November 28, 2007
Do parents make their own informed decision or forced by guilt from AGBell and their associates?
Read this comment that I got today which may be common to many parents of deaf babies…
In 1995 a miracle took place in Lafayette, IN. A young couple in their very early 20’s had a given birth to a deaf baby. The medical professional’s gave the “hearing impaired” diagnosis with much grief. We were sent out into the world to raise a “handicapped” child without any referrals but a pat on the back for good luck.
Ahhh…so much research on a mother’s behalf…the loss of self and employment to figure out how to best raise a deaf baby.
Despite the extreme emphasis on speech and hearing and getting the cochlear implant…my husband and I couldn’t just dump off our baby at a local daycare with hopes that “everything would be fine” while the only stimulation offered by staff would only be auditory. The First Steps Early Intervention Program for Special Needs offered talking directly into my baby’s face and loud toys and music with hopes for a miracle of hearing something…anything! I couldn’t rest at night knowing my baby would be bored all day without visual stimulation. I set out to learn sign language! I contacted the library for video’s, local schools, childhood deaf peers and public school interpreters. I made long distant phone calls to every state to find out the current belief system and medical outlook on “how to raise a deaf child” and was referred to the John Tracy Clinic, Hear Indiana, Shhhh, and AGB. I did the John Tracy Clinic parent coorespondent “courses” and copied signs from the “Joys of Sign Language Book” while scotch taping the signs to my walls in our apartment. Our daughter went to speech therapy and I learned signs on my own. Something was missing though…the signs weren’t grammatical and speech was not working. I hadn’t met any deaf adults! Where were they? Riley Hospital offered nothing to us. No support for meeting the Deaf Community. We discontinued our daughter’s hearing tests there after it was determined our services were no longer welcomed nor needed because we didn’t want a hole drilled into our child’s head with hopes for hearing.
In the meantime, our baby was growing and increasingly bored and just looked into space for anything stimulating to catch her eye.
When my husband, (Purdue Graduate), and I were denied ANY sign language resources and support from Purdue’s Speech and Hearing Clinic….our persistence paid off!!! Despite the “professional” advice from the clinic…we found the Deaf Community and learned ASL. I drove from Lafayette to the deaf school in Indianapolis four days a week. My daugher was 12 months. I drove home at the end of the school day with my eyes burning and dry. This was a LONG day often followed by migrane headaches but well worth every cent and every minute. My mind racing with excitement to teach the ASL signs to my husband after he would return home from work or Purdue classes. Each new sign was documented on the refridgerator as we were finally able to communicate with our baby girl! A connection was made and we started feeling closer as a family! My sadness towards having given birth to a deaf baby was no longer a daily struggle. She would be just fine as long as we kept her within the Deaf Community.
Our daughter is now 12 yrs old and functioning on a “normal” level academically, socially, emotionally and intellectually! She is a bright little lady with much to offer the world! She is happy and doing well in life despite what we were told from THE CLINIC at Purdue. (Chasing down a deaf employee in the halls of the clinic and having a meeting WITHOUT an interpreter paid off! I still have the notes from that meeting and the deaf man advocating ASL and not the implant.)
Ironically, this meeting took place in a waiting room in Purdue’s Speech & Hearing Clinic while the snooty secretary informed me of no sign language resources and passed judgement and “abuse” issues onto me for wanting to learn ASL as a way to raise our daughter.
I wonder how many other parents went through such discrimination before giving in to the “professionals” who seem to have it all figured out when it comes to hearing parents giving birth to deaf babies!
I hope that Purdue’s clinic will change their philosophy and mission…PLEASE listen to the Deaf Community and parents having walked the halls of the clinic seeking to learn sign language with OR without the use of the implant and speech. I was encouraged to purchase musical toys and put the volume on high with hopes that my daughter would some day hear any level on the auditory scale. Instead my husband and I raised our hands and learned ASL!
The “professionals” seem to be the ones that are handicapped!! A speech referral is easy to make! Driving to the clinic is easy! Being a deaf child and having to focus on hours upon hours of speech and then constantly expected to improve is not easy and is abuse! Expecting parents to shutup and follow the medical advice of speech therapy is unethical! If a mother of four raises each of her children to be disciplined the same way…resentment and ineffective results occur. Why? Because each person is different and has different ways of learning. Each person has ethical rights to be offered accommodations, respect, and love through acceptance. The same goes for the Deaf. Deaf people have the same emotions as hearing.
The Deaf Community is beautiful and no medical “professionals” will ever understand by remaining one sided. I hope something good will come out of this weekend at Purdue!
May the force be at Purdue this weekend and touch a “professional” to change his/her way of belief.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
This statement is from John F. Egbert,
If any of you, as a parent that have similar experience as the parent above’s comment and would like to write your experience, please contact me,
http://www.deafchildrenandsigning.com/contact-us.html
Bilingually yours,
John F. Egbert
November 24, 2007
Deaf Bilingual Coalition Indiana Rally
at
The Indiana Conference on Listening and Spoken Language
Purdue University- Stewart Center- West Lafayette, IN on 11/30/07 07:30 AM
Attn: Teachers of the Deaf, Speech-Language Pathologists, Audiologists,
Early Interventionists, and Parents
Do you want more information on spoken language options for deaf children?
Do you wonder why some deaf children excel and others struggle?
Would you like your deaf children to read at grade level?
Have you run out of ideas and activities to target language objectives?
This is a conference you can’t afford to miss!
FOR CONFERENCE DETAILS, SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION INFO:
http://www.HEARINDIANA.ORG
Deaf Bilingual Coalition (DBC) Indiana Rally:
This is your chance to make a difference in the life of a Deaf Baby………….
What: Join this very important rally in support of American Sign Language acquisition for Deaf Babies and Children outside of the
“The Indiana Conference on Listening and Spoken Language”
http://www.agbell.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?p=Calendar_of_Events
on the campus of Purdue University.
Why: Deaf Infants and Children are being denied access to American Sign Language at an alarming rate. Alexander Graham Bell Organization supports Auditory Verbal Therapy Programs all around the United States promoting listening and speech without the use of sign language. Please go to this link and view the video:
http://deafprogressivism.blogspot.com/2007/07/it-is-no-crying-shame-to-be-in-protest.html
Where: Purdue University, Stewart Center West, (adjacent to Grant Street Garage) http://www.purdue.edu/parking/pdf/Parking_Map_05.pdf
When: Nov. 30, Friday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Meet at the Indianapolis Deaf Club at 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning or at Purdue in front of Stewart Center West at 10:00 a.m.
Contact Person: Beatrice Pfaff at bpfaff@tmail.com
(Please contact Bea to let her know you will be joining this rally and for more details.)
More information on DBC is available at this website:
http://deafbilingualcoalition.com/
MISSION:
“The Deaf Bilingual Coalition, (DBC) promotes the basic human right of all deaf infants and young children to have access to language and cognitive development through American Sign Language (ASL).”
PURPOSE:
“The main purpose of the Deaf Bilingual Coalition is to emphasize the importance of American Sign Language in social, emotional, linguistic, and cognitive development pertaining to early visual language acquisition in deaf infants and young deaf children.
The secondary purpose is to make the general public aware of the prevalence of misconceptions and misinformation that devalues ASL.”
GOALS:
“The Deaf Bilingual Coalition is a community of deaf and hearing people whose goals are to promote language acquisition, social justice, and quality education through the awareness of ASL and its excellence in cultivating the critical intellect of deaf infants and young deaf children.
DBC will work to inform parents of deaf children, guardians, teachers of the deaf, schools, doctors, audiologists, government officials, businesses, and other organizations on the importance of ASL in early language acquisition for all deaf infants and young children.
DBC will work to spread awareness of the research that shows that ASL does make significant contribution to the development of literacy skills in both languages, ASL and English.
And lastly, DBC will work in collaboration with others to promote respect and understanding of ASL.
November 20, 2007
The Deaf community knows that the 1880 Milan conference is the root of most all the problems with our Deaf education system, and that the philosophy behind it acts to destroy our chances at being able to use a natural cognitive language (ASL).
Now here is what is so ironic about this one blogger who said;
“This Milan thing is getting really tiring and getting very old with you guys always looking back. Always complaining. And never looking at the plate you have in front of you today getting filled and never looking forward to the future seeing the possibilities grow before you. Just please knock it off about the Milan thing. Stop clinging to the past so much”.
Now it seems ironic that this same person wrote a blog just recently titled:
“ASL is Destroying Indian Sign Language”
No, I did not read all of his blog but just the title, “ASL is Destroying Indian Sign Language” was enough for me and maybe you too, to know what he was attempting to do..
Does this person employ a double standard? He is telling people one thing about how they should think and behave, but then is not practicing what he preaches.
Isn’t this part of the definition of colonialism?
AGBell and AVT is destroying American Sign Language right now today and will still be continuing to do so in the future.
Doesn’t the Deaf community have the right to discuss the effects of 1880 Milan conference, whose participants acted to sabotage American Sign Language (as does this misguided blogger wrote “ASL is Destroying Indian Sign Language” in DeafRead.com)?
I think that is an insult! And shame on this blogger for telling us to “knock it off about the Milan thing”.
John F. Egbert
November 14, 2007
Just what in the hell is wrong with ASL?
Why do AGBell. AVT, misguided hearing impaired people and other self-centered people have no respect for ASL?
There is one misguided HOH blogger(doesn’t want to be label deaf) that is trying to rationalize his name and identity by telling the public that sign language is “alright†for deaf babies at early age but should stop using ASL when the baby is about 3 years old because the vocal chord is developed enough to learn speech. Why stop a natural cognitive language(ASL) for any deaf babies?
This person is really misguided and we should not read his blogs!
Just why in the hell would you stop one language and learn another? Why not keep on learning two language, ASL and English or whatever for this deaf child?
Are these people against bilingualism?
Why did God create Deaf people?
Is it so that God can make judgment of those self-centered oppressors, the ideology of Alexander Graham Bell, Darwin and their admirers at the gate up yonder?
ASL IS ALIVE! And WILL NOT FADE AWAY!!!!
See you in Milwaukee
John