Comments on: Informed Decisions, Parents Know Best, and Other Mythical Creatures (II of III)

By: Jean Boutcher

Jean Boutcher — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:24:17 +0000

Joseph,

I agree with you on this count.
Well-pointed!

By: joseph rainmound

joseph rainmound — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:18:26 +0000

So you want the parents to what, take a test? How do you plan to measure their “informedness” level?

The fact is that only Deaf people have been consumers of “deaf educational methods” and therefore are the only people who can provide true feedback to the system. Otherwise they just keep hitting and missing.

And no, Mike, questioning a decision is not saying someone has no right to make a decision. It’s questioning. If I question someone’s decision to buy porterhouse steak rather than sirloin, I am merely looking for information.

I find it ironic you make this distinction right after you say parents should make informed decisions. If you do not question their decision, how do you know it’s informed?

By: Yvonne

Yvonne — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:13:07 +0000

In India, they have a saying “It takes a village to bring up a child” - the problem in the West is that we have fallen for the myth that the nuclear family is the family, and we have lost sight of the extended family and the community.

By: Curious Eyes

Curious Eyes — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:36:40 +0000

thanks, Mike, for the links. I’ve read Cummins’ papers before so it was good to get a review. I’ve always found his arguments persuasive, from a purely academic standpoint of course. The most interesting point about his paper is that both ASL and spoken English can be mastered simultaneously. In other words, at least according to Cummins, there is no research proving you cannot do both, or that learning ASL alongside spoken English (with auditory-oral instruction and a CI) impedes the acquisition of spoken English. This makes sense to me since CODAs do this, although I’ve heard that some CODAs do occasionally require speech services. (That may or may not be related to their presumed lack of spoken English models at home.) I wonder if there’s been any rebuttals to Cummins’ work, vis-a-vis AVT? The AVT purist camp has typically been so adamant about not allowing any sort of visual cues in the course of therapy and I’ve got to admit I have wondered about the “audism” attitude.

By: mcconnell

mcconnell — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:54:41 +0000

Or this one that was done in 2006?
http://www.mhb.jp/mhb_files/CumminsDeaf.rtf.

By: mcconnell

mcconnell — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:18:44 +0000

Jim Cummins’information isn’t being “actively” suppressed when it’s already available over the internet if that’s what you meant, Jenny.
http://clerccenter.gallaudet.e.....SL-Eng.pdf

By: Curious Eyes

Curious Eyes — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:20:31 +0000

We have many areas of agreement, and for that I am thankful. We all sincerely want to welcome hearing parents with deaf children into our community and persuade them through our positive deaf bilingual role models and empirically validated, scientific research. We want to actively promote our messages that ASL is a language, bilingual education works, and Deaf people are not impaired. But I have to wonder if we deaf bloggers and commentors are consistently mindful of how we come across to our target audience. For example, one comment that Amy the Hearing Parent made was that she would copy the comments from John Egbert’s original post to her web site. And it would be “eye-opening” to other parents. I don’t think she meant in a good way, but that’s just my interpretation.

Like the blind men and the elephant, I think we’re seeing different parts of one animal. You mentioned that Amy was “afraid” of changing her sons’ neural pathways. What I understood her to say was that since the visual pathway was intact, the purpose of AVT is to strengthen neural pathways for the auditory processes. She didn’t say that learning ASL would “harm” her sons’ ability to acquire spoken English, and she didn’t say it would “damage” them. In her particular case, AVT and early implantation helped her sons achieve the goals they chose for themselves. ASL and bilingual education have helped other children and families achieve their goals of a complete, accessible language and English literacy. In a way, having many approaches work for so many different children is part of the problem, because it means parents have to choose from a menu of seemingly conflicting options.

And Jenny, I hate to bring it up, because I personally respect your intellect and good intentions, but the part about AGBell being part of a massive machine, an unpublished paper by Jim Cummins suggesting a conspiracy, and paranoid histrionics sure did strike me as loony tunes. Just saying. :-) If there’s an unpublished paper by Cummins somewhere, why not post a link to it for us?

Chris, I know it’s not fair, but one group DOES have to take 99 steps to reach the other group. It’s reality: Deaf people are a linguistic and cultural minority. To the dominant hearing majority, we are usually not even a blip on their radar. We have to work harder, better, and smarter. It’s that simple.

By: Curious Eyes

Curious Eyes — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:46:03 +0000

Jenny and Chris, I will reply in a new “window” down below so I have more space to type and use the editing function.

By: mcconnell

mcconnell — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:11:57 +0000

“Do as Romans do in Rome” is a bit of a cliche nowadays.

Thank you, Aaron.

By: Aaron R.

Aaron R. — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 03:52:51 +0000

I strongly support your decision to speak for I would do the same thing.