Posted on 05/13/2002 5:54:27 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
From this I extracted two statements. The second one was "deaf parents who don't want to have their kids hear don't want their children to excel at anything". I think I was pretty accurate and fair. The part about ASL being Abuse was from Steve0113's post. If you would have read to To: line or even the first sentence "Three things you two posted amaze me" their would have been less chance of a misunderstanding. I think someone needs to read more carefully, and I don't think it's me.
Now lets get to a difference issue. You wrote "What I also find particularly appalling (for me) are the cases where there is a good chance of having a deaf child, and the parents go ahead and give birth to a deaf child - pretty damn cruel in my book." So if I understand you correctly, you find it appalling that hereditary deaf people have children? These are my words, and not yours, but they seem to fit. The way you worded the statement, it almost seems that you would prefer abortion, but I'm sure it was just poorly worded.
Those who converse only in Spanish, German, Japanese, and Chinese tend to be illiterate in written English, also. There is no one-to-one correlation between Chinese symbols and English words, but once-Chinese-only speakers are capable of having written language in English beyond the most primitive level. The same applies to ASL.
I know several professional deaf individuals who have completed college, medical school, seminaries, and other advanced education programs, and who write perfectly well and intelligible in English. Their skills in written English are well beyond a "primitive" level.
Now, written ASL does look very primitive to the average English reader; however, it makes perfectly good sense in ASL. The thing to remember is that this is not English - it is ASL in written form, which is something totally different.
On the other hand, those who use Signed English can usually make themselves clearly understood in writing.
Signed English is a bastardized, abominable version of signing developed for the deaf by hearing people whose only intent is to make the deaf more "normal." It has absolutely no correlation to signing, is much more difficult to learn than is ASL, and serves absolutely no purpose to a deaf person outside the classroom. Proper education by a person conversant in both English and ASL is much more effective in teaching a deaf person how to write effective in English than is trash such as Signed English.
Which one would benefit a child more, i.e. make him employable at something besides manual labor?
See my comment earlier. Deaf people are employed as doctors, preachers, teachers, and many professions other than manual labor. These individuals have learned how to compensate and overcome the difficulties in living and working in a hearing world, and have succeeded in their chosen fields.
ASL is child abuse.
Bull. Training a child to develop their full potential, to have the ability to communicate with a wide range of others - including other deaf people - is not abuse. Yes, since this is a hearing world, other forms of communication also need to be taught. But the value of learning ASL must not be denied.
To deny the fact that a deaf child is deaf, to deny that child the ability to interact with other deaf people, to deny the fact that a deaf culture exists and the child has a place in that society - now that is abuse.
What you are saying with this comment is that deaf children can't excel at anything. Wrong. They are just as capable of excelling in their chosen field as any other child. They may have to work a little harder to overcome the difficulty of being deaf in a hearing world, but they can and do accomplish this, every day.
What I also find particularily appalling (for me) are the cases where there is a good chance of having a deaf child, and the parents go ahead and give birth to a deaf child ...
Would you prefer that the parents abort the child just because he or she may be handicapped? Or that the parents be sterilized to prevent a deaf child being conceived?
IMO, these options are even more appalling than having a disabled child, because they run the risk of using these options for many situations other than when a child may or may not be born deaf. I do not want to live in a society with that attitude towards the disabled.
I guess we're fortunate that Steinmetz' parents didn't know about the "genetic" condition. (On the other hand, maybe they would have been ignoble and had him anyway.)
By the way, did you know that tantalum was discovered by a deaf chemist?
Sign language is taught to children that have speech problems. For some reason, it helps them to actually speak when they learn sign.
Please tell me that you're being dense on purpose...
it is the story of the islanders of Martha's Vineyard, a large island off the coast of Massachusetts. The islanders originally came from the same 2 or 3 boatloads of colonists from England, by way of Boston and Scituate, from a region in Kent which already seems to have had a high incidence of hereditary deafness. Due to the geographic isolation of the island, recessive genes for deafness, which were already prominent in the original Kentish colonists, came increasingly to the fore. As the proportions of islanders who happened to be deaf gradually increased, what was the islanders' answer? Not shunning the deaf. Far from it. Rather, a tradition arose that EVERYONE on the island, deaf or hearing, simply learned sign language as children!
Your assertion that a parent who gives birth to a deaf child should be ashamed of themselves is laughable. And I know, you didn't say that!
I'm curious -- what's your take on X-linked color blindness?
Many, if not most, deaf people don't regard deafness as a handicap at all, and would refuse any treatment that would give them hearing. Though I would not willingly give up my hearing, I'd be hard-pressed to contradict them -- they perceive the world in a different way than I. Watching once a playground of deaf children was a surreal experience that left me feeling somewhat envious.
Helen Keller is on record as differing with your assessment of blindness vs. deafness.
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