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Theresa Handley

June 25, 2007

In 1984, my family and I began a journey that continues today. My youngest child, Becky, was diagnosed with a severe to profound hearing loss at age two and a half. A hearing loss of this magnitude means that she had virtually no residual hearing. Up until the point of her loss, she was acquiring speech at a normal pace. Once she lost her hearing, she also lost all her speech.

In this research project, I plan to describe to my classmates and professor that there are different methods of teaching deaf children and that it is difficult for deaf children to acquire adequate English language skills.

One method of teaching is the oral approach. In Pennsylvania, only Delaware County and Scranton use this method to teach the deaf. The program consists of teaching lip-reading, speech, and maximizing the use of residual hearing with the use of hearing aids (see Appendix i). This was very much the most popular mode of teaching until the mid-seventies. Deaf children would go to residential schools during the week and go home on weekends if they lived close to school. Deaf students were forbidden to sign at school or in the dorms, although they did manage to sneak it in, and were punished if they were caught. I learned this from a deaf adult who attended the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (PSD) during the sixties when it was an oral school. Unfortunately, he and his wife are like the majority of deaf adults in the United States, they are functionally illiterate.

It is noted in Michael Strong’s and Philip Prinz’s paper “A Study of the Relationship Between American Sign Language and English Literacy” that only 7% of deaf high schoolers have a reading level above seventh grade and that the majority of deaf children graduate with no more than a fourth grade reading level. (Nielsen, Luetke-Stahlman 11; Gallaudet Research Institute 1; Mayer, Akamatsu 394; Charlesworth, Charlesworth, Raban, and Rickards 30)

The oral approach to teaching has very staunch supporters. It is felt by this group of educators/administrators that if you introduce any form of signing into a child’s life they will never learn to speak or listen and, worse yet, that they will become a part of the deaf sub-culture. Sounds gruesome, doesn’t it? Well, being hearing parents of a deaf child, we were terrified that we would further harm Becky, so we enrolled her in the oral program at the Delaware County Intermediate Unit at age three. “Fewer than 10% of deaf children are born to deaf parents.” (Allen, DeLuca, and Napoli 10, 14) Therefore, the majority struggle, as we did, to make the right decisions for their deaf child’s education and future. After a year and a half of no communication at all with Becky, and no progress in her speech or lip-reading abilities, her teachers, the administrators, and my husband and I, had a meeting. When you are faced with a situation about which you know nothing, you tend to rely on the experts to give you the information you need to make decisions. Well, we learned the hard way that there is a huge and, unfortunately, on-going battle about the best way to teach deaf children – oral vs. total communication. At this meeting, we were told that Becky was a deaf aphasic (Partial or total loss of ability to articulate ideas in any form) with cerebral palsy of the mouth and that she would never have any form of communication at all, including sign language, because her brain could not sort the signals it was receiving. To say the least, we were devastated. Of course, we found out later that the only things wrong with Becky were that she was deaf and the oral approach to teaching her did not work for her.

At this point, we started looking around for other programs that could possibly help Becky, believing all the while that there was really nothing that could be done for her. We visited a school in West Chester, part of the Chester County Intermediate Unit, which offered a signed English program. We were impressed with this, as the kids in the class were all signing exact English. However, we were told that they were forbidden to use American Sign Language (ASL) and would be disciplined if they were caught. The teachers/administrators of the program thought that using ASL would undermine the signed English program because ASL was not considered a viable language. Considering we thought that Becky would have no way at all to communicate, we did not think it was a good idea to limit any form. Therefore, we continued looking.

Eventually, we wound up at PSD, which had transitioned from an oral school to one that offered a total communication approach to teaching. This approach included ASL, speech, lip-reading, gestures, and anything that would get a point across. It was here that we had a turning point. An aide took Becky off to play while we looked around. It seemed like a nice place and people seemed competent. It was a totally different environment. Everyone at PSD must sign all the time. When we mentioned that Becky had been diagnosed as a deaf aphasic, the director of the nursery school program went ballistic. Seems this was a term that was thrown around in the oral community when a child did not respond to that method of teaching. That day Becky was introduced to her first sign. It was the sign for corn. (Fisted right and left hands placed at the corresponding sides of the mouth; hands are then turned as if eating an ear of corn.) She was playing with the aide and they had a kitchen with plastic food and dishes. Becky was pretending to eat an ear of corn. The aide showed her the sign for corn. We did not think anything of it until later that day when I getting dinner ready and got out a bag of frozen corn kernels. As soon as Becky saw the bag, she did the sign for corn. To us, it was a miracle. Not only did she sign “corn”, she made the transition from corn on the cob to kernels of corn! This is something that a deaf aphasic would never be able to accomplish.

Now, more than twenty years later, Becky is a college graduate, doing what other college graduates are doing, looking for a job. Here I am revisiting deaf education to see what strides, if any, have been made in the teaching methods of deaf children.

With the advent of Cochlear Implants (CIs) (see appendix ii), those advocating the oral approach to teaching the deaf have a useful tool for those that benefit from this technology. Unfortunately, this is not a cure for deafness or a magic bullet. “There is a failure rate of nearly 20%.” (Allen, DeLuca, and Napoli 10) “Approximately 20% of those implanted have amazing success, while the remaining 60% receive help hearing just the most crude environmental noises (e.g., car motors, dogs barking) to getting the gist of conversations.” (Napoli)

Along with CIs, hearing aids are another useful tool for the oral approach. Both CIs and hearing aids require enormous amounts of speech and hearing therapy in order for the deaf person to learn how to use them and maximize their listening skills and residual hearing. “This is long, slow, and tedious process.” (Coyne) “Another problem that is encountered is that if the devices are lost or malfunction, the person loses their ability to hear until the equipment is found, replaced, or repaired.” (Coyne) Another method used in the oral approach is Auditory Training. In this method, there is intensive one-on-one interaction between the deaf child and the teacher. “The goal is to teach the deaf child to expand their listening skills to pick up side conversations.” (Coyne) This is an important skill to master as this is how hearing people learn much of their language and gain much of their knowledge. Advocates of this method of teaching the deaf, continue to believe that signing is detrimental to the deaf child’s development.

In my research, I have discovered that signing exact English has fallen out of favor as a main method for teaching the deaf. The system was found to have limitations including opposition by the deaf to the imposition of hearing standards on signing and teachers not being committed to presenting complete English in sign. “If the teacher is not wholly committed to this method, they may end up signing only portions of their spoken message, which relates neither to English nor ASL, further confusing the deaf child.” (Gustason 2) Signing exact English is a very tedious endeavor. “Think of the misinformation the deaf child gets if the adult signs incorrectly. Acting upon wrong information could make the child do something reasonable given their interpretation of the information, but that looks stupid to others.” (Allen, DeLuca, and Napoli 16)

One of the most interesting things I discovered in my research is the push by many educators toward bilingual and bicultural models of literacy education for the deaf. This means that deaf children would have a sign language as their first language and English (or whatever language their family speaks) as their second language. “In this way, the earliest needs for communication are met and there is then the avenue to learn written language. There is no evidence that you need to have oral ability in a first language to gain the ability to read and write in a second language.” (Mayer, Akamatsu 2; Starr-Ashton)

François Grojean states in his paper “Living with Two Languages and Two Cultures” that “most deaf people are indeed bilingual.” (9) Bilingualism in the deaf community remains poorly understood as many people view signing as merely gesturing and not a language. It has been a recent event that ASL has been declared “a bona fide natural human language”. (Allen, DeLuca, and Napoli 14) ASL, like all languages, has its own syntax and grammar rules. For instance, articles (a, an, the) are not used or the verb “to be”. Many institutions of higher education, including Neumann College, now offer ASL to its students to meet their foreign language requirement. Strides are being made with ASL finally being considered a language.

Most deaf people also live in two worlds, which makes them bicultural. They identify with the Deaf community, but also have ties to the hearing world since the vast majority come from hearing families. Therefore, “it is important that deaf children be exposed to both cultures so they can interact as best as they can in both.” (Grojean 12)

In my opinion, this is a great step forward in alleviating the stigma of signing and deafness. Since the vast majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents, parents need to understand that their children can live in both worlds and that one is not better than the other. We need to move away from the prejudice that the deaf are dumb simply because they cannot speak. Deaf educators need to allow deaf children the opportunity to explore both the hearing and deaf cultures to which they will be a part. With the advent of major advances in technology and the computer revolution, deaf children today have the same access to information, and the world, as their hearing counterparts.

Speaking of advances in technology, I am also interested in the impact technology has had on the written English skills of deaf children. In this case, some of the technologies I am referring to are pagers and telecommunication devices for the deaf (TTY/TDD) (see appendix iii).

TTYs are no longer the rage they once were. There was a time when a deaf child could not wait for his or her first TTY, same as a hearing child could not wait to get a telephone in his or her room. At the time, it was a great way for the deaf to keep in touch with their friends typing conversations on the TTY. Now technology has produced pagers. Pagers are to the deaf what cell phones are to the hearing. It is interesting to walk around the campus of Gallaudet University (Located in Washington, DC, Gallaudet University is the world leader in liberal education and career development for deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduate students.) and see all the students walking around, heads down, thumbs flying over the keypad, keeping in touch with their friends and families. However, I was a bit concerned that all the shortcuts that are used in text messaging and instant messaging were somehow going to change their written English skills. I have been told that there is no evidence that “learning a second writing system (such as a second alphabet or a character system) has a negative impact on the use of the first writing system.” (Napoli) Starr-Ashton relates that, “It actually improves their ability to make sense of what they read. Think of how hard you first had to work to make sense of the language people use in Instant Messaging, it was confusing, but then you tied it into things you know, started to learn the patterns, etc. It is another avenue for learning a language. There is nothing that would lead me to believe that the use of pagers would negatively impact grammar and writing skills.”

Also in my e-mail interview with Starr-Ashton, she states, “Technology has rapidly increased literacy rates among deaf students. They have the desire to learn English because their friends all have the technology and they want to communicate. The students have reasons now to learn English. They have a reason to want to expand their vocabulary. They want to chat with friends outside of school. It has exploded their ability to part of the hearing world.”

Therefore, as you can tell from this, technology is vastly improving deaf children’s chances of being able to function in both the hearing and deaf worlds.

Another great stride for the deaf was the passage of a law in 1991 that required all TV manufacturers to have their TVs caption ready capable. With this, the deaf now have access to what is happening in the world as it happens. As Starr-Aston noted in our e-mail interview, “The events of September 11 were captioned live! They didn’t have to ask anyone what was happening.” This is an amazing technology, not only because it is instantaneous, but also because the deaf can form their own opinions of things and not have an interpreter’s spin thrown in. With the captioning always on, they are always reading. This can only help to enhance their reading comprehension skills.

In conclusion, it seems to me that educators are no clearer than they were twenty years ago about the best way to teach the deaf. Unfortunately, it still falls on the parents who, for the most part, have no prior knowledge on which to base decisions regarding the education of their deaf children. “That parents are the ones to make these decisions on behalf of their child is unavoidable and regrettable. It is unavoidable because of the critical age for language acquisition … before the age of five to seven when children cannot make these types of decisions. However, it is regrettable because these decisions are intrinsic to the child’s identity.” (Allen, DeLuca, and Napoli 10) Unfortunately, most hearing parents have no idea what is best or even what is available and not much time to make a decision. A lot still depends on the teaching method available in the local school district or county of residence. From this research, I have found that educating the deaf child is still very much an individual process.

However, when you try to force a method on a child that is not right for him or her, it can cause serious delays in the acquisition of language. Therefore, it seems to me that for the sake of the deaf child, all deaf educators should be open to using whatever method works best for the individual child, and put aside the notion that one method is superior to another. In other words, the best interest of the child should come first. Unfortunately, for the next generation of deaf children, the same old debates continue.

I knew Becky Handley through my very good friend Mary-Kathryn Rogers via internet around 1998 before I enrolled MSSD. I didn’t know they went to MSSD until they told me because I thought they went to Mississippi School for the Deaf. Anyway, I would like to talk about Becky’s family. She is only deaf in the family so you know the rest are hearing. When I first came to MSSD, Becky was first girl I asked out and she wasn’t ready for a relationship as she told me she would think about it. However, I ended up dating her best friend Mary-Kathryn and that relationship didn’t work out so well. Becky and I had hidden feelings for each other for few years after my Senior year at MSSD. I was chasing Becky when I was at Gallaudet and she was so resistant until I finally made a move on her by kiss. We were in love in secret for few months until we finally announced that we are dating on February 14, 2004. And we have been together ever since. Currently, we are at Avalon, New Jersey with her family at her beach house and it was realyl lovely being here. But at same time, I wish I could attend Deaf Bilingual Coalition protest and it was shame for me nto to go, but maybe next time. This is why I am publishing some posts relating to Deaf Bilingual Coalition.

Anyway, when I met Becky’s parents, I was envious of Becky because she has hearing parents who know sign language and it would have been nice to have entire family who know signs. Actually, they know most of ASL but they use home signs. When they signed, I thought they were talking about “sick” while that sign is actually meant “thinking”. It was confusing at first until I got used to know what they are saying using home signs. Even at dinner time, Becky’s Dad would pick on ASL because he prefer DSL (Dad Sign Language). It was good time. Becky’s brother Ben signed so well and is better than her parents, especially Ben was worried about making mistakes in signing wrong. But really, he is really doing GREAT! I’m glad to know him.

In some way, I feel that they are my secondary family because the environment is different from my family. My family doesn’t know sign language when I grew up until Mom was willing to learn few signs for me, which I am grateful for that. However, I know Aunt Connie knows most signs but we rarely talk to each other because I spend most of my time at home and I wasn’t outgoing person.

Anyway, I want to show you what Becky’s Mother named Theresa wrote her essay for her college. Please watch for the next post for this.

I remember participate in science program provided for disabled and deaf people (yes, they consider “deaf” as “disability” in their persepctive) and I met a deaf friend Cody who know ASL. One time, for a special event from science program, we went to bowling and I saw difference between my family and Cody’s family. My mom and I were quiet most of the time because she usally start conversation by asking me what I need such as clothes, food, etc as I never knew so well about her personal life, and I watched Cody being so chatty in sign language with her parents. That hit me hard because I am missing social life. Cody’s parents are hearing and they encouraged me to learn ASL by leaving me a business card to Deaf Action Center where they provide ASL classes. I was hesitant about taking ASL courses but when one morning came, my education specialist told me that there is a law requiring me to have interpreter so that’s when I decided to go try learn ASL. It took me less than six months to pass ASL courses and the staffs who worked there are incredibly wonderful people. I never forget them. My girlfriend Becky asked me if I remember my very first sign and I don’t remember it because I was “brainwashed” to forget signs that I learned before SJI. However, when I learn about ASL and meeting some hearing parents who has deaf children, it felt wonderful to be free and I realized that sign language actually help me express my feelings more easier than using oralism because I had trouble finding right words of how I feel. I never regret learning ASL.

From 8th grade to Freshman in Captain Shreve High School, I was given an awesome interpreter named Will and he is so fantastic in ASL. He would tell me stories about his experiences with his interpreting job and he told me that he was frustrating with teachers at Turner School because they are not good at signing. That’s when I learned that it had become problems in deaf education and why some deaf children are two grades behind. Even he blew up at one of teachers because she tried to make up a sign for deaf children and he told her that she cannot do that by adding new sign to ASL if she is hearing. Anyway, I was only deaf student in Captain Shreve High School and it was tough year for me because of my social life.

It took me a lot of thinking and I told my mom that I wanted to go to deaf school that allowed ASL. She didn’t want me to go and we ended up in argument. I ran away from home few times when I was teenager. It was rough time. My Dad, Doug, came to me and he wanted to understand me. I admitted to him that I was having hard time making hearing friends even I still have few loyal hearing friends, even today I still visit them and they’re still my great friends. Dad decided to look for a deaf school and we thought there are only three deaf schools in America. They are SJI, Central Institute for the Deaf, and Louisiana School for the Deaf. Boy, we were wrong and there are over hundreds of deaf schools across United States of America.

That’s when I enrolled in Model Secondary School for the Deaf and made a lot of friends there. I choose MSSD because that’s what my Dad wanted me to go rather than Louisiana School for the Deaf. There are a lot of problems in LSD especially both education and social. However, I still struggles with my social life because after three years of lacking social life, I developed anti-social characteristics and I still fight it today. I prefer living in deaf world because I do not face communication barrier there. But I am grateful that I went there.

I left MSSD at the end of my sophomore for my personal reason and mental health. Mom wanted me to return to Captain Shreve High School and I didn’t want to. I told her I want to go to Huntington High School because that’s where I heard there is deaf program there and it is good place for me to go there to make deaf friends. Also, it’s an ideal because it give me second chance to make hearing friends as well. Mom doesn’t want me to go there because that school is too far and I really didn’t care how far it is. We had school distrcit problems and I was forced to go to Captain Shreve High School. It only bring painful memories of me trying to make friends there. I remember Dad was yelling at me that Hungtington is a black school and tried to scare me from going by telling me stereotypes of black students being gangsters. Of course, I didn’t listen because I’m tired of hearing people looking down on deaf people, I’m tired of white people looking down on black people. I really don’t care about STATUS. Then that’s when Mom and I had a huge argument and Tim (ex-husband) grabbed my arm and pulled me out of house into backyard where he was yelling too fast that I don’t understand him. I told him to stop several times until I realized he is really out of control. I knew Mom was inside the house so I screamed Mom in hoping that she would rescue me. She never did. It was first time I felt betrayed from her. I escaped from the home and ran to my neighbor, asking him to drive me to Dad’s. I told Dad what happened and I was broken down in depressed. Then I learned that Tim is accusing me of stealing his huge bottle of vodka, which I didn’t. I didn’t return home for three weeks because Mom didn’t beleive in my innocence as I was crying and depressed as if no one in my family is helping me except my Dad. (This is another long story but I think I already mentioned it in my other post. If not, I’ll post about it later.)

Anyway, I finally transfered from Captain Shreve to Huntington High. I was surprised to see very same old deaf friends I met at Turner School. Huntington High is next to Turner School. And we became very good friends and I actually was impressed that they are doing so well in socializing. And remember Dad’s stereotypes? It turned out to be false because I was very impressed to see black students dressing so well as if they’re lawyers. (Huntington is law magnet). And they are really friendly! Not what I imagined from what Dad had told me. I knew it is wrong to tell people of stereotypes because you don’t know them. Ironically, I noticed big differences between hearing students at HHS and at CSHS is that HHS friends are friendly and willing to make friends while CSHS students are little bit snobby and stick in cliques. It helped my social life a little better. But I stayed there for one year until I decided to return to MSSD for my senior because my senior is important to my life and it is my last chance to make the best out of my social life as possible. Unfortunately, I never went to Prom because I couldn’t find a date so that didn’t bother me. I even asked Becky to go out with me as a friend but MSSD cannot allow Gallaudetian to enter prom, which sucked. I did attend to Homecoming dance twice, my sophomore year and my senior.

And I am attending at Gallaudet University where I am much happier with my social life more than in hearing world. It doesnt mean I’ll stay out of hearing world forever because I am still part of it. My mom finally learn some signs and fingerspelling and I am happy for that because we became more closer than ever. We still talk but when I miss words she said, she would fingerspell for me. It had helped decrease my frustration. And even for MSSD, it helped me a lot to deal with my temper tantrum because I am able to learn my mistakes and flaws from my friends. MSSD changed my life dramatically. After thinking about my life at SJI, it only made me more angry and frustrating and I often thought thiis question myself “Did this oralism method fuel my anger more because it is very exhausting and frustrating work?”

I remember taking Deaf Studies course at Gallaudet University and I never forget Ben Bahan’s ASL story video called “Bird of a Different Feather” where a regular bird with small beak wanted to become like an eagle with huge beak and at the end that bird with replaced eagle beak become so lost between two worlds. I can totally feel related to it.

This is my life as ex-oralist and ex-CI user. I am more happy with who I am. I sometimes felt betrayed from this oralism method because it failed my social life. And I wonder same thing for other oralists who struggled the same thing. But this doesn’t mean it apply to all oralists. Only few are successful. And sometimes I felt that oralism banning ASL can harm deaf education and I can see that it caused so much division within deaf community.

This is why we need unity in deaf community and this is exactly why I support John Egbert’s Deaf Bilingual Coalition. I am really looking forward to see this coalition to succeed.

EDIT: If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

When I was little, I was confused with my own identity as my parents took me to St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf for oralism program and I never understood why American Sign Language is such a forbidden language. I remember the kindergarten very well and I stayed there for about two years after I first enrolled there when I was about six or seven. Then I advanced to second grade leaving few classmates behind because I finally was able to write sentence on my own while the rest of the class still depend on houseparents to help them write sentence in notebook everyday for homework, which we are suppose to write something what happen or what did we do all day for “diary”. When I was in third grade, I was able to excel so well with classworks and homeworks and advanced to 4th grade, leaving almost all of my classmates in third grade to repeat. I didn’t understand this until I came to possibilities why this happen to my classmates. I often ask myself today, “Did they have hard time understanding teacher by using lipreading and talking?” or “Were they not being attentive to the teacher as they are tired of using oral method?” I really don’t know.

However, I remember I found a video tape cassette with my name on the label on it. I was curious to see what’s in it. I looked and discovered myself that I blew up at teacher as I threw stuffs at her especially game board. I was shocked and I didn’t remember except I remember this school before St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf. I don’t remember which school but I’ll ask my mom about it later, perhap ask her to write her experience when she find out about me becoming deaf or her decision to send me to school. Anyway, I remember my frustration with my teacher when I really didn’t HEAR ANYTHING with my hearing aids so I decided to play with switches. It actually went on and I actually hear something. Then teacher saw me and scolded me, forcecd me to turned off. I was dumbfounded and didn’t understand why teacher do that until I was older enough to suspect that they are trying to prove that hearing aids don’t work on me so I can become best candidate for Cochlear Implant. It was the time I still haven’t developed a language and I only knew very few signs which I completely forgotten during SJI time. So it never happened for me to get cochlear implant in that school. I wonder about that.

I was the second person who has Cochlear Implant in my classroom and I got it on January 1990. (I was eight years old.) When I use it for a while, I hated it from the beginning because it was giving me headache too often. I usually lose patient and became more frustrating while any of my family members pressure me to wear CI all the time, just exactly like staffs at SJI did. I feel prisoned. It only increase my frustration and I lose temper easily because I didn’t understand.

During my time at SJI, I was excellent student there except for the fact that I have uncontrollable temper tantrum which I recalled the principal tearing Certificate of Merit in front of my classmates because of me losing temper tantrum during recess time. Sometimes I’ll lose temper in classroom where teacher forced me to go to principal’s office which I was punished to stay in her office ALL DAY until really late evening like 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. When I asked principal that I need to go to bathroom, I was denied. Until later, it was 5th grade that I became C average student because I lost motivation in school. Of course, I was told that I was best at lip-reading and talking, but I don’t mean best of all classmates in school. However, I was suspended from school twice due to temper tantrum and I know it was miscommunication with my staffs but I will not go into details of what’s exactly happen because I didn’t understand why staffs were giving me hard time. I really didn’t get along well with dormitory staffs except two of my favorite staffs.

When I was suspended, Mom had to send me to Turner Middle School where they have deaf classroom. It was first time I met deaf classmates who used ASL and I remember my Mom was pressuring two hearing teachers who teach the deaf classroom with American Sign Language that she didnt want them to teach me ASL. Of course, I was stubborn to learn ASL because I was told by some staffs that “ASL make deaf people look stupid” or “Once you learn ASL, you’ll never use lipreading and talking again.” Of course, I thought it was true. That’s when I decided not to be friend with any of those deaf classmates who use ASL and they made fun of me a lot. After Turner Middle School, I wanted to go back to SJI and it was my last chance to be good. I never get the chance to know those deaf classmates with ASL skills because I was ignorant audist.

However, I didn’t last long there and there was misunderstanding. I was told by staff to wait in living room before lining up for dinner. I waited there very long time until different staff came to me and told me that they already left to dinner. I was confused and went there. I ended up with punishment that I have to do dishes. I was hesitant and willing to clean up the table after dinner. Later, I found out that dormitory supervisor had to tell me news that they no longer accept me living in dorm because I was reported losing temper, which I knew I cannot afford to lose one, that I never did lose temper. Of course, I was with my step-Dad Doug (I call him “Dad”) and I was crying hard because I’m leaving my friends there behind and the possibilities that I might never see them again.

As I left SJI, I never knew what’s ahead of me but I realized today that it was best thing ever happened to me. Mom wanted what’s best for me by sending me to Evangel Academy (Middle and High School) but the principal there had guts to tell my mom that there is no way they can accept deaf student like me. I actually had to see my mom crying so hard as if there is no hope for me. I thought with my lipreading and talking would help me great deal to go through hearing school so I asked Mom, “Why not I go to my friend’s school?” It was childhood hearing friend who live two houses away from my house. I enrolled in Youree Drive Middle School and became straight A’s student in order to prove Evangel school that they’re wrong to doubt my academic intelligence. At first, adminstirators put me in English class which is not regular or advanced, but rather class for students who have hard time learning because they thought it is common that ALL deaf children are poor in English and other subjects, which of course, is not entirely true. When teacher was astonished with my English skills, the administrators transfered me to advanced classes and I continued to be straight A’s student.

I was so successful in education but what I am missing is social life. I thought I would be able to interact with hearing students just like SJI teachers told me that oralism will succeed me. Don’t forget that I was told that I was best lip-reader and able to talk very well except I struggle with making “ch” sound or confused with “e” and “i” (other similar sound like “m” and “n” by listening, you get an idea what I meant). I tried to talk with hearing students as normal as possible but we always ended up having pen and notebook, writing back and forth. It was frustrating. I was able to make only few friends and I tried to make more friends but they don’t seem interest in having conversation with me via pen and notebook. I didn’t understand because I understand deaf students, hearing teachers and staffs at SJI. I came to realization that it really depend on people’s lip movements and it takes really longer time between me and others to understand each other because I have to study their lip movements and they have to know my usual talk. It’s exhausting work. I became more isolated by focusing in education more than social life. Why is that? Because staffs at SJI always kept telling me education is the most important tool in my life. I realized that it’s not true because you need to balance education and social life. From lacking my social experiences, I run into several conflicts that I had trouble manage to solve myself. With my history of temper tantrum, I had faced the possibilities that I may end up in juvenile jail because I could not control my temper tantrum.

My relationship with my family is very limited because I spend most of my life living in dormitory because my family and I ran into several arguments, miscommunications, or misunderstandings. I was frustrating and sometimes I blame my mom for putting me through so much. I grew very distant from my family except I am very close to my brothers because we chat a lot than with my parents. I sometimes come to my step-Dad for solutions to my problems and we usually talk a lot, but sometimes we ended up using pen and notebook.

I was desperate to improve my social skills and I tried to have hearing friends come over my house, but eventually they stopped coming to my house. When my mom bought a computer and connected it to AOL, I became hooked to AIM and chatrooms because they were my only way to keep in touch with friends. I would look for deaf people that I could make friends and we chat a lot all night. It became my “telephone”. I decided that I respect my family as they use phone during day so I would use internet all night. But that became a problem because my mom and her ex-husband Tim (he’s an audistic jerk who tried to ban me from using TTY, Flashing Phone Alert devices, etc) believed that internet is hazardous to my life. We fought in argument. But that is long story and thankfully, Tim is gone since he was caught having affair with other woman.

To be continued…

(Proceed to Part Two)

I realized commenting on my web site was off due to spams because I was not active in blogging for a while.

For those who had trouble commenting, I’m really sorry!! If you want to share your thoughts, please do so!

Please check my two previous posts regarding CI Activation link.

Cringed with Cochlear Implant Youtube Videos

Second Response to YouTube of CI Activation

Update: I found mother’s (from CI Activation link) comment (Source: CI/AVT vlogs/blogs are a reality now by Jared Evans) and I’d like to comment on this.

“Hey, guess what. This is the real mother of that very real website. It is not a plot. We had a son implanted in 2001 (Elliot) and then again last fall and this month. The reason we changed it was because Oliver was born. He’s also the baby in the youtube video. We are not alone by any means in our enjoyment of AV and our boys’ cochlear implants. We haven’t done a whole lot of updating over the years because we have 4 children and are quite busy. We are lucky to get pictures taken of them all, keep the laundry clean and cook dinner. But anyway, we have never had any help from any company or manufacturer when we made our site back in 2001, and we were just lucky that the domain was open. My husband likes doing computer stuff, so if it looks good, that’s why. Ever bit of it is done by us, every sentence was written by us, and every photo was real. We have never gotten a cent from any manufacturer or company. We’re not even “parent reps.” We are just regular people.

By the way, we will never entertain rude comments on Oliver’s youtube video. Only those which are uplifting and helpful to other parents will be allowed. We had a lot of very crude and disgusting things said to us, and we know the truth because our 6 year old is a very happy little boy. We want to continue helping others, but we will never reply to those who are

Posted by: Amy | June 02, 2007 at 03:47 PM

I’d like to add this, there is no warning that she is not interest in “rude comments” but prefer “uplifting comments” on her youtube. If she did, I wouldn’t bother to comment.

And second thing, I am very confused. From this comment, her name is Amy. But if you look at CI Activation Link:

Oliver Cochlear Implant Activation 12/2006 via link submit · Sat, Jun 02 2007 · 13 hours ago Category: Tech

This is a video of my 6 months old son’s cochlear implant miracle. I wanted to share this wonderful miracle with all of you. Cochlear implants do work, and this video is proof of that. Kathy

See her different name, Kathy? Kathy or Amy? Something’s fishy going on.

Your opinions?

There are good responses related to the link of baby’s CI activation after my post.

CI Implant Video Post from The Talkie

Ben Vess’s Response to Cochlear Implant Activation Post

I want to add few more things. I wanted to see if Kathy is listening person or the ignorant one. I didn’t do anything wrong like cussing or unneccessary comment but I did say I respected her decision and I don’t have problem with that.

Things that cringed me the most:

1) “Miracle” is a dirty word from my perspective.

2) Kathy also banned me after my only first attempt in having dialogue by commenting and I really don’t want to start argument. I feel that she is being closed-minded.

3) I’m tired of hearing people saying “this is PROOF, that is PROOF” without realizing it is only beginning for the child to start journey using cochlear implant.

4) What worries me the most is strict oralism approach without considering bilingualism approach? I do not know which side Kathy is on, but the real question is, what make her post her youtube in deafread? Attention?

5) I feel that some hearing people like Kathy is drawing a line between hearing world and deaf world. What’s wrong with coming together and have a civilized dialogues such as how to provide the BEST education possible?

What about comment like “Your baby is so cute. Will he learn sign language?” Will that comment offend her? Maybe.

I’m shocked. I never felt so dirty in my stomach.

I saw the link from deaf read and here it is Oliver Cochlear Implant Activation 12/2006

I decided to go ahead and leave comment like this:

“You call that miracle? Wait till your baby grow up.

I am deaf adult with cochlear implant and I stopped using it ten years ago because of frustrating experience especially audism. I still use lipreading and talking but I choose American Sign Language over oralism.

However, I hope you made right decision and I respect that. I wish a good luck to your baby’s journey.”

I submitted that comment and it was visible on the page until few minutes later, my comment was deleted RIGHT AWAY!

Hmmmm, no offense. I feel like some hearing people can be ignorant sometimes and it looked like this person do not read deafread entirely.

Why hide the truth because it hurt?
We have to fight for spreading the truth as well as fighting agBAD’s extreme colonialism of oralism.

Anyway, I know it’s been a long time since I last updated.

About few nights ago, I was being lazy on couch turning my head to the left, watching TV. I have cochlear implant on the left side of my head. Then I moved around, I felt something “pulling” inside my head and it is unbearable annoying feeling. No, it is not pain but it’s the feeling. To be honest, I felt like that before and it is very rare to get that kind of feelings. I’ll say at least one or two times a year, then I’ll feel nothing for few years. As I’ve said before, I stopped using CI since my round transmitter broke during my 8th grade. I never complained to my parents or audiologists like this because I figured this kind of feeling is just normal and temporary. I guess I was wrong and I should have at least reported it. However, this feeling I had few nights ago is not the same as before because those feelings of “pulling inside my head” tend to be very short like three to ten seconds. It lasted for more than an hour. I plummetted into depression because I didnt like the feeling very much. I would tell myself why did I ever receive this stupid implant?

For a while, this annoying “pulling” faded away. I was back to myself being happy and hoped it won’t come back again. It did come back the next day. But not like that night, only short feeling once in a while. Then, today, I got same feeling again. Then I knew in my mind that this is not normal. I don’t get that everyday. I started to worry about it. Now I started feeling there is pressure under my cochlear implant very mildly.

I decided to post this. I have question for cochlear implant users: Have you ever experience the same thing as I do? I need to know that I’m not the only one.

Everytime some bloggers post about controversy over SLCC, it depressed me even more of knowing that it’s advocating cochlear implant. Everytime bloggers post about oralism issues that they are against it, thoughts rushed through my mind that everyday a deaf child is getting implanted even I cringed on newspaper writing about hearing parents saying it’s a miracle that deaf child can hear with cochlear implant. I recalled a scene in “Sound and Fury” that a hearing father claimed he supported CI 200% (Or was it 150%), I really feel bad even more for the child because they do not know what’s like growing up having one or how do they know that their child will lead a normal life.

I’m strongly against implanting on deaf children rather than deaf adult making their own decision, which I don’t have problem with that. I am angry at everything I went through when I was at St. Joseph’s Institute for the Deaf because I WISH I NEVER TOOK CI as a child. Because I was once too feebleminded and too young to decide what’s best for me.

I hated the scar on my head and I hated the pressure and I hated the “pulling” feeling. And yes, everytime blogger post about Milan, I wish it never took place. I felt that reading those kind of blogs on deafread does affect me psychologically and emotionally (both sad and angry).

I still feel the pressure right now and I’m very very FRUSTRATED!  If this is life-threatening situation and doctor asked me if I have a choice, replace new CI or remove it permanently. I’ll chose remove it permanently. I wish I am a millionaire so I can afford the surgery to remove it. When is “enough is enough” for deaf people to suffer?

I decided to post regarding two new candidates for SBG in order to spread the word.

They are LaToya Plummer and Delia Lozano-Martinez. Their website is foudn at: http://blog.deafread.com/therealdeal

I decided to post this because it was last minute for them to join so it’s best to have them known.

One of my classmates from Deaf Space III shared concerns with me about my previous post about the class and SLCC. Once he told me, I realized that he is right for few things. Now I must warn you. The previous post I made is my opinions alone and it does not reflect opinions of whole Deaf Space III. I admit that he is right for one thing that I FAILED “INSPECTING REPORT”. That’s why I said that I will post more later because there is a LOT LOT LOT of information and I want to bring them all on here, facts only separating from my opinions. I kind of disappointed that no one criticize what I said in last post but I receive one comment that criticize me which is good.

About SLCC, I don’t have problem with Sorenson and I agreed that the company itself had made huge impact on every deaf individual because of Video Phone techonology. But there are some concerns about SLCC itself as you can read a lot of blogs and vlogs about it. However, protesting against it is pointless and it will waste a lot of Gallaudet’s money. We need to think that we should be grateful to have Sorenson. I’m just disappointed about the postcard that I’ve heard from vlogs and there are some disagreements about it. However, we can still do something about it: Share your thoughts, Agree or Disagree, and debating without insulting each other.

It’s not easy to have a PERFECT design but I stongly beleive that Deaf Space is only beginning for the future where we can create Gallaudet University more unique than other universities.

What’s my plans? Well, I have notes with me and meet with some of classmates who took Deaf Space I and II as I’ve never took those two courses before. I took Deaf Space III for pleasure, and the reason I’m mentioning about this is that everyone is very curious of what’s like to have Deaf Space. And I don’t want to remind everyone that I’m expert but only a student who is motivated to learn from the course. Perhap some pictures of maps? Create surveys? Or asking for comments for creative ideas? Tell me what you think I should make plans.

If you are worried about commenting, you can comment anonymously as long as there is no cursing or insults.

Comments?