Growing Up Deaf - Update 6

Earlier in my Growing Up Deaf - Update 3 post, I talked about MSSD. I was out at MSSD all day during their academic bowl as I mentioned in the previous post, MSSD's Academic Bowl.

One of the first things I realized from back then while talking with a couple parents is that my signing skills weren't exactly that great. So if I had gone to MSSD:
- I'd be more oral than signing, but I'd still be learning sign.
- would I have fit in regardless of my signing ability?
- would I have a learning experience like I had with being mainstreamed?
- would I have had more of a social life than with the hearing school mainstreaming?
   (Growing Up Deaf - parts 18, 19, 20, 21 - Teasing and Mistreatment and serial label)
- would I have had better friends than with the hearing school mainstreaming?

Even after considering all this, what was the best thing for me to do? Probably mainstreaming was the better choice.

Growing Up Deaf Update 4

Jamie and I were talking about the mumps when she was writing Mumps Can Lead to Deafness. I mention in Growing Up Deaf Part 1 and Part 5 about the diagnosis and how I lost my hearing. But she gave me a historical aspect that I had to check.

I have a paper from my doctor back then that my dad was "trying to locate record of MMR." I don't think it was ever found.

According to the Measles Vaccine Questions and Answers page, the mumps vaccine wasn't available til 1967. Neither was the MMR vaccine til 1971.

Seems I wasn't vaccinated in time. I'll find out the story sometime, somehow.

"Growing Up Deaf" Update 3

Sherlock Steve's blog post against the deafness.about.com post! reminded me of a few things.

But first, in my Growing up Deaf - Part 11 post, I mentioned that I had printed information on MSSD, but never went. I talked with mom about this when I went home to join my family for a wedding. She said she and dad wanted me to stay home and learn more. I'll talk more with her when I head back sometime.

As mentioned before, I didn't quite get full immersion into deaf culture til college, with some immersion here and there in middle and high schools, deaf church ministries, and the deaf camp in Louisiana. My dad got upset a lot of the time when I had my hearing aids off, even when I was lipreading him. Did that make him an audist? I don't think so. They never forced hearing aids onto me, just encouraged me to wear them.

As for that four year old kid, the decision to wear his implant is up to him. It was a major mistake for the doctor to tell his mother to hold him down. I'm surprised someone didn't call Child Protective Services on the guy. Right now is the time for worried mom to work on communications, both sign and reading/writing. Nothing's worse than a deaf kid with no language. What a waste of a good mind.

"Growing Up Deaf" Post Update 2 - Part 2

After doing some more research on this Utley book, Google had a page that contained a passage that says exactly how it is with those who were in oral schools and were forbidden to even learn or use sign, and then learned sign later;

Effective education for learners with exceptionalities By Festus E. Obiakor, Cheryl Anita Rose Utley, and Anthony F. Rotatori. ISBN 076230975X, 9780762309757.

This will put you on page 240. Read the last paragraph up to where it mentions cued speech.

At least some of those who read that will see themselves in it. Powerful stuff right there!

This doesn't mean the oralists were completely wrong in their methods. It means that total communications, meaning speech/lipreading AND signing, should have been included and used.

"Growing Up Deaf" Post Update 2 - Part 1

Update from Growing Up Deaf - Part 10.

I managed to find a classmate from third grade on a social networking site and she remembered me. Then I broke out the report cards and checked some notations made way long ago. One thing that I missed all these years was something written in my first grade report card.

"REGULAR grade 2. No need for special class. Definitely *no* 'deaf' class."

Perhaps something more surprising was buried in one of the grading categories, under Music, was "Auditory Training." Also listed in there was "Utley book." Has anyone had experience with this? Google gives me mention of auditory/visual speech recognition. Then under "Speech and Phonics" is "Child shows desire to communicate orally." These were "primary deaf-oral classes" according to the supplement stapled to the report card.

Interesting what one finds when one breaks out the old report cards and looks through them.

Next - Part 2

Growing up Deaf - Part 10

Going to School - Grades 1-5

In first grade, I had this deaf oral classroom, and at the end of the year they told mom and dad that I didn't need to attend deaf classes at all. For the next few years, I'd be tested in my English skills, and was always reading and writing at or above my grade level. I had the hearing tests as well.

In second and third grades in Florida, I attended this small Christian school. I did pretty well there and everyone pretty much accepted me it seemed. But this is where some things ended. It was the beginning of my being picked last for anything. The kids would kick the ball high into the air, and we'd compete to catch it. Many times, someone would go in front of me and interfere with my catching.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my parents were told not to use sign/ASL, but to keep me talking as they were afraid that if I was to learn sign, I would quit talking. It seems no one thought of total communications long ago. It was either oral or sign. I didn't learn sign til starting around fifth grade.

Adoptive mom and I can't seem to talk much about it or go into it too much without us breaking down. It's still an emotional issue with us even today seeing how much I missed while being mainstreamed and not gone to a deaf school. Even though I did have deaf classes, it was only in the first and fifth grades, and even then, they were oral classes and didn't allow any sign to be used. It was also around sixth and seventh when I was in a deaf class with total/simultaneous communications, despite my other classes being with hearing classmates. My last two years of high school had a homeroom with other deaf.

I'd always be sitting at the head of the class, first desk in front. The good thing is that I'd usually be taking part in other classroom activities. That particular seating arrangement would never change all through my school years.

Then we moved again, staying in Florida. Fourth and fifth grades were with a deaf-oral class. There was still no socialization with other deaf except here. I had a second class with some other hearing students. It wasn't unusual for me to go to lunch before those in the deaf class and then go to the hearing class. It was here in this class that I didn't miss things and was able to communicate well with the others.

Next - Attending middle school.