The Greatest Irony: 21-day Free Online View!
Special Announcement!
Amy Cohen Efron releases a very special 21-day free-online-viewing of her award-winning vlog, “The Greatest Irony” for everyone to watch. “The Greatest Irony” is open-captioned and comes with voice-over by a very talented ASL interpreter, Tracie Cascio Snow.
Free online viewing will be available between Sunday, June 22, 2008 and Saturday, July 12, 2008.
This is to let you know that the free online viewing is closed for tonight.
According to the data received from Google Analytics, indicating that there were 1,521 unique pageviews.
Thank you so much for your support and watching my video.
This special limited viewing release is dedicated to two non-profit organizations, Deaf Bilingual Coalition and National Association of the Deaf. These organizations are currently hosting their national conferences in this summer.
Deaf Bilingual Coalition Conference in Milwaukee, WI - June 27-30, 2008.
National Association of the Deaf in New Orleans, LA - July 7-11, 2008.
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To learn bit more about “The Greatest Irony”
When “The Greatest Irony” first was put on the Internet as a four-part series on March 17, 2007, the response from the community was staggering. After receiving messages sent from around the world, Amy Cohen Efron realized that she had touched upon an issue that brought differing, often clashing perspectives. The video, comparing two of the most popular and fastest-growing language programs for hearing babies and Deaf babies, set off heated, passionate discussions among people from all walks of life. It became clear that the majority agreed that it was unfair to deny deaf babies the opportunity to learn sign language, especially with American Sign Language’s proven success rate among babies, hearing or deaf.
On the About.com Deafness forum run by Jamie Berke, “The Greatest Irony” was recognized as the “Blog of the Week.” Berke had this to say about the thought-provoking blog:
“In her signed vlog masterpiece (a transcript is thoughtfully provided), “The Greatest Irony”, Amy Cohen Efron discusses and contrasts the benefits of baby sign language for hearing babies with the auditory verbal training given to deaf babies. For example, she notes that one of the objectives of baby sign language for hearing children is that it reduces frustration; auditory verbal therapy does not have the same objective. The irony is that while the hearing babies are encouraged to sign, the deaf babies have to use whatever hearing they have, without sign language. This vlog is a must viewing.”
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Disclaimer:
The entire contents of The Greatest Irony video are protected by copyright law. The owner of the copyright is Amy Cohen Efron. YOU MAY NOT MODIFY, COPY, REPRODUCE, REPUBLISH, UPLOAD, POST, TRANSMIT, OR DISTRIBUTE, IN ANY MANNER, THE MATERIAL ON THE SITE, INCLUDING TEXT, GRAPHICS, CODE AND/OR SOFTWARE.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
You again made it. Your VLOGs are one of my favorites to watch.
I completely agree with you! The greatest irony in our mankind. Baby signs okay for hearing babies but not okay for deaf babies. *Eyes rolling* The problem is that we live in the world where everybody wants to be perfect, it be hearing, looking good, being intelligent, et cetera. If that thinking is not gone, there will always be desire to turn deaf people into hearing people. This will never work. All people cannot put into a pot; each person is unique; therefore, all babies should be threaten individually.
Hearing teachers for deaf students, audiologists, and other people working in the deaf field always indicate that if no signs are used, language and speech can improve magnificently. But they fail to see that language and speaking are two different fields. While speaking is only one of several methods how to express fear, opinions, facts, etc, language is a tool we use how to express ourselves.
I always told my friends that it’s better to be able to write and to read while not being able to speak than to be able to speak while not being able to write and to read. I fail to have ideas of how to convict hearing parents to use baby signs for deaf babies.
My dream: Put those who forbid providing sign language to deaf students into prison for torturing deaf students/babies.
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Very beautiful and I’m sooo impressed!
Hearing parents could use signs when they want to talk in private…around people or don’t want them to hear them talking. My hearing parents do that a lot! They can benefit it, too. Sign isn’t bad at all. Many people say that it’s a very beautiful language even that they don’t know how to sign, but when they watch us sign..they thought it was so beautiful. AVT could change their policy or approach…that they can allow deaf babies learn to sign at the same time they learn to speak. They can change it for better.
Excellent job, Amy!
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Comment »
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
You said both are succesful. How true. Yet….
It’s bigger, way bigger than just ASL and AVT. There’s many more options that parents have to choose from. I agree, that if a child has NO hearing at all whatsoever, that ASL would probably be a smarter choice. That’s my view, but I will respect parents view if they have been well informed and choose other methods such as cue speech or even get their child implanted. I do think it’s silly for anyone to try the AVT approach if a child does not have enough (I mean, barely any hearing) hearing to benefit from it. But, it all still comes down to parental choice.
I understand that you are advocating for parents to choose ASL and to incorporate AVT along with it. Nothing wrong with it. Yet, there are many successful implanted kids who credit AVT minus ASL for their success.
I don’t know how it would be ironic since you did say both are successful. It’s not like anyone is forcing a parent to NOT use ASL for their deaf child. Parents choose.
I think the main concern here is the need to focus on kids that fall through the cracks. One whose parent are not actively involved with AVT for their implanted child. The ones that are deemed not successful. These are the kids that need a safety net.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I understand how ironic these two situations are right now. While the current predicament is not ideal, I hope you find comfort knowing that “babysigns” gives us ignorant hearing people a small glimpse into the deaf world. Before you know it, you have all these new advocates and hearing children
(like my son) that will be able to communicate with deaf children. As they grow they will help bridge the gap between our two Cultures. Not to mention the possibilities for parents to learn something new.
My now 4-year-old son communicates well with my friends that are Deaf. Last week he even signed with two Deaf-Blind men at a camp in MD! I realized that he doesn’t see people with disabilities…he only sees people with different modes of communication!
A lesson that hopefully more adults will learn!
I believe that parents who are familiar with “babysigns” and have seen the benefits will realize how helpful it can be for ANY child…whether or not parents choose to use it exclusively or in conjunction with an oral method.
Great Job, Amy!
June 26th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Both methods are successful?!! That is not so.
The unisensory Auditry-Verbal-Tonal Method (that is I think correctly called, not “Theory”) succeeds only for some deaf children (perhaps no more than 25%) and fails many of them, like the earlier oralistic methods. On the contrary, starting with sign language garantees success with all deaf and hard of hearing children.
That is THE difference!!!
The problem with the oralists, including the neo-oralists like the AVT practitioners, is their EITHER aNd OR attitude and FIRST-TRY-THIS-IF-IT-FAILS-THEN-USE-THE-ALTERNATIVE approach.
Throughout the Deaf History, including that on education, Deaf people have been maligned and slandered to have advocated the sign language-only education. When we crticize the inordinate time spent on speech training, we have been made to say that we opposed learning a spoken language.
on your video you did not contrast the two sides well. You should have said that while hearing babies learn to sign before they start to speak, deaf children are PREVENTED or NOT ALLOWED to use vision and sign language. Remember, AVT Method is neo-oralism and is designed primarily to prevent sign language to be used by young deaf children, just like the earlier oralistic methods.
I haven’t seen or heard any comment from the AVT practitioners on hearing babies learning to sign. I guess they would just say that signing does not hurt hearing babies, but it does deaf children.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:27 am
*Hands waving* I agree with you. AVT for the Deaf babies is a joke.