Language Rights as if Babies Mattered

When my paper was accepted for the EHDI - Early Hearing Detection & Intervention - conference, I got a call asking if I would change the title (from the one above) to just Language Rights. I laughed - they sounded so serious and upset that I would imply they didn't care about babies - and immediately agreed.

I should have kept the original title.

New Orleans was a shock. Five hundred people talking about audiology, speech, cochlear implants and all the needs of all the EHDI programs in the United States, and only twenty of us (hopefully, there were maybe forty or fifty, but many were quiet) seemed concerned about the babies.

The babies are lost when the discussion, the money, the resources - ALL the attention is on hearing and speech, as if only ears and mouths existed. Language development, cognitive development, socialization, normal family communication, self esteem and identity, education, and mental health were secondary or not mentioned at all.

Fast forward two weeks: I presented at the CAL ED conference in San Ramon where everyone talked about babies, humans, whole people who have feelings and need language to be fully human. Language is not speech which is how it was interpreted in New Orleans.

Please, accept my public apology for changing the name. Refer audiologists, speech therapists, and ENT doctors to this site and ask them to back away from mouths and ears far enough to see the whole baby.

LANGUAGE (a complete accessible visual language for a visual baby)

and LANGUAGE RIGHTS

AS IF BABIES MATTER

Signing is a right for deaf babies, not a medical issue - pass it on.
susanschaller.com