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pah! u r back, i missed u lol… wow, so interesting story… i wonder how is the girl doing now? i remember one situation which happened to me. i came here from moscow. i met the director international students, he asked me if i use coachler implant? i pizzled cuz i never heard abt that before in my country… he was concerned how will i learn english in classes? later he was curious if will i able to marry and have children, drive a car? i was so frustrated with him. at next time i had a second meeting with him, i brought an interpreter with me. i gave him an example to have an interpreter in class. the director looked at me differently. then he realized deaf people are fine without coacher implants. u know i still dont understand why he looks and thinks deaf without coachler implants are at low level? thanks.. keep vlogging! 🙂
Yes, I agree. Hurtful moment… but I’m curious… were you hurt because the deaf child would no longer be exposed to ASL after she was implanted or were you hurt personally? That mother wasted your time if she was going to go the implant direction and not the ASL path. Sigh.
Jon,
I had a similar experience as yours but I did not say, “See you later!”
The mother I dealt with was convinced by her church that God wanted her son be implanted so he could hear the words of God. I told her that although I’ve never heard God’s words, I’ve read a plenty of them.
A few days ago I ran into them, and she told me she decided to learn to use ASL so she and her son could communicate. Her son (5 years old now) was so thrilled to see me and told me a few things that his mother did not understand so I “interpreted.” She was like, “Wow, he said that?” I told her: “ASL still prevails!”
Carl
that’s a very sticky situation, to have a hearing parent ask whether cochlear is okay or not….
personally I can’t stand the thought of having a cochlear implant, but that is my personal view…. do I have the liberty to say that??
if adult deaf people want a cochlear implant, that’s their choice.
but children? *sigh*
Hi Jon,
I noticed you signed 19-999. I haven’t seen that since 2000 came around – with 19, then adding 3 more digits.
🙂 Mary Ruth
AGREE With You! lol You have nothing to say about Cochlear.
Pany Lighthouse
I would even feel the same way as you do had the woman said the same thing to me, Jon – with me having a CI.
I do NOT view it as “making my life easier” at all. I still rely on ASL very heavily. It is just natural to me and I do enjoy hearing sounds at the same time.
That said, I would have responded to the mother the same way, except for the “see you later”. I would have stuck around, I guess.
Now that I know a lot more about CI and ALSO successful deaf people – I’d direct her to both groups. Look at the deaf people – they are operating just fine like hearing people.
We have to learn to set aside our hurtful feelings in an effort to reach those parents.
But the parents I see are seeing this as an “opportunity”, not a “cure”. I see the deaf people are the ones saying this, not the parents.
I can’t emphasize enough how we all have to work together – stop labeling each other and point fingering each other – because the CI industry has diversity of CI folks working for them right now – from Deaf CI who can’t speak( either by oral or ASL) all the way to CI users who heard before to meet with people who are considering a CI. They DO explain pros and cons without any “bias” or encouraging the person to go for one.
We need to do that too in the Deaf Community – we have to advertise successful deaf people to drill that into hearing people’s minds.
I think you did okay as how you responded to that mother – because you were being honest with your feelings.
Carl, I thought you handled the situation very well.
Wow wow same here. My friends and I were in the waiting area at the hospital a several years ago. We saw a year old baby with a surgery scar on his behind ear. I was ugh ….. His parents were very awkward with us but they smiled. We just smiled back and played with thier baby. How cute but very sad. I am worried that his parents get the wrong information from the doctors.
Response to Jon
Very interesting. I am profound deafness. My husband has a CI a few years ago and is very happy with it. I prefer not to have a CI because I have been deaf all my life. My husband became deaf at the age of 13. He remembers many songs he loves to sing but he lost his hearing for over 40 years until a few years ago. He still speaks very well. He now understand what it is like so he educates some hearing students at the university. He remembers the sounds only thirteen years. He does not know any new sounds but he picks it up at a time. The bones were destroyed but he will not miss it if a CI doesn’t work. He explained that people who can hear pretty good with hearing aid, he would not recommend them to have a CI. Person with a CI is always DEAF! A young deaf lady had her CI surgery when she was 11, her mother did not explain to her what it was about. Her mother thought her CI would take care of it “auto fix” without teaching her speech. She was very unhappy at the mainstreaming school she stayed there for almost five years and most of times she had no interpreter. When she was 16 years old, she told her mother she wanted to go back to deaf school and missed her friends. Her mother has not accepted her that she is Deaf. She finally transferred back to deaf school but it was hard for her to adjust to deaf world and is still confused with her life. She had her another CI surgery a few years ago because the nerves bothered her for many years but her mother did not do something about it. The doctor found and corrected it. He honestly explained to her mother that her daughter’s brain was not trained to be like hearing but my husband has because he was not born deaf.
Wow,debby.
It seems like the mother never accepted her daughter for being deaf since she was born! 🙁
That had to make her daughter feel so inferior??! I hate to see that…
I noticed some children with CI who were implanted later generally do NOT want their CI anymore because of forced therapy.
That’s why they promote so HEAVILY on implanting younger children so they would get used to it.
I also do notice hearing people who lost their hearing are the ones who benefit the most from CI because of their auditory memory.
This is where we need to step in to promote Bi/Bi and that ASL is not an “inferior” or “isolating” deaf people! We need to tell them that Bi/Bi with ASL will make their children SMARTER!
Also, imagine if we get all the hearing children to learn ASL along with French and Spanish – what do you think the rates of getting a CI would be? Most likely to go down because more people would just consider it as a “luxury” option and not “needed’ with a lot more people signing ASL as part of their education.
I also would like to see more vlogs of those young people with CI experiences – we have Aaron Valentine, for example, who was implanted at the age of 8, I think.
For me, it’s different because I am in CONTROL of myself, no one else.
That’s very sad to end like that. Many hearing parents are ignornant and think CI would be best and easier on the Deaf Children. Thanks for sharing your personal story with us, Jon.
You were put in an ethical dilemma. I feel you made a good point with the mother that you were a fully functional and effective deaf adult without a CI and that she should research other Deaf aduls with CI’s to obtain their viewpoint.
She apparently made a decision, maybe not based on meeting those CI deaf adults…who probably would have told her to weigh the pros and cons. I’d ask the mother if she realizes that those who push it have financial and professional agendas and if she has fully researched its pros and cons.
CI’s are different from the hearing aids that were pushed in the 50’s. Hearing aids, while expensive and profitable, were still reversible. They could be taken off if they didn’t help enough. CI’s are irreversible, permanently damage residual hearing, and cannot be put in a drawer with no aftereffects. Parents have to be pretty damned sure that there are no cons before they subject their child to major surgery.
Per John Lestina’s video, I have to agree with John about the CI and the few successful cases to make themselves look big. At this point, it is a prodgranda. (spell) Oh what a bull.
Forgive me for going OT for a minute; It was nice to meet you at the Orlando DeafNation Expo last weekend! I regret that our chat was exceedingly too short!
As for the CI question, even I would be somewhat at a loss for words; The child was already 5+ years old, well beyond the critical window of language acquisition. Plus, the adoptive mother was already knowledgeable in sign language. Even then, your advice seemed to be spot-on. I would have liked to encourage the use of ASL in that household even if the child is indeed implanted, though.
that is good, see you late,, because they dont want asl ,, better speech than sign..
tell you I dont like to see people use implanted, it make me sick.. people who come to Florida
No because it is power lighting in the captial of the world lighting…
Craig
it is time for us to say that ASL is the best choice for Deaf children. ASL MUST be the primary language for all Deaf children and then obviously English comes as second language. And then if they want a hearing aid or CI, they are free to do that AS LONG ASL continues to be their first language.
In fact, in recent research, it showed that the children with CI that are also exposed to ASL are speaking more clearer than those who focus on speech only. So ASL have MANY benefits after all!
What kind of MOM of an adopted child!!!! The mad scientist mom wants to make her child to become perfectist later in her grown up. After she had her child got CI, Had she have ever enjoyed raising her child easily? NO WAY JOSE! She would always feel stupid and regretted when she actually knew the difference since she had some knowledge of deafness. Deaf’s life is always feel so free without any burden for neediness MEANWHILE the CI people has to worry about charge their box and have to go some place to mapping their CI to hear better. Therefore MOM of an adopted child blew the investment away which I mean COST of the time, money, worrisome, and more. In her return of getting her child with CI is adopt “FRANKSTIEN” kid.
TOSS ALL THE PROFESSORS WHO HAD/HAVE SPEND LOTS OF HOURS IN THE LAB TO GET CI WORKS IN THE AMAZON RIVER.
Leave Deaf alone and be HAPPY what God create us to become beautiful people.
I agree with what Joey said. I think Deaf babies should be allowed to learn ASL whether in AVT or not and to start as early as possible for language development in the window of opportunity while it is still there. They should not be held back from learning to see first whether they can succeed without it. That is a waste of valuable time! Bilingualism has many benefits for everybody, hearing or deaf.
Hey, JohnABC. I was going to ask Jon about that year he absently made a mistake. I was like ‘Huh, ha ha, it meant to be 1999, not 19999’! LOL
Anyway, not importantly.
Jon, we all don’t like to see the Deaf wear the CI around the community. We cannot think very quickly to say ‘NO!’. We just stumped. I am sure!
I share your feeling for being hurt by the mother’s question arised.
I don’t support CI.
Actually, being having CI, Deaf person will be always Deaf period.
response to all commenter in vlog!
I have thought about this for a while and If you have seen X-men 3 (the last stand)…you would know what I’m talking about. Think of how in the movie where I think a hearing people are like an humans and deaf are like a mutant. Human find a cure for the mutant.
Now, on the real world, Its like hearing people found a cure for the deaf by having a CI. Those fans of your’s who left you a comment before me seem there are some frustration and hate into CI technology. I am glad that my parent didn’t give me one because they are one of those people who leave me out of this ideas of CI. I was adopted from South Korea when i was 2 and so luckily i have grown out before CI ever come around. My parent didn’t even ask me about the idea of CI and i takes that they probably did not want to talk about the idea of it
Aside of that, deaf people who are against CI is having a frustration in life people they probably have some friends who have CI and probably stuck with them for the rest of their lives…because of the fact that they are their friend or probably frustrate themselves because the popularity growth in CI.
My personal feeling into it…I think deaf people who doesn’t wear a CI understand themselves more than worried for a rejection in life. If we feel like we are rejected in any ways from hearing because they think they are better than us…they are wrong…We have our own equality and skills that hearing people don’t have.
By the way, did you get haircut? It was longer than i saw you at deaf expo in Phoenix, AZ on march 3rd
It was nice meeting you. You’re funny and easy person to talk to and understanding. Luckily i did not wear a CI. I love being deaf.
Just 2 cents! Maybe you even don’t realize?
Year 19999 ?? video part at 2:01
Just don’t worry and I just laughed…
Myself, no better too! smile…