I'm soon off to Chicago where EHDI - early hearing detection and intervention- folk are having a conference, discussing how to cure deafness. I, and many other people who advocate for visual language for visual babies as the obvious way to give deaf babies equal access, submitted a paper abstract. My abstract, and many others advocating Sign or bilingualism, was rejected. The hundreds of medical professionals attending believe they are doing the right thing. They believe speech is language, and hearing even a tiny bit or a garbled signal is better than being deaf. Their good intentions, unfortunately, are destroying many babies' chances for a better relationship with their parents and families, for education, and for a connection to the human community.
I need any help you can give: How does one show a doctor, audiologist, teacher or parent that by concentrating on ears and mouth only, they risk losing the human child. Waiting months or a year for intensive brain surgery, then years of training at the expense of language is inhumane. If you were a mother and believed you were doing the right thing by not signing to your deaf baby, what could I say or do to help you open your mind to questioning the wisdom of your action? Any suggestions I will carry to my first meeting in Chicago, with the bilingual coaliton.
This is an interesting question...here in France I was surprised that everyone is so against newborn detection. They are doing it now but only in 5 big cities, and even in those cities it depends on the hospital (ours didn't do it). The hearing people think it is detrimental to mother-baby bonding, and the deaf think it will lead to more medical intervention. I don't understand the bonding issue - isn't it more detrimental to learn a year later that you haven't been communicating with your baby? As for the medical part, if you're going to do the surgical intervention, isn't it best to do it when it's most effective? If you choose the middle road of doing it when the child asks for it, won't they undergo the same risks for less of a benefit?
ReplyDeleteI do think that some things are less extreme here in France (some say behind), but it seems that many doctors encourage parents to sign to their deaf babies. I actually don't think it's the medical community that isn't supporting sign language here, it's more the education system. On the other hand, if there's no system in place to help parents learn sign language, telling them to use it is of limited benefit as well.
Anyway, I think it's about showing the benefits of bilingualism in the long term. A lot of people are working off the idea that a baby with a CI doesn't "need" sign language. And that might be true. After all, my kids don't "need" to speak English. They would be fine without it. But there's a difference between what we need and what is best for us. There's research showing that babies with more sound input in the first year of life (because they had more hearing or were aided) do better in language development after implantation than babies who didn't receive any input. I don't know if anyone has done the same study with babies receiving sign language instead or as well, but it would be interesting to compare. Makes me want to go back to studying linguistics!
Hi Susan!
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward meeting you once again as we last met at DBC Milwaukee Conference. I have always appreciated your articles and your staunch advocate for bilingualism for Deaf babies and children. I have been a bilingual specialist at a school for the Deaf and have been developing exciting program known as BIG (Bilingual Instructional Guide).
I am really concerned that you along with other 40% of proposed abstract relating to bilingualism have been rejected for the EHDI conference. Yet, the amount of bilingual related presentations are outnumbered by the medical model and that so much raise a red flag. My Deaf colleague at a school for the Deaf got hers rejected as she was talking about metalinguistics of ASL for young preschoolers. I got mine accepted as you can see at http://ehdiconference.org/schedule/griddetails.cfm?aid=179&day=TUESDAY. We needed an hour to present but was narrowed down to half hour for doing two parts by us two presenters. How absurd but at least we got in. It's just like chicken feed.
See you there!
See you there!