard and naturally I wasn't enthusiastic myself. (SEE does give me the creeps, by the way) I told him I don't teach SEE. I drew a line across. to demonstrate the continuum. At one end of the line, I wrote below "ASL" and the other end, "English." I also added some more words in between like "PSE," "SEE," "Cued Speech," and "fingerspelling." I told the parents that it's entirely up to them to move in either direction along the continuum. (Later on over time with them, I discovered what the father said about SEE was that he actually thought it was PSE. I explained that PSE and SEE are two different things. He was leaning toward PSE, not SEE after I had clarified the difference) After several weeks of lessons (I used "Signing Naturally" book developed by Ken Mikos, Ella Lentz and Cheri Smith), the father finally came to realize that ASL does make sense. I felt it was important not to cram down their throat but let them, especially the father, to realize that on his own. And it paid off. Soft-pedalling sometimes is useful rather than playing hard-ball about teaching ASL.
About less than 2 years ago, I met a young mother with a newly-implanted toddler. It was extremely an uncomfortable sight for me. I didn't want to antagonize the mother. She knew I come from a deaf family myself and that I have a CI. I simply told her that the best way for her child to learn is to read, read, read books. Based on my experience in the paragraph above, I did not want to drag her into the controversy of sign language vs. oralism, deafhood vs. audism. I felt it was best to let her and her husband (he was already occupied with somebody else a few feet away from us) to travel their own path and come to their own realization (I hope) that they may need to include sign language to go hand in hand with the CI.
Take your pick but wire your battles wisely.
posted by Lonamstven @ 3:47 PM
3 Comments:
At 2:48 PM,
Anonymous said…
Thanks for sharing this with us all - you are clearly know where you stand unlike many others. I agree if it's personal choice and that person are old enough to decide to have CI or not.
Most hearing parents misunderstood what CI means or maybe the doctors made them believe that child can be hearing and led them to have high expectations - most main reason for doctors are money, not all but most then leaving to parents who experienced the failures and frustrations when CI do not succeed on their child.
Unlike many others, as long as I know where you stand yet made the decision of having CI so it's none of my business.
At 11:04 PM,
Ridor said…
I believe that the CIs are akin to hearing aids -- only in advance stages. That s it. It is not a cure of deafness in any manners.
The CIs were invented in order to IMMERSE a deaf person into the hearing society. Guess what? It does not work out just like that.
They are still there in the Deaf Community - still in the small pond instead of that big ocean over there.
So the arguments about the CIs eradicating the Deaf Community is silly, IMO.
R-
P.S. When will you ever IM me again?
At 7:41 PM,
Anonymous said…
What if you knew that, all other things being equal, CI-implanted deaf children have been shown to have English skills that has been tested and demonstrated to be on average a minimum of one year more advanced than non-implanted-CI deaf children?
This has a not-so-insignificant bearing on their ability to be contributing citizens later in life and to earn higher incomes. Everything that can help movement in such direction, even if the child didn't have a vote on getting the CI implanted, shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as an attack on deaf culture, and shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as intended for mainstreaming into hearing society either.
The child didn't get a vote on getting vaccinated either, or on eating or sleeping, or on being clothed whether that child wanted it or not, so I suspect (and you should keep your mind open to this possibility too) that the issue of the fact that the child didn't get to vote on the choice of CI-implantation may actually be a red herring here. The best years of acquiring language are in the child's earliest years, and having a sound-based-language-impacting choice left to adulthood for deaf children given that language acquisition for any language is neurologically more difficult beginning after the age of 10 sounds like a Faustian bargain.
Everything should be done to promote language acquisition in ALL its forms for both ASL and English, to the extent possible, from the earliest years, and that toolkit should make use of everything that's available to benefit deaf infants. Absolutely everything should be on the table including CI-implantation, ASL acquisition, and speech skills. Simultaneously the utmost respect should be paid for ASL and English and for benefiting from all of the wisdom and life experiences of both Deaf and hearing people.
I have a similar parallel here: I was circumcised soon after I was born, and research has shown that adults who were circumcised are less likely to transmit sexual diseases than adults who were never circumcised. My circumcision means my body isn't now the way it was when I was born. So, am I less than whole? Was my body violated by the procedure? I don't necessarily feel that way. I've never had any other identity. Likewise, I wonder if we might be belaboring the issue too much for CI-implanted deaf infants.
Post a Comment
<< Home