Your Input Requested
Two months ago, the headmistress of the Brilliant Stars International College strolled onto the Rohana campus, looking for anyone to talk to. I was the first person she found, and over the next hour, she shared her challenge with me.
She had a deaf girl, Amra, who was seven years old and had been enrolled in her school. The headmistress wanted to help her succeed, but wasn’t sure how. “Perhaps some helping points?” she asked.
Two months and fifteen pages later, here is my answer. Only, I want your input first before I give it to her.
As I describe almost immediately in the document, all of what I have typed are based on my own experience as a mainstreamed child from fifth to twelfth grade (and to a much lesser extent, throughout college, too). I’m sure some of you will have some interesting ideas to add, or maybe find a point which I have made that you disagree with. Whatever it is, please let me know (and soon, please)! I have also tried to present the information in a culturally sensitive context, but simultaneously sending the subtle message to not let cultural nuances get into the way of her education.
You may download the document here. (MS Word) Enjoy!
A few important suggestions:
include the importance of parental empowerment and self-awareness of the existing laws (i.e. ADA, IDEA, espectially with respect to her IEP).
include possible contact information for resources, questions, and point-of-contact to individials trained to accomodate this child (i.e. the local special school district)
include some contact information to local parents with children who have disabilities (although A is Deaf, you will be surprised how much knowledge local parents have). Plus, its a good therapy to vent frustrations and concerns to someone who has already “been there” as opposed to your ordinary ‘desperate housewife’ neighbor who will do nothing to the parents’ ventialation except to ask if they want a martini.
lastly, and I feel the most importantly, contact local state agencies and maybe even the federal agency (i.e. DOE) to make sure that the school has done everything in compliance with the law.
I feel you did a good job of making the letter look like that it would benefit the school more than the child but in reality, its the other way around.
g’luck
D
Beautiful. I can think of nothing meaningful to add or suggest for the document. Amra is lucky to have at least two professionals actively concerned with her schooling (yourself and the headmistress).
-Belle, a mainstreamed signing product of U.S. public schools
Adam,
I found your enclosure for the English-speaking school headmistress to be kinda contradicatory in despite of your best effort to give her the balanced perceptive of deaf education techinques and tools.
At least you already greatly emphasized that your submittance is not of any professional opinion or expert in deaf education.
You seems give the school headmistress too many options which could lend to more confusion and incomphresion of logical means to educate deaf 7 years old on academic grounds.
You did not mention about any necessity for deaf adult and peer mentor to guide the 7 years old for social, intellectual and academic development.
You mispell “ensuing”. Is that supposed to be “ensuring” or what?
Is the oral education most successful method of deaf education? Your impression surely leave me LOL! The country like Sri Lanka, there are not much auditory equipments to ensure the 7 years old Sri Lanka complete successfully in the oral education.
Your quote - “Deaf people could do anything except hear” is kinda tiresome quips from I. King Jordan, disgraced Gallaudet University president. Anything come from IKJ is much disqualified and illogical in my own book.
The use of “deafness” ought to be largely discouraged. It usually imply our physical shortcoming as some kind of disease or problematic. You should write “Being a deaf person ……”, instead of “deafness”. Don’t people use “blackness”, “whiteness”, “gayness” to describe the particular minority?
We, deaf people are basically a linguistic and cultural minority! That is very simple.
We are not being pathologically labeled. We celebrate our existence as deaf people. True Godsend!
Many thanks for sharing your submittance with all of us, DeafRead readers and viewers. I hope that I am not being harsh on you.
ASLize yours,
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
Proud Culturally Deaf Person
rlmdeaf@hotmail.com
Hey Adam..
Ok a couple of thoughts.. I dont know how realistic this is for Amra & i understand the parents are resistant. but I have to stress how much knowing sign language “first” was crucial. I think Deb wrote something in one of your blogs earlier this year about our experience at TLC & how absolutely essential that was. At one point you say something like “It is important to understand that learning sign language is not a detriment to Amra’s language development. In fact, it may support her development of spoken and written languages by enabling Amra to understand how language works! ” — and i think that could be stated a bit more strongly.. Such as how lingustics experts have pretty much determined that fluency in 1 language then makes it easier to learn everything else — which you allude to when discussing Sinhala/English but I think it could be brought up again or elaborated on a bit more. Often parents are afraid that sign language will detract from learning, OR that it arouses fears in parents that they will not be able to communicate with their child.. and so i think it might be worth stating how many people use sign language but also speak, also interact with parents, ya da ya da.
I thought your point about Deaf peers was essential. I once told the story about the “locker room” and how its impossible to lipread everyone when youre in the locker room after track practice, and so that was when having Debbie with me really contributed to a “normal” school experience. we gabbed, gossiped, etc.. which may not seem like “intelluctual” development but was essential to our psychological and emotional development.
finally, one thing to share.. a former roommate of mine (the girl from canada?) didnt learn sign language until she was around 11yrs old.. and when she was growing up she would hit people frequently. she was considered rather violtile in that sense and she once told me that she now feels it was directly connected to feeling an inability to really connect with other people as she was raised in a strictly oral environment. i couldn’t help but be reminded of her story when you mentioned Amra’s tendency to hit.
you might want to ask deb about her experience in Jamaica cus she had to talk with people about Deaf education & language & all that stuff & had the benefit of a linguistics background. whether or not it would inform how you write this document, it might at least be of interest to you to hear what she has to share.
one last thought about speech therapists.. i had great ones and bad ones. the great ones used games & other creative ways to teach speech. they also did not make me feel inferior. i think sometimes what people experience in speech class (and what i experienced w/ the bad one) is this sense that they’re trying to fix something that is WRONG with you. and that you’re trying to become something that you realistically cant ever truly become (someone with “hearing speech”). when i was a kid, we learned that we had many different options for how we could communicate. we were told that we would be able to choose between pen/paper, speech/lipreading, and very seldomly interpreters (in the day to day context, not at work). but it was presented as an option an we needed to learn speech so that we would have that option.. but it wasn’t presented as “YOU MUST SPEAK! Even if youre uncomfortable with it!”. and i think that actually made us more willing to pay attention and try hard.
one other suggestion is that they have one on one sessions with her in the BI-BI method. as you know i grew up in a BI-BI school and had a great experience.. but i also worked one-on-one readin books outloud and doing things that appealed to the “hard of hearing” side of me, which isnt quite what would be right for Amra, but Im thinking maybe the reverse could work for her. if she isnt in a BI Bi school, maybe she could at least have one-on-one sessions in which she gets to use sign language, etc.. just an idea..
oh and one more story! this doesn’t seem relevant to Amra, but i just want to point out that in the BI BI system there is room for flexibility. at my school there was a group of hard of hearing girls that met once a week with a “counselor” and we did jump rope songs, and participated in those kinds of “hearing” activities so that we were not forced to abandon the fact that we .. really could hear a bit. i think that was also essential to our development and confidence in who we were.
someone else mentioned deaf role models - absolutely! yes!
btw when i met with the Parent Infant Program recently, quite a few people said they were teaching their child both, ASL and spoken english & then they would let their child decide.. one touching storyw as of the child who has 1 grandmother who signs and 1 grandmother who didnt.. and the child reacted strongly to the one who does sign.. the story there isnt necesasrily “sign” its going to be different for every child, but the message is to listen to what your child is telling you. i dont know if you can say that though.. just a thought.
ps the child with grandmothers that i was talking about was very young — like 1.5 or 2.. they had not learned ASL fully or anything.. so it appeared more teling than if she was 5 and had already developed a tendency to go with people who know sign.
I’m quite disappointed in your exclusion of the option of Cued Speech. It has been proven to be a valid mode of communication, especially when it comes to acquiring a spoken language.
I realize that the parents are against learning sign language, so perhaps offer Cued Speech as an alternative to sign language as it allows them to speak their spoken language while providing visual information at the same time.
I would say this about Cued Speech. It has potential in various applications such as auditoral rehabilitation. Thanks to a better understanding of the English Language through Cued Speech, I was able to understand more and more speech with the CI that I received when I was 6 going on 7. I also was able to understand just how the sounds were made in speech-therapy. Lastly, if the hearing aids fail or progressive hearing loss occurs, Cued Speech can still be used to convey spoken language.
I believe you would be providing a more balanced report if you were to include the option of Cued Speech
Hi Adam!
You have done a very good job of covering the issues related to the education of a student who is deaf or hard of hearing. There are a couple of things in your document that I either disagree with, or am concerned with how they are stated. I have added comments to your document that I hope you find helpful, in addition to the great suggestions made above.
I am curious… If there are teachers of the deaf at your school, why are you the one giving opinions? I don’t say that as an insult, only that you yourself say that what you are offering is not professional advice. If there is a professional available…
I am also a bit concerned that you spend so much trying to persuade your reader that this student needs to learn sign language. I believe and support that option for all students, but it is not always appropriate for all students. Also, we have to respect the wishes of parents, even when we think we know best. Parents, for the most part, always have the best interest of their child at heart. We can provide them with information about the various options, but ultimately it is their decision to make.
I recognize how much time you have put into this, and again, you have done a good job. I hope that you find this helpful.
CMH
Ooops. Well, I guess I can’t upload the edited document. I can email it to you, if you would like.
CMH
There is so much to learn for everyone, adding onto something already known is abonus as a child has a solid foundation to start with.
Having worked with a variety of students I have noted some points that have to me seemed significant.
eg
Students with ficticious names
Student A - Ben
5yrs old, numerous behavioral problems, spitting, screaming, urinating on people or inappropriate places on purpous, pinching, kicking, slapping, wiping fecies everywhere, throwing and spitting.
Ben was hearing, but unable to speak, he used all the above actions to get what he wanted or didn’t want.
I used Ben’s building block of music and desire for food, his first signed words were “please”, “thankyou” and “more” (all 3 words used the same sign as Ben was limited with his hand movements). Ben’s behaviour improved. A stepping stone was made, Ben could not have food until he signed please, his next sign was “drink please”, his relisation of 2way communication opened a new world for him.
Student B - Tom
Tom was not diagnosed as being profoundly deaf until he was 2yrs old, at Play Centre he would thow things around, hit, scream at a high pitch and was not social with his peers. Tom learnt sign and became mainstreamed at primary school.
A teacher of the deaf took 6 students out for 1hr a day, Tom being the only deaf student, the students did work using pictures to study, sign and verbal cues to enhance Tom and in turn extend their knowledge. The students then inadvertently taught others signs. The mainstream teacher also signed when talking to the class for short durations, she had the class sing songs signing. One of the songs was “We all live in a yellow submarine”, she explained what the song was about getting them to draw pictures of a yellow submarine, at the end of the year the students put on an act for the school dressing up in togs and acting out beach scenes, words and signs combined. Tom and the class were a part of one another.
Tom’s parents introduced him to numerous visual aspects of life so he had more knowledge than a lot of his peers at an early age in some areas.
Sport was and still is at 26yrs a significant social aspect in Tom’s life.
AS Tom grew up he objected to teacher aides as he did not want special treatment, when I started to work with him at the age of 10 he ignored everything, some teachers refused having him in their class, Tom had been through teacher aides. I stood back and watched his interaction with peers in the class, he wanted to be the same as everybody, so I ignored Tom and sat in on group work signing to the other students even though only some knew some signs, most knew nothing, Tom started in no time to interact and ask questions about the topic we were talking about. Normality is a big part of any students or adults life.
Tom went to visit a school for the deaf when he was 10 and wanted nothing to do with it as he did not see himself as deaf even though he used sign and was not verbal.
Tom now uses written language, jesture, sign and some verbal, he has a support of friends all hearing.
Student C - Chad
Chad was mainstreamed until the age of 10 then he went to a school for the deaf, he now associates with the deaf community and sees hearing people as not understanding, inferior to the deaf, he has had so much support from agencies that he feels the world owes him everything and will go on paying for whatever he needs (benefits), he falls out with people as he feels they don’t understand the deaf ways, he does not try to adapt, barriors are forever being put up.
My conclusion is to treat the individual as a person first not as being a deaf person.
Incorperate others in on the same learning cues for the person who is deaf as this also enhances their learning from visual and a more broken down or simplified method of explaining things.
Enhance their social skills by joining them in with sport, craft, any activity that interaction is not daunting for either the student who is deaf or the hearing student.
Enhance their learning by showing them visual things, eg the chain on a bike and other parts as to what they do.
Whatever they learn each new thing is a stepping stone to move on. Good luck.
Debbie
I was reading all the comments here. I’d like to jump in, having the advantage of visiting the school and getting a taste of his experience there. Granted, Adam is not an expert in the deaf education. But, so are the parents who have deaf children. Often, they have to do a lot of self-guided research which may include:
1) Talking with other parents who are also dealing with simliar challenges
2) Meeting with the professionals in the field to get different opinions
3) Visiting schools
4) Using the Internet
5) Meeting deaf adults who could be wonderful role models, not just for the kids but for themselves also
And more…
But, it’s a matter of how accessible these above resources are in order to make an informed decision. In Amra’s case, resources are limited. There are no CI centers, deaf education programs at the universities, or teachers with expertise or understanding of successful deaf education. There are hardly any parent support groups or ubiquitous audiologists with extensive knowledge and resources. In Sri Lanka, some have to travel hours by bus or other means of transportation to visit one of the deaf schools or clinics. I understand, the U.S. also deals with this but to travel 5 miles in Sri Lanka is nothing to sneeze at. It’s tough. Roads are barely developed.
What differs Sri Lanka from many developed countries is “the village raises the child” mentality. They don’t really think about the people with MD, Au.D degrees. So, when Adam was asked for suggestions on helping Amra, they weren’t thinking, “He’s not trained for this…he’s not an expert…” Luckily, they asked the right person because Adam will make sure he gives them the best report possible with recommendations and suggestions. He is doing that beautifully by soliciting feedback from all of you.
I loved some of the ideas here. I also wanted to stress that Sri Lanka’s deaf education system is still very young and choices aren’t as abundant as they are here. A lot of what Adam is doing is trying to find the easiest way possible for Amra without depriving her the opportunities to learn. Of course, if I’m wrong on any of this, Adam will make sure I know it!
another thought…. after reading the other comments.. im remembering something else i shared with the parents at PIP.. i think i kind of mentioned it earlier, and its along with what another commenter says.. every child is different, and things change. what I encouraged the PIP parents to do (who were also wondering how to educate their children, whether to sign, whether to do x y or z), i urged them to pay attention to their child and make assessments based on what the child communicates a need for.. and most importantly, try to be open for change. what is right for a child at age 7 might be different at age 12. it might not work for Amra’s parents, but i think overall thats the main thing all parents need to consider - deaf children or not — what is best for your child may actually change with time..
and if i may say, i dont think it matters that youre not a “professional” because you SAID that in your paper.and i thought your emphasis on reading was great.
Adam! HI!
I may be too late to contribute, but anyway I try.
I hope this helps, it may be more of correction rather than what you requested - as I am far tired and unable to focus on the subject at hand. I did on one point add some more ideas. I have been evaluating some of the topics in the document that directly relate to my upbringing. Insightful stuff that.
lotsalove.
-eric in portland.
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Page 7 : “English vocabulary is more difficult to learn because it is not as readily available in the real world. ”
Acquiring an English vocabulary will present a challenge in her life on the fact that the environment she resides in is primarily Sinhala.
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Pg 7 : “Since language acquisition is so important and difficult with deaf children, it makes sense that whatever effort made should be put into Sinhala education, not English education. If she does not acquire a reasonable command of Sinhala, she may be isolated in her environment due to her communication differences. ”
The acquisition of developed language presents unique challenges to a deaf child; without a full grasp of understanding language, the capacity to function in life diminishes. Arma’s education should be put into learning Sinhala, not English. Fluency in Sinhala will greatly enrich and contribute to her ability to become a fully functioning member of society. If she does not acquire a reasonable command of Sinhala, she may become isolated in her environment due to her communication differences.
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Pg 8 : “Language is of little use if one cannot adequately understand how to express himself or herself. ”
Language is hardly of any use if one cannot adequately understand how to express the self. In addition to the understanding of expressing language in the self, an additional importance should be on recognizing identity. Identity reaffirms what one knows and understands, it enables response in which what one forms concept and feeling. To express the self is crucial to the development of language, it fulfills the purpose and use of language.
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Pg 13 : I believe that proper heading for Maths would be Mathematics, then thereafter follows as maths.”
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Pg 14 : INDEPENDENCE DAY?! HELLO! You’re in a different country; I don’t suppose they have the concept of the American Independence day! Haha good idea though smile. That gave me a good giggle.
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20 pages! oi, you must have some serious CTS goin’ on
xxx “
anadditional importance shall be placed …”