This blog isn’t about whether it is right or wrong to teach a deaf child to speak or hear/lip-read (although I am sure some will discuss it in the comments), but understanding what is going through a hearing parent’s mind. Once we venture to understand this, accept it, and then learn to work with it, hearing parents of deaf children may consider alternatives and/or accept their child’s deaf identity.
To illustrate, time and time again I see deaf people express bewilderment at hearing parents who want to teach their children to speak and listen/lip-read. One deaf person recently said that they would never understand why hearing people would not teach their deaf children ASL. Actually, it’s not that difficult to understand. It’s the same reason that a deaf couple/family rejoices when their child’s deafness is diagnosed. We’ve all heard this story: the doctor comes into the room sadly, and says “I’m sorry but your child is deaf” and the couple celebrates.
Why are some deaf parents relieved when they find out their child is deaf? Communication. Sure, there are other reasons such as the ability to relate to the deaf child, pass down traditions from one deaf generation to another, stay within deaf circles when getting together with other families, and so forth. Yet, it all begins with communication.
A hearing person balks at the idea of learning sign language because it is hard, requires immersion with other deaf people in order to become totally fluent, and thinks that learning sign language without speaking and hearing/lip-reading would separate their child from “their world”. They wonder if their children would be able to interact with their neighbor’s or friend’s children, their extended family members and friends, and even at the dinner table. Hearing parents of deaf children think language is a chasm that will separate them from their child.
Unfortunately, the approach of some in the deaf community harms the good work of many others, and this has been magnified by some deaf blogs. The blogs and particularly their comments have probably turned off hearing parents of deaf children. Who wants their child to grow up to become an angry, insular deaf person? I am stating the perception of some hearing parents, not a fact of the deaf community. Not every deaf person is perpetually angry or insular. It is also possible that the standoffish attitude of the deaf community is contributing to the hearing parent’s resistance to ASL rather than the difficulty of learning it.
To give a real life example of this particular point, I have been approached by a few people who have expressed grave concerns that I am talking, teaching, and reading to my daughter in ASL even though I can lip-read and speak. Just as it is inappropriate for them to tell me what to do with my child, it is inappropriate for me to tell them what to do with their children. I think I would feel more comfortable if someone came up to me, and asked me questions about what I do with my daughter and then talk about their own experiences. That way we can “compare notes” in a friendly manner and show mutual respect for each other.
Perhaps that’s how the deaf community should approach hearing parents of deaf children. Embrace them, ask about their situation, and provide heartfelt support rather than dictating what is right and wrong. We only have to look at how we handle our own children to understand why hearing parents react and deal with their deaf child the way they do.
© Copyrighted material. This article cannot be copied, reproduced or redistributed without the express written consent of the author. As with every blog on this website, this blog does not reflect the opinion of DeafDC.com.
54 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Extremely well said, Shane. That is exactly what I have been saying all along. I hope people take your message to heart.
Interesting point of view, yet there are “not deaf enough” and “deaf culture” overtones in this blog. At the risk of rubbing some people the wrong way, I do not believe every hearing or deaf parent would have a similar reaction to a prelingual (born deaf) newborn and a postlingual (born hearing and delayed onset of deafness) newborn. Generalizations abound here.
Bert,
They may react differently; however, the fundamental desire probably remains the same — the desire to communicate directly with their child.
Bert, you’re right, not every person would react the same way, but Shane is talking about the majority of hearing parents.
Otherwise, I don’t see where your impression of ‘not deaf enough’ comes from in this particular post. Shane is pointing out that it is more effective to not be angry with hearing parents, but instead to be friendly. What’s wrong with that message?
My reference to “not deaf enough” was a take-off on Shane’s question in the third paragraph: “Why are deaf parents relieved when they find out their child is deaf?” There is nothing wrong with being friendly with hearing parents, but let’s not forget that “communication” is a generic term and that Shane is advocating ASL as a stepping stone to English, the coin of the realm in this country. Life is not that simple.
Okay, Bert. You’re right about life not being simple. Life is definitely complicated and rarely either black or white.
So, I am curious. How do you propose we teach deaf children English? And I mean profoundly deaf children who have never heard a sound.
Constant exposure and persistent usage as I repeatedly stated on a separate blog last week. Not to be a jerk, Jeannette (two nn’s), but I have seen it happen in my lifetime. Let them see and use English 24/7, in its correct syntactical form and in its correct orthographic form, everyday of their lives, not just today, but tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Have faith in their saving grace of intelligence.
So you are saying we give the deaf baby a book and that’s how they will acquire language?
Did I say anything about “the deaf baby” and “a book” in my post? You are putting words in my mouth. What are your motives? Do you get some perverse pleasure out of insulting my intelligence? I’m beginning to think so. The “deaf baby” you refer to will grow into adolescence and adulthood. Why is it so hard for you to comprehend the meaning of exposure and usage? Judging from your negative comments about Dr. Kimmel yesterday and the latest putdown of me today, I don’t think it is possible to have a serious discussion with you.
I was just asking for clarification, since you said orthographic form.
My apologies.
Bert, DP, I agree with you both here (Bert we may have gotten off on the wrong foot earlier–I honestly disagree with you about your views on bilingualism but it’s not a personal thing). But I feel there’s another uncomfortable truth we need to acknowledge here: not all hearing parents are good parents solely because they’re hearing. Before anyone jumps on me for that, that applies to deaf parents as well.
I favor “involved” parents. I favor involved parents over parents who prefer ASL or CIs or speech therapy or any one method. I do have my own preferences regarding approach, and I do have my own beliefs regarding what parents should do. And I do believe that I should advocate for those beliefs, because if I don’t, how will the information about the approach spread?
This is why again I think there should be a wesbite that thoroughly and neutrally details ALL information on ALL approaches that are out there, and I would like to see it designed somewhat like Wikipedia… in the sense that, for example, if ASL proponents put an article on there that shows a success rate of ___%, and some other group (such as those who favor oral methods) wish to counter that claim, a note will appear on the bottom saying “this page is contested” or something like that. And then you can click on that note to see why. But the page would not be about opinions… it’d be about research. That way nobody can ignore or oppress anyone else. If we have such a webpage going, we could take some of the power of… what’s the best word…? advertising? that many schools can’t do for themselves because they are prohibited by law (that’s what I’ve heard anyway). The only problem for me personally is that I don’t know how to build websites. So while some people in here agree that it’d be a good approach I unfortunately don’t know how to advance this plan.
When I was a sophomore at Gallaudet College in the autumn of 1957, there was a lot of resistance to Dr. William Stokoe, a young professor from Cornell University, who was just beginning his linguistic studies of American Sign Language. A half century has passed and we still view bilingualism from different vantage points. As I have stated repeatedly on a separate blog, it was not Dr. E. M. Gallaudet’s intent to supplant English with the language of signs for the purpose of higher education. Where are we today? If you are serious about designing a neutral website that would reflect the success rate of different approaches to language acquisition, more power to you. I believe the Gallaudet administration would support a research project of this nature. It would serve as a demonstration of the university’s traditional leadership on this issue. This was Dr. Gallaudet’s challenge to subsequent generations when he spoke to the Conference of Principals in May 1868. I don’t know whether it would be workable in this day and age, but if you are serious, what’s stopping you?
Hello Bert:
A lack of technical knowledge. I know almost nothing about computers or website design. I know probably three or four people, tops–including Shane–who would know how to set something like this up. I know nothing about what it costs to keep a website running.
BUT.
I know a whole busload of people who can post links to research on all kinds of things. And I even know of a local agency that would immediately benefit from such a website… Child Find.
Would you like to know something interesting? Virginia’s (locally, anyway) Deaf Ed system is set up in an odd way. There are three “feeder schools” at the elementary level… Mantua, Camelot, and Canterbury Woods. One is an oral progam, one utilzes Cued Speech, and on utilizes ASL. Now the odd thing is that they all eventually “feed” into Frost Middle School. Meaning that what the parents originally wanted… the program they originally wanted… all ends up getting mixed together by the middle-school level ANYWAY. And this isn’t unique to the Fairfax area. This was true of Milwaukee back when I still lived there, and it’s probably true of a lot of cities.
So a number of things are going on here. It’s not just that hearing parents aren’t being exposed to the info they need, as Hearing Parent says below, but also that the philosophy they start out with isn’t the philosophy they end up with. Doesn’t that strike any of you as a somewhat disorganized way of setting up this system? Wouldn’t it make more sense to streamline the various philosophies so that you can go to an elementary oral school, for example, and graduate from an oral high school, without having everything bunched together and mixed around like that?
We here in DeafDC.com and elsewhere on the internet are probably the greatest collection of of expertise to ever exist in the Hearing-Deaf communities, respectively. Imagine what we could do at the local level if we first started providing organizations such as Child Find with ready-made information on every philosophy out there, and then started providing parents with detailed maps and plans for how they can guide their children through what has to be the most terrifying mess of decisions most of them have probably ever faced? And further suppose that used this site to start challenging claims that training a kid to use an implant is weakened by signing. This dependency on “residual hearing” is destructive. Language first, hearing second. That’s what I say. If a kid can hear enough, fine. English. If not, ASL. Implants shouldn’t be the focus. Language should be the focus. I think that’s a message parents would buy, especially if they had this kind of a roadmap.
But I don’t know how to set up that kind of a website. In fact I can only outline in rough terms what I’d like to see there. But I bet you that if enough of us could pull together, including you parents out there, we could really build something amazing. And then we could watch the model spread across the U.S.
What do you think?
What am I supposed to think about your project? A lot of red flags went up when I read your post. I have not seen the parameters you want to use in a website design. I’m wary of putting my faith in your “whole busload of people.” I realize that you are sold on the meaning of statistics, whereas I am not. Then you went overboard and described the cast of characters on the DeafDC website as “the greatest collection of expertise to ever exist.” My jaw dropped. I thought about the generations of educators and researchers whose contributions have gone unappreciated. Good luck, Chris.
“…and elsewhere on the internet…” meaning the commenters, people who read articles… more or less anyone who has ever just sat down at a computer, which almost certainly researchers of decades past.
But thank you for your thoughts on the matter.
Chris,
interesting idea. easier to accomplish than you think. just set up a wikipedia entry titled “deaf education”, explain different approaches and it’ll take off.
Bert,
What do you suggest we use as proof, if not statistics?
Fellas,
This thread has become a bit hostile. Take it easy.
I was given a lot of information about hearing aids, hearing tests, etc. I wasn’t given any information about signing programs. I had to look all of that up myself. Life didnt stablize for years until we got my son to Kendall and now he has to catch up. There was no signing classes for us either until we got to the DC/MD area. Blogs had nothing to do with it.
And there are hearing parents like you. I don’t think you are in the majority though.
Hearing parent,
Hi. I would like this opportunity to clarify that signing program is not a appropriate term. ASL is language, just like English, Japanese, Turkish, etc. Calling it a program implies ASL to be merely a tool to learn language when it is a language in and by itself.
Hearing Parent,
Are you familiar with cued speech? It is a phonemical method that has demonstrated gains in literacy and education in children. Hilary Franklin wrote an extensive post about it, you may find it in the guest blog archives.
Hi. I would like to add a comment to Cy’s comment (vide supra). ASL is the birthright of
deaf babies. Very matter-of-factly, it is the
NIH (National Institute of Health) who conducted a study on ASL in 1991 (LIFE Magazine)
and found evidence that deaf children of signing parents are much brighter and have more stellar IQ than both deaf babies and hearing babies of NON-SIGNING parents. It is beyond my comprehension that doctors and educators prompt
hearing parents to learn ASL to expose it to their HEARING babies at the same time they
talk hearing parents into depriving of the same for their deaf babies. It is a small wonder that
so many deaf children of non-signing parents are four to six years behind educationally at home. Deaf children of signing parents receive
90% of education at home — prior to entering
school.
IQ
Hi Shane
excellent comments. I agree we need to have open talk and share ourselves as Deaf adults positively. And yes, many parents will still opt for being able to hear and speech read only.
Parents are the key.
I have one article, about a Deaf parent - wonderful - share it with world.
http://www.todaysparent.com/li.....amp;page=2
Four of us Deaf in Nova Scotia set up a committee for future education of Deaf and hard of hearing children - we meet with the organization responsible for Deaf and hard of hearing children’s education and support services. We try to build a strong relationship with them and be able to reach out to parents and Deaf/hoh children more.
It’s a start.
Noni
Noni,
Thanks for your comment. I’m heartened to hear about the positive steps that you are taking in Nova Scotia. I hope to hear more about your efforts.
Today there was a blog from a parent who eloquently describes the process of preparing her deaf child for a cochlear implant. The child has learned ASL, had speech therapy, the whole works. The parent expressed fear, hope and stated that the motivation for the CI included keeping her child within the hearing culture of the family. The surgery is scheduled for July 2.
Irrefutable logic, and it applies to deaf parents, too, in welcoming deaf newborns within their family.
But how sad. It has to deal with the nature of hearing society, and families with hearing members basically not accepting ASL as a fully featured, desirable language. Because of this nonacceptance, they will actually consider possibly damaging surgery on their toddler.
Dianrez,
How are the CI and ASL incompatible?
ASL and CIs are compatible.
My point is that they wanted their kid to be Hearing, realistic or not. By implication, they were not ready to join their child’s future culture, although in their other writings they mention meeting deaf adults.
Diane,
Your comment has no logic at all whatsoever… the fact that the child has learned ASL *does* imply acceptance of the child’s deafness. Furthermore, what’s wrong with the parents wanting their child to be part of the family’s culture?
Just because the family of a deaf child wants him/her to be included in the familial culture does NOT mean they’re big, bad people. Especially if ASL is being used.
Heck, what’s wrong with having a deaf child who can sign ASL AND speak English? In fact, I hope that’s what happens. The more options a child has for expressing himself/herself, the better!
Here’s to bilingualism and biculturalism!
Here’s to embracing MULTIculturalism! And MULTIlingualism! I agree with you completely… the more access, the better. Why stop with two, you know?
:)
Here’s to multilingualism and multiculturalism! *clinks champagne flutes*
Exactly. Just as long as ASL and spoken English (oracy, as it is termed) are kept separate. Both of my kids do speak English, but also sign ASL at home and school (with an exception of my son who is mainstreamed.) My son will be taking Spanish in 5th grade so he’d have 3 languages under his belt (ASL, English, and Spanish.) The more, the better.
It is possible for the child to sign ASL, speak English, ASLO write and read English. None of this is magically brought about by the CI…it all requires intensive training nonetheless.
This was a bright child, learning ASL and some speech very well despite being less than 3 years old. I was doubtful that a CI would result in the family’s hope of him being Hearing and able to fully join their family on that basis. Not to speak of the downside of the surgery or its risks.
IMO, what’s going through the minds of hearing parents is a combination of the following thoughts: “My child should be like me as much as possible”, “My values should be passed onto my child for his/her own good”, “I only know how to raise my child from how I was raised as a hearing person”, and so forth…
I thank god that CI technology wasn’t around in the early 70’s or I’d be implanted right now. My parents are hearing and they were upset when they found out I was Deaf. No surprises there. My parents raised me the same way they were raised except for me being Deaf. When I was an infant, my mother brought me to some sort of a speech training/oral clinic to check it out. She left unimpressed by the progress of the other infants/children…THANK GOD!!!! Then my mother went to a Deaf school and begged them to set up an infant program…so, I was one of the first infants to ever attend my Deaf school way back in the early 70’s.
Growing up…my parents always wanted to be sure that my education was on par with my older sister’s (2 years older than me) at the same age/grade levels. My mother would always go to school and get into arguments with my teachers when she felt that I wasn’t doing enough work or learning enough.
In a way, parents who implant their children are good parents because they are CONCERNED..which is important, IMO. Still, I wish some of those parents would recongize that CI and ASL aren’t mutually exclusive and encourage their child to learn ASL so that the child can acquire language/concepts as soon as possible. Also, I wish that they would recongize that even with CI’s, their child is still D-E-A-F and will still struggle through life just like other Deaf people do.
Just my 2 cents….
Shane,
I agree that we need to approach to hearing parents so that they will feel comfortable and start to have an open mind to learn more about Deaf culture and ASL.
I have a website
http://www.deafchildrenandsigning.com/index.html
that hearing parents will feel comfortable while reading informations on Deafness.
Some deaf people criticize my website because of some wordings such as hearing impaired which I don’t like but have no choice as it is a very importnat keyword that parents will find my website while surfing.
Shane, the hearing parents are our biggest assets to improve the Deaf Education because they are the majority and once they understand how important ASL is for a deaf child before the age of 2, it will be the biggest “PAH” for the Deaf Community. These hearing parents will demand that all teachers for the deaf to have a full fluency in communication…which is ASL, a cognitive language to learn English language, that’s bilingual.
John
John,
if you use meta tags in your HTML, you can include words like “hearing impaired” without them showing on your website so that parents and others can find your website without you including terms youre not comfortable with…
j
To Joseph,
Thanks for your information about meta tags.
John
What are hearing parents told anyways? What do they experience in their lifetime before they discover they have children with hearing loss?
My dad told me he remembers clearly one day meeting a deaf young man who handed him a card, basically stating that he was deaf and needed money. He hadn’t had close interaction with deaf people at this point so that left a lasting image in his mind.
I came along and was diagnosed as being profoundly deaf. My mom seriously thought about driving off a bridge. Then someone from Beginnings came along and introduced Cued Speech. They found hope and eagerly communicated to me by cueing.
All the exposure they had of deaf people led them to believe that being deaf meant having no independence, being considered low-functional, and needing special attention. They wanted only the best opportunities for me.
The stigma still persists even today that deaf people do not achieve as high as hearing people do in life.
That stigma is the root of fear in the minds of hearing parents. Only if they knew the whole story.
Aaron could have not said it better. Shane, from reading your blog bio and posts, you mentioned exposure to cued speech while growing up. I am curious, are you cueing to your daughter? Or just signing? What about both?
It is often a good idea for parents to raise their children in the language that they are fluent in.
We’re hoping that Cue Camp VA will post their 2007 camp info soon so we can think about attending.
http://www.nvcsa.scid.net/camp.html
Hope to see you there!
For those of you who are free this weekend, Cue Camp MD is taking place near Westminster:
http://www.cuedspeech.org/sub/.....asp?ID=358
Actually, it’s next week — Monday-Friday morning. For more information, email cuecamp2007@aol.com (it’s not me! alas, I have to work and can’t teach–sigh).
Shane’s title: “What Are Parents Thinking!?” If I am a parent, then I will probably consider these options that will allow the child with hearing loss to land on a high-skill and well-paying job. How can a child obtain more information and comprehend it in the best way? There are many various avenues to explore. Which one? Not easy – it’s obvious. Giving accurate information to parents is critical such as sharing success and failure from our experience. Nice blog, Shane.
Shane, excellent entry. I do not know what I could add here that others haven’t said already. Although I’d like to add that it is important for Americans as an whole to embrace a multilingual/mulitcultural approach to education.
I’m just trying to say that if we teach our children to respect different cultures and to be fluent in two or more languages, this is an experience that will benefit them as a person, and society as a whole.
A side benefit would be hearing parents may be being more accepting of learning ASL because they’ve been raised to be open to other ways of living. I do sometimes wonder if one of the reasons that european countries, such as Sweden, have been so accepting of their native sign language is because the Swedes grew up in an multilingual environment that was very common and accepted as the norm. I do not see this happening in America. It just seems to me the prevalent attitude towards World Languages seem to be basically just something high schoolers do to graduate.
Just a thought.
I am a hearing parent. I see the problem as being that the first people hearing parents get information from is typically hearing doctors and audiologists. This is where they get their first information and most often not a comprehensive list of options. The first thing an audiologist wants to do is sell the parents a hearing aid (selling the notion that sound and hearing are superior). The majority of hearing parents have most likely not had any prior contact with a deaf individual or the deaf community. They typically listen to the medical professional assuming they know what should be done. They also haven’t had experience with a manual language, therefore, they equate language with having to be verbal. Hearing parents grieve for the loss of sound that their child will not have. Sound is ever present to a hearing person. Many parents believe they can fix their child and make them more hearing. This is why they buy into hearing aids, speech training, cochlear inplants, etc. If only their first encounter with information about what it is to be deaf would be from a well-trained deaf professional, then much of these misconceptions could be avoided.
Luckily for me and my husband, we knew early on that our child needed language more than anything in order to thrive. We knew our deaf child was a visual person. And we knew that it would be a challenge to learn ASL, but we also knew that challenge is part of life. What a wonderful journey into the deaf world it has been and continues to be. We have learned so much by giving our child the opportunity to be d-e-a-f in a hearing family.
The goal, I beleive, is to continue to educate those that have influence on hearing parents. This includes audiologists, doctors, legislators, mainstream teachers, and speech pathologists.
hearing parent, I was happy to read your post about your experience. I was thinking it was somewhat ironic that the title of this blog was “What are hearing parents thinking,” and yet only one actual hearing parent has told us what they were actually thinking.
What you said about your process is consistent with what I’ve thought happens in the beginning. Because of universal infant hearing screening, the first person to tell parents that their baby is deaf is a hearing doctor or audiologist who typically knows nothing about ASL, deaf culture, or mature, functioning deaf adults and childen. Because hearing and speech is the only thing they know, it’s not surprising that parents are led in the direction of amplification (hearing aids, CIs, FMs, et.) and oral speech training. I agree with you 100% that those professionals — doctors, audiologists, speech pathologists, etc. — are the ones who need education and information.
I’d like to ask a question: how did you know early on that your child needed language, and how did you know that this should be ASL? How did you realize that your child was a visual person?
This is sort of a response to the last few comments above. While I’m all for Deaf/ASL awareness, what we need is to make ASL more public, if that’s the right word. What I have in mind isn’t a new idea (at least I don’t think so), but we need more places where ASL thrives and flows freely.
As I mentioned in the Talkie’s blog (http://blog.thetalkie.com/?p=49), if professionals in the field of education can accept that instruction in ASL is a viable option, they’ll see more solutions to the serious and long-standing issues in “deaf education” come their way. We’ve heard of language-immersion schools; why not have a number of “Martha’s Vineyard Schools” in every state, in addition to the traditional School for the Deaf? If these schools are open to both deaf and hearing ASL signers and are successful in all aspects (save spoken English fluency, which must be optional for the deaf student), wouldn’t this have more of an impact on the non-signing parents’ view of “deafness” and ASL? This is part of what I mean in making ASL “more public.”
Making ASL more public is not as much as a challenge as it must have seemed to be decades ago. ASL courses are very popular in colleges and are taught even in high schools. “Sign language” (but not ASL) is taught by hearing parents to their hearing infants. “Sign language” is also used in many activities with children in early education programs, even during lessons in phonics! But it is a completely different story when it comes to deaf children, which is sadly ironic because it is this population that would benefit most from learning ASL and using it in their daily lives. An ASL-centered educational program for deaf children is not a faith-based approach.
POINT WHAT? The more ASL can be seen in public…not just in homes or churches or distant, relatively isolated schools for the deaf…the more it is used by deaf people and hearing people in public, the better ASL will look to non-signing parents of deaf children.
My biggest concern in this is not what parents are thinking BUT simply how the parents were presented with different programs available for Deaf children. Deaf schools/programs that uses ASL and English were often omitted from the table. So how can this be fairly discussed on how parents are thinking? Only if EVERY programs were presented, I believe it will make some difference in how parents think.
Joey Baer,
I think any group would be remiss to put little effort towards understanding how humans behave before designing such a campaign. Corporations spend millions to figure out how they can persuade us to purchase their product by understanding what makes us tick. The same principles apply here.
Let’s say one deaf school’s presentation is: “We offer Advanced Placement courses.” Will this change the way parents think?
Hi Joey:
I agree. I’ve heard–though I’ve never verified–that many state schools for the deaf are prohibited by federal regulations from advertising their services to parents. I was incredulous when I came across this information but…
Still, it’s something to think about. If we had some sort of website, we could advertise ALL of the services in a given state. What’s the federal government supposed to do about a group of concerned citizens that don’t directly work for these schools, right? An employee at _____ School fro the Deaf might not be able to advertise, but I don’t work there, so…
It’s an idea…
While this discussion veered off track as expected, are there any hearing parents who can share their state of mind in the days, weeks, months after they discovered their child’s deafness (other than the methodology of education.communication)? Are there any common first reactions that I missed in my blog?
I lost my hearing at age 14 so the situation is a bit different, but I can share some reactions from then…
My parents were very upset. It felt very unfair that Their Child should have this happen to her.
The ENT’s first reaction was to tell mom and dad that “children her age fake these things to get attention.” Beyond that he didn’t have much advice.
The audiologist recognized how smart I was in that my speech discrimination was very high.
The high school told my parents that if things were too hard I could drop my math and science classes since I was ahead a year (advanced placement).
…
Now I am 27 and did poorly on a speech discrimination test. The ENT, who I had never met before, started to explain the results, and then he stopped and said “how much of what I say are you hearing?” Such a dumb question. Comprehension is comprehension for me now, I can’t distinguish between lip reading, guessing and hearing. He suggested a CI. All I wanted was to upgrade my 6 year old hearing aids. It would be nice if doctors would actual try to get to know you a tiny bit before suggesting things.
I love my ENT — he’s hard-of-hearing and has worked with SO many of us who grew up in MoCo… he’s never suggested to me, ever, that I upgrade to new hearing aids, or tried to convince my parents and me to get an implant.
Actually, while I’m on the subject of that — I asked my parents why they never considered a cochlear implant for me when I was younger. It turns out that they did inquire about it but were told (by the audiologist or ENT) that I wasn’t a candidate — I had too much hearing. And I have a severe-to-profound loss. The audiologist didn’t want to implant me!
My, how time changes. *grins*
I used to be told that my hearing was too good for a CI all the time. Lately they don’t tell me that. “Technology is better now.”
Be that as it may… I’m getting along just fine, and I still consider a CI kind of a last resort… if it were more reversible, that would change things.