Nance Confer

But I am
grateful to have learned some strategies (times to give examples of
anguage, etc), and I think that it has helped my children.

*******

Yep. We are starting this process with my 22-month-old nephew. My kids never had the problems this child has and even though, as I explained to one of the therapist coordinators yesterday, we homeschool and don't push, this child needs some help. He has had a very difficult start in life and needs us to do more than what came natural with our own kids. OTOH, I will not participate in anything that I don't feel comfortable with and have been assured that all the interventions -- he has multiple problems -- are play based and very gentle. We'll see how it goes and feel free to use what helps and reject what doesn't. And we always have to keep in mind that this is a child who will be going to public school, which changes the equation a bit.

But all of this reminds me of the "swimming lessons" I took my son to when he was about one or so. They were more for me to learn how to help a little kid learn to swim than for him. He had fun but after a few we stopped going and I never needed to take DD to lessons.

Nance


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Adrean Clark

There's also the misconception that those in the medical community
tend to advocate - that learning sign prevents the child from
speaking. Even though I started off with Signing Exact English I'm
thankful my mother ignored that "advice."

I was also unaware of ASL and the deaf community until I was older. Is
your child aware of those options and given exposure to it? Like Joyce
says about schooled kids thinking force was better because it was all
they know, those you talked with, and what your daughter says now may
be because of those factors.

Your daughter is still deaf when the batteries die. I would suggest
looking into signing community events so that she can have that option
now. There are great children's stories in ASL on DVD (at
harriscomm.com ). Being 4 years old, the visual aspect would be a
bonus.

The point is, who says that speech therapy and hearing aids will help
your child have a "normal" life? There are deaf lawyers, college
presidents, business owners, internationally competitive athletes, and
no, they do not all work within an "isolated community." They interact
with a full spectrum of people, globally -- without having to speak
and hear.

...Now, it's true that the deaf/signing community is not perfect,
there is still a lot of pain and hurt from "intervention" among even
older adults. You will see varying reactions if not already. Take
the cochlear implant, for example. But one reason why it exists is
because like the unschooling community, there is joy in being among
other like-minded people who accept each other for who they are.

Adrean

On 4/25/08, keetry <keetry@...> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], "jenniferheffern"
> <jenniferheffern@...> wrote:
> >
> > If my daughter, now at almost 4, had decided at this point that
> > she did want to be able to hear all of the speech sounds available
> to
> > her (because she was frustrated that she couldn't hear everything,
> or
> > because her words were harder for people to understand, illiciting
> > frustration, etc), my NOT giving her amplification early on would
> > have produced that frustration,
>
> No, your dd's desire to hear better than her ears allowed or speak
> more clearly or have other people understand her better would've
> caused that frustration. Then it would be her choice to do something
> about it and that's the whole point.
>
> > No, she didn't choose to have
> > amplification and parent education/speech therapy when she was a
> > baby, but those steps saved us a lot of frustration at these later
> > ages.
>
>
> I don't see this statement as being about the child. It's also based
> on an assumption that not having amplification and therapy would've
> absolutely meant more frustration. Maybe it saved other people some
> frustration (because they didn't have to learn a new language ? )
> but there's no way to know if that's the case for the child.
>
> Alysia
>
>

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Adrean Clark

There's also the misconception that those in the medical community
tend to advocate - that learning sign prevents the child from
speaking. Even though I started off with Signing Exact English I'm
thankful my mother ignored that "advice."

I was also unaware of ASL and the deaf community until I was older. Is
your child aware of those options and given exposure to it? Like Joyce
says about schooled kids thinking force was better because it was all
they know, those you talked with, and what your daughter says now may
be because of those factors.

Your daughter is still deaf when the batteries die. I would suggest
looking into signing community events so that she can have that option
now. There are great children's stories in ASL on DVD (at
harriscomm.com ). Being 4 years old, the visual aspect would be a
bonus.

The point is, who says that speech therapy and hearing aids will help
your child have a "normal" life? There are deaf lawyers, college
presidents, business owners, internationally competitive athletes, and
no, they do not all work within an "isolated community." They interact
with a full spectrum of people, globally -- without having to speak
and hear.

...Now, it's true that the deaf/signing community is not perfect,
there is still a lot of pain and hurt from "intervention" among even
older adults. You will see varying reactions if not already. Take
the cochlear implant, for example. But one reason why it exists is
because like the unschooling community, there is joy in being among
other like-minded people who accept each other for who they are.

Adrean

On 4/25/08, keetry <keetry@...> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], "jenniferheffern"
> <jenniferheffern@...> wrote:
> >
> > If my daughter, now at almost 4, had decided at this point that
> > she did want to be able to hear all of the speech sounds available
> to
> > her (because she was frustrated that she couldn't hear everything,
> or
> > because her words were harder for people to understand, illiciting
> > frustration, etc), my NOT giving her amplification early on would
> > have produced that frustration,
>
> No, your dd's desire to hear better than her ears allowed or speak
> more clearly or have other people understand her better would've
> caused that frustration. Then it would be her choice to do something
> about it and that's the whole point.
>
> > No, she didn't choose to have
> > amplification and parent education/speech therapy when she was a
> > baby, but those steps saved us a lot of frustration at these later
> > ages.
>
>
> I don't see this statement as being about the child. It's also based
> on an assumption that not having amplification and therapy would've
> absolutely meant more frustration. Maybe it saved other people some
> frustration (because they didn't have to learn a new language ? )
> but there's no way to know if that's the case for the child.
>
> Alysia
>
>

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

John Lee Clark

If I might add something: Deaf children are already normal. The human body,
in whatever form it takes, is extremely limited and weak. It cannot fly on
its own; it cannot move very fast; it cannot see without light; it cannot be
underwater for long. Yet technology makes it possible for us to do these
things. Deaf people do everything, only they do some things differently
sometimes. It is society that likes to put down people for different
irrational reasons, just so that a few are considered superior to all
others. Deafness is one of the many excuses society uses to do this. But
society will use anything it can use, so the answer to being okay is NOT
trying to fit its ideal but coping with what you are in spite of that silly
ideal.



I believe some of the people here unschool their kids because they can
provide their children with an environment in which they are absolutely
okay, no matter what labels sick people have for them based on gender, skin
color, learning style, whatever. The kids are REALLY okay; unschooling is a
great way to reinforce this.










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