What is the reaction to Deaf people who say "audists" for doctors, augiologists, teachers and parents who forbid visual language for visual people (I know,it sounds crazy, but that insanity is the message given by over 90% of Ear, Nose, Throat Doctors)?
They are called crazy - militant or fanatical.
For over thirty years, I've been wondering how I can share my experience of meeting a beautiful and rich culture and language, based on vision, that would change the perspective of parents and the medical world.
How can we appreciate what others have instead of what is different or missing?
I welcome any ideas, suggestions or descriptions of any successful projects. Until then, let's ask all our friends and neighbors to buy ASL Tales at ASLTales.net, and help bilingual storytelling take off. If you would like to send in a donation, I will buy one and put it in a doctor's office. Or, you buy one for your local pediatrician. There's an idea, let's organize pediatricians around this. I think they would see the need for language in babies, over the need to fantasize about making the baby "normal."
I look forward to any comnmunication.
I agree with you that too much emphasis is placed on ear implants. We all hear well in my family, but my daughter as a toddler was invited to play in a class with hard-of-hearing and deaf children. My wife and I were very happy with this. Unfortunately, this hospital-affiliated preschool has since gone from bilingual/bimodal to strictly oral and encouraging implants. What a shame!
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