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 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 9

Speech therapy

Around the second year of kindergarten in Kentucky and/or first grade, I had speech therapy. I believe I did quite well, so I never went for a long time. It was, if I remember right, an Easter Seal Society thing in the downtown area. I'm hoping that next time I'm back I'm back in KY, I can go visit them again and see if by chance they'll still have my records.

They had all kinds of methods to help out in the therapy. One method that seems to have stuck with me today, even though I almost never used it, having used it twice in about 10 years, is when you feel someone's throat and lipread them. Then there was the requisite mirror on the wall. That "throat feel" method I used in a couple interesting ways. Once it was at a computer show on a friend's computer running a game, which had a narrator talking in demo mode. While watching the narrator, I put my hand on the speaker, and listened to the narrator talk. I understood just about everything. For a training video one time using the same method, I understood everything. Doing it on a human is the same process. It takes practice, but in some cases, will wear you out quickly. However, it's not for everyone.

Then for fifth grade, we had the occasional speech thing. The therapist would have us sit in a line of chairs and go from there. At one point, she had us "flicker" a candle with our breath without blowing it out, saying certain words. I blew it out just for the heck of it with an overly-pronounced "P" sound. It was around this time when I started learning sign.

Even today, while I talk well and am understandable, I still manage to mangle or mispronounce words at times. Even hearing people think I'm hearing when I talk. Again, in these times, there was no encouragement to learn sign and use it. My parents were told not to learn sign, 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 or simultaneous communications long ago. It was either oral or sign. This would later become an emotional sticking point with adoptive mom and I, seeing how much I missed over time.

However, who am I blaming for this issue of not signing? I'm not blaming my parents for that, even though they listened to the so-called "experts" at the time. The issue back then and still going today as I've said before is not to force a deaf or late-deafened person to become "hearing." The hearing loss is still there.

Best thing to do is to give them the tools they need for effective communications, which is total and/or simultaneous communications. Learning to talk and using your voice is one way to 'please' the hearies out there. Adding on sign language 'rebels' against the hearing people in a way, and still allows you to communicate. I will also repeat one thing I've said before... Hearing and understanding can easily be two different things for those with hearing losses. Just because something is heard, if at all, doesn't mean that it will be understood and known.

Next - Attending elementary school.