A student who is regular CI wearer who goes to regular AVT therapy outside school whose parents do not sign at home. Sometimes this student are implanted beyond the recommended 6 months. Some of student can actually speak and hear language using CI device and some don't. This student may have delayed language due to implanting late, parents not using sign language at home, and failed AVT therapy and implantation unsuccessful for this student. As result, this student may have stunted language development in which the language expression is severely delayed.
A student who wears hearing aid, can speak, can hear, and wears the device regularly. Some of this student's family signs and some don't. This student attends speech therapy as implemented by IEP regularly at school. This student may have delayed language due to implementing sign language and speech therapy and using the hearing aid late as well as the parents not using sign language at home. This student also may have severe language development where his/her language expression is very poor. In most cases, because this child can hear and speak using a device, parents tend to continue to speak to their child without ever learning any sign language. In few cases, parents come to terms that even with a hearing device, their child continues to need a visual language, and they eventually come around to learning the language in which the child's language development may/may not improve.
This student does not wear any hearing device. This student may have little or no residual hearing and no speech. Some of this student comes from signing home and some do not. Nearly all of this student have delayed language due to acquiring sign language late. This student did not have communication access at home until entering school system. This student's language expression is severely delayed. In some cases, parents come to terms that their children need visual language at home and learn the language to communicate with their children when their children are already in grade school. At that point, their academic performance may/may not improve. This student takes a long time to catch up on language expression and language development. Some of them do catch up and some do not.
This student comes from deaf family. This student was introduced to language at birth. This student may not wear any hearing device. This student's ASL is fluent and natural. This student's language development may be more advanced and closer or on level with the national average according to standardized testings. This student's language expression may be more articulate than any other groups of students. The key word here: not ALL of this student perform above average for deaf students, but most of them do; however, all of them have fluent ASL expression - although some of them continue to struggle with written English, they perform better than the other 3 groups when it comes to written English.
This is the versatility of students with which teachers of the deaf have to work with in one classroom. Some schools operate on theory that SimCom is most effective because the top 3 are supposed to benefit from oral and aural instruction in classroom and they are in the majority. For student number 3, oral and aural instruction does not benefit this student but this is what the parents want.
The truth: Students #1 and 2 may benefit from speech and audiology therapy - key word = therapy. Not instructional tool. Speech and audiological training is not language development and not a tool for teaching. They are for mastering speaking and identifying spoken words. That is not the same as language development. This is the biggest fallacy that the schools and the parents fall for and promote. Keep speech and audiological training separate and outside the classroom. They are still visual learners and will always need ASL to develop language.
Resolution: Educate parents and medical professional where everything begun - discovering the child's deafness and taking them to see medical professionals. Educate the schools and the teachers that SimCom is ineffectual and obsolete. They can continue with speech and audiological services but keep oral and aural instruction out of the classroom. Research has proven SimCom is confusing even for students #1 and 2. Encourage the schools and teachers to face facts by seeing the end results of adult deaf people who were educated by SimCom and accept the research data offered by CAEBER and others.
It is time for the educators of the deaf to be less self-absorbed and look at the bigger picture. Time for them to be open minded about the realities of deaf education by seeing and not what they learned from books.
I would think it is not hard to hazard a guess as to which one would come to perform the best academically by time she/he reaches high school and would be college bound. I would think the picture is quite clear.
10 comments:
This makes a lot of sense and every parents should see this!
Thank you for posting this and there are many other people out there that knows this fact but you are one of the few that say it out... the real truth.
John
Where is the research that supports your claims? Who are these children, and did you get permission to post their pictures on your blog?
anonymous, 7:45
The three questions you asked seems that you are more interesting to put the lid on the truth.
Your main point, that early and accessible language exposure is the key, I totally agree with. That applies to children exposed to spoken English, ASL, and other signed or spoken languages.
But aren't you being a little one-sided here? How about posting photos and stories (with parent permission, of course) about children who are *successful* communicators in spoken English, ASL, or both; using amplification (CI or hearing aid)or no amplification; and/or various modes of communication (cue, Signed English, simcom, S.E.E.)? There are plenty of variations. Deaf kids are not all the same. The majority of deaf kids in school today, according to the Gallaudet Research Institute, have a moderate hearing loss.
It's not gospel that deaf children exposed to ASL early (or born to deaf parents) will be above average. Think of it this way: on the normal curve, 68% of them will be average.
anonymous,
these pictures are random pictures off the Google image search from various websites. I have no idea who they are and no names were given for those children. If the website posted their pictures on their sites, clearly parents gave permission for their pictures to be posted on internet and none of the parents released their names. I added them strictly for purpose of showing the versality of students seen at all kinds of schools for the deaf - their identities are not important.
Where in my post say I have research? I said we need to look to the research available to us. Those students I posted are simply typical students seen everywhere. No research needed.
Last anonymous
Yes - I've said "Key word here is not all kids born to deaf families perform better although they tend to have better ASL expression, some of them continue to struggle with written English."
You're right. I am just generalizing here...there are always exceptions.
Those pictures are random Goggled up images strictly for purpose of giving general idea of the individual "characteristic" group. No names were given for any of those children and their identities are not essential to my post.
This is rubbish. Show us the citations, the data, the proof we can independently check. The only message I get out of this is you're an ASLmonger.
When reading case scenarios of each type of Deaf children, I find myself nodding my head. Working in the Deaf Education field for more than 15 years and being involved in the Deaf community and research, I can verify that these descriptions are valid.
Please note that PreciousASL said "some" not all and it is true that not all achieve language development stages unfortunately. You can go to dbcusa.org or google to find more information on research yourself.
I agree, research isn't necessary to see these types of students in schools. I also want to clarify... Not all who wear hearing aids can hear and/or speak (this wasn't quite clear in your post). I agree that SimCom sucks.
Anonymous 8:21
As sad as it is, it's pretty rare for some of us to see successful students in those kinds of situations.
Barb DiGi
Thanks for "lending" some validity to my post with your years of experience and research.
Rox,
Sorry. You're right. I failed to add that many CI and hearing aids student wearers can't even speak.
As a Deaf educator, I see the exact same thing as you are stating and it is so true. Those students who performed the best on all subjects are the ones who are from Deaf families or ones who have been exposed to ASL since birth despite coming from hearing families.
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