Guest guest Posted January 1, 2006 Report Share Posted January 1, 2006 Dale, It was the teen who wanted the CI. Her parents didn't want her to get it. Her mother works with Deaf children and understood that the CI may or may not be successful and that it would be a lot of work. However, I think the biggest issue here was the parents were not 100% behind their child in this decision and may have unwittingly undermined her efforts to be successful. Also, if you place a child with a CI into a school for the Deaf where it is all ASL all the time, how in the world are they going to learn to understand speech? You have to be exposed to speech to be able to learn to understand it, and the more you're exposed to speech, the faster and more easily you will adjust. There's a lot of research on that subject showing that you have to be exposed to speech, and lots of it. The more, the better. For those who are in their teens, as you pointed out, the window of language development has closed, so it's going to be more difficult. That doesn't mean it can't be done, just that it's going to take more time and more effort. I believe that prelingual adults are more successful than prelingual teens because the adults are more fully committed to making it work. This teen may decide to try to use her CI again as an adult, and do very well at that time. I know I did not do well with my hearing aids as a teen. I hated them. I put them up and didn't wear them again until in my 20's, at which point I did pretty well. As most of us know, you have to be fully committed to making the CI work to get the best results. I don't think very many would say that it's an easy process, especially for someone who is prelingual or for someone who has been deaf for a long time. I really believe that leaving a child with a CI in an ASL only program is a mistake. Kansas School for the Deaf has a CI program now, and it has a more oral approach for those students who have CI's. They use ASL as more of a back up, to make sure that the kids don't fall behind in their school work while they're learning to use the CI. The best CI programs I've seen use simultaneous communication with CASE. This provides that bridge between ASL and oral that helps the student to learn to comprehend spoken English. It takes a very, very highly competent teacher who signs fluently and knows how to provide lots of opportunities to build language rather than just working on speech or listening skills. I believe this is why you don't see very many of these programs. It's hard to find a teacher that is good enough at both teaching and signing to make it work like it should. Take me, for instance, I'm great at language development and providing natural opportunities to build language, but my signing stinks. Hopefully my signing will improve if I ever have someone to practice with. But, I live in the middle of nowhere and nobody signs outside of the school day. They really don't sign much during the school day. The D/HH teacher in this area doesn't have any students who are Deaf, and she covers seven or eight counties. She has one CI student, who is using an oral/aural approach (first grade student). In the district where I work, we have one deaf student and he hates to sign. He wants to use the oral/aural approach. You probably already guessed it, he's a teenager. LOL As noted, teens just want to fit in. He does well, though, probably because his loss was progressive so he's learned to adapt as his hearing got worse. I would love to see his parents look into a CI for him. I think he would do extremely well because he remembers how things sound, he's a great speech reader, and he wouldn't need extensive speech training because he already has excellent speech. He's also highly motivated to function in the hearing world. He tried attending the school for the Deaf, hated it, and came home after one day. The teenage girl I was talking about had grown up in a school for the Deaf and wanted her CI more so that she could live at home instead of having to live at the school for the Deaf. When she still had to live at the school for the Deaf, her motivation to use the CI was, more or less, cut off at the knees. I will never really understand why her parents made this decision because their home school district has a very good D/HH program. Beth " Surviving a loss and letting go is only half of the story. The other half is the secret belief that we will find, in one form or another, what we have lost. And it is that potential, shimmery as a star on a clear night, that helps us survive. " -- Chambers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.