A commenter in my previous blog  referred me to a glossy website, Communicate With Your Child with the claim that this  website provided unbiased information from many various organizations.  She suggested that I click on “My baby has a hearing loss” section, which leads the viewer to various states that we could research.  She stated “Neutrality is now in the works. It still exists.”  

Is this commenter correct? Does this website actually provide unbiased information from many various organizations?  Has it got neutrality?

 Let’s analyze this website:

1. Count the number of times the words “hearing” and “hear” have been used on the homepage alone.  Total: 11!

2. Count the number of times ASL as a term is used on that same homepage. Total: ZERO

Talk about subliminal messages!

Now, let’s use this checklist to dissect the contents further:

a) Is t bilingual? Check! (English with Spanish translation)

b) Is it trilingual? Mais non.  Nowhere on this website do I see ASL translation.  
c) It has audio for those who may have reading issues: Is it accessible for the Hearing? Check!
d) FOCUS: the ability to hear words and songs. Check!
e) FOCUS: the ability to see ASL words and poetry. Where? Zilch and nada!

I checked “My Baby has a hearing loss” and clicked on states as instructed. This is what I found:

 The number of hearing loss professional organizations like AGBADHH, NICDC, Hearing Association, Let them Hear Foundation, etc etc far outweigh the number of Deaf-centered, or at least ASL-friendly organizations.

 I also clicked on http://www.raisingdeafkids.org which is on the list for any of the states you click on: Go to Communication choices, then you will see:

- Auditory-Oral, (Emphasis: Hearing/speaking)
-Auditory-Verbal (Emphasis: Hearing/Speaking)
-Bilingual-Bicultural- ASL and English (Emphasis: Bilingual Language Development)
-Cued Speech (Emphasis: Hearing/speaking)
-Total Communication (signing and talking with voice simultaneously… Emphasis: still hear and speak)

Consider the evidence submitted above.  One cannot help but reach the following conclusion:

 There’s an overwhelming emphasis on hearing and speaking, and little focus on ASL.  Therefore, this website is NOT unbiased.  It’s in fact heavily biased in favour of the hear-and speak ideology.  It’s got NO neutrality.

 But it’s sure got audism.

Sigh… I wasn’t planning to blog on the AB2072 issue that was raised lately; however, I was a little disturbed by the lack of balance in this blogger’s post.  This blogger and her commenters were all het up on the behalf of Hearing parents of Deaf children at the possibility of having the mythical ASL-only option foisted upon them.  She mentioned two scenarios, and I quote:

(1.) The Deaf parents of a deaf infant recently screened for hearing loss have been told by the state that they must have their deaf child undergo surgery for a cochlear implant at 6 months and employ only speech therapy  in English for the child’s language development, no other options are allowed.  How would the Deaf parents feel upon learning that they have no choice on how to raise and communicate with their child?  Of course, resentment and anger.

(2.)  The hearing parents of a deaf infant recently screened for hearing loss have been told by the state that they must implement ASL only to begin the child’s language development.   How would the hearing parents feel upon learning that they have no choice on how to raise and communicate with their child?  Of course, resentment and anger.

Then she spent the entire rest of her post defending the Hearing parents’ right to NOT have ASL foisted upon them by the state against their wishes.  Fair enough,  I agree that the state should not infringe upon the rights of the parents.

Yet, I see NO one on that post, either on the blogger’s or the commenters’ part, stand up for the Deaf parents of Deaf children who had their rights forcibly infringed upon in the name of the hear-and-speak ideology.  The blogger implies that Scenario 1 has not happened yet.  I submit that this is inaccurate information.   To wit:

The Deaf Sherlock’s post

Implanting against Legal Parents’ Wishes at Deafness.about.com

Parental Rights at Deafness.about.com

I have not seen much if any outrage re: Scenario 1 on the part of these people, and yet Scenario 2 causes them to blame Deaf ASL activists for the possibility of Hearing parents’ rights to decide for their Deaf children being infringed upon.   Why is this the case?

THE EFFECTS OF AUDISM:

As I stated in Part 1 of  the What is Audism? series, you cannot explain what audism is, without describing the effects of audism on Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals, and the Deaf community as a whole. Again, this information came from Malkowski’s presentation.

I will now give a few of the effects that Malkowski mentioned during his March 2010 presentation:

Audist beliefs result in intentional or unconscious audist behaviour, such as:

• treating Deaf children with oral skills differently – more positively – than Deaf children with sign language skills (i.e. in the classroom, in extracurricular activities, sports and recreation.)
• systemic discrimination
• negative stereotypes, misconceptions and myths regarding the abilities of Deaf and hard of hearing children, students, employees, social citizens.
• dehumanization by medical and educational establishments (i.e. the focus on a deficit model or pathological view of hearing loss.
• lifelong impact on children’s ability to acquire and understand English or ASL or both  (Malkowski, 2010)

To illustrate the systemic discrimination, and negative stereotypes, misconceptions and myths regarding the Deaf/Hard of Hearing, I remind you readers of Amy Cohen Efron’s DVD, which began as a vlog: The Greatest Irony.   In that DVD, she described the irony in allowing Hearing babies to learn ASL while Deaf babies are denied access to ASL, especially by those in the AVT profession.  Malkowski mentions this irony as well in his presentation, saying that ASL is accepted, and viewed as beneficial for Canadian hearing children’s early development and yet viewed as detrimental to the development of Deaf children (Malkowski 2010).

The effects of this misconception in addition to the dehumanization of the Deaf by the medical and educational establishments are clearly described in Malkowski’s research article on audism in the January 2009 edition of The Canadian Hearing Report, page 28-30:

“it is still common practice, for example, for audiologists, speech-language pathologists, early intervention and early childhood education providers, educators of deaf children, boards and government ministries to discourage deaf children from learning and using their natural and accessible language – sign language. In fact, many parents of deaf children who are making decisions around their child’s education are still not given balanced information about the benefits of sign language. This restriction of the use of sign language. coupled with a fundamental belief that a deaf child should learn to use residual hearing or the hearing that is a result of a cochlear implant and learn to speak is the most blatant form of audism.

Sadly, when spoken language, both expressive and receptive, is not accessible, precious time is wasted. The child is labelled a spoken language “failure” and the window of opportunity to acquire language quickly closes. Unfortunately, these spoken language deficiencies can be identified as a learning disability. In some cases there is no cognitive disability; in others, learning disabilities are compounded by language deficiencies. In both instances, it is too late for the language deficit to be repaired and this can have enormous associated costs in terms of special education requirements, and long-term mental health issues, among others. A great number of professionals – audiologists, interpreters, educators, speech-language pathologists, and medical practitioners– have enormous amounts of power and influence.” (Malkowski, 2009)

Malkowski mentions that one of the consequences for  this practice of withholding ASL from Deaf children in favour of oralism, and isolation in the public schools is that there are now a higher number of solitary Deaf adults without contact or connections to the Deaf community at large.  This contributes to the long term mental issues mentioned in the quote above. (Malkowski, 2010)

For further examples of what audism is, and its effects on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing people, I strongly recommend that you view this DVD, Audism Unveiled, by Bahan, Bauman and Montenegro. This was shown during Mr. Malkowski’s presentation last week, and this will prove to be eyeopening for those who have never seen this movie before.

Simply put, audism is an attitude of prejudice and perception that it is better to be hearing than to be deaf, and that if one is Deaf, one must strive to fit into Hearing society as much as possible.  It is clear that audist attitudes and behaviours by the majority group do have negative effects on the mental, physical, emotional and educational well-being of Deaf and Hard of hearing people as individuals and as a minority group.  Thus, it is proven that audism as a term is valid, and must be addressed.

This posting is in response to a commenter in my last posting, Resistance is Futile: You will be Assimilated, who stated that he did not see that much resistance from the Deaf community in relation to the cochlear implant, and that the cochlear implant industry did not use force whereas the Borg did.

I wasn’t referring solely to the cochlear implant in my last posting. In actuality, I was referring to the entire orchestrated attempts at a systemic level to assimilate Deaf children into the Hearing society, and to mold them into the ideal “Hearing” image or at least a facsimile thereof.

I agree with the other commenters that there IS resistance against the CI. I would qualify that sentence, and reiterate there is plenty of resistance, especially against the tactics employed by the oralist establishment.

Perhaps you aren’t working in a field that works directly with children or survivors of assimilationist attempts to get them to “listen and speak”? Many who are in the front lines working with these survivors will tell you horror stories of delayed language acquisition and related consequences due to the desire of the majority to get them to “listen and speak”.

Speaking for myself, I am against the IDEOLOGY behind the cochlear implant (and AVT) industry, which perpetuates the myth that Deaf children DO NOT need ASL because it hinders speech development. This is another attempt at linguistic genocide, and that is what gets my dander up.

Many parents want their children implanted “to give them the best in life that they can.” That is how many parents see the cochlear implant. Many do not understand the necessity for children to have VISIBLE access to language, and that is ASL.

Since the system is already implanting children OVER THE OBJECTIONS of the Deaf community, I used the term BORG to describe the oralist system. This establishment is a juggernaut… which steamrolls whether people object, get hurt or not.

As for the use of force:

“Borg uses force to assimilate other people (and destroy people that it considers obsolete) while the technology of cochlear implant does not use force itself on people.”

I beg to differ. Force comes in many different forms. One is obvious: Physical coercion and subjugation. There are more subtle and insidious forms, such as rejection, which can be emotional as well as physical. Indoctrination, and emotional/mental coercion, and especially fear, are other forms. These forms of force CAN be done with such finesse that people won’t see them coming until too late. Many AVT therapists have threatened to cross families off their clientele list if they signed with their Deaf children.

When implanted children do not show that they benefit from AVT programs, they get “weeded out”. This phrasing was coined by the mother of a certain blogger that no longer comes to DeafRead.com. These children are considered obsolete and swept under the rug while “successful” AVT children are showcased.

If those weeded-out children did not have access to ASL while attending AVT therapy, their optimal potential has been damaged if not outright destroyed in some cases. Language acquisition then becomes a race against time.

Now, I see cochlear implants as astronomically expensive and invasive hearing aids. However, there are quite a number of parents who get their children implanted, and STILL want their babies to acquire ASL. As long as the children DO actually grow up bilingual with a strong start for language acquisition…

My primary concern is that children have access to ASL, and are NOT hindered in their acquisition of visible, accessible language, and for me that means ASL, as well as another language, whatever that is.

As for your contention that we have not truly seen how the technology of cochlear implant will affect the Deaf Culture and ASL, the impact is ALREADY being felt in the front lines as I mentioned earlier. The cochlear implant is only ONE tool in the entire Oralist apparatus in its goal to eliminate ASL and make us forget that we are Deaf.

THAT is Borg assimilation in all its glory, with finesse added.

Postscript (Jan 11 at 7:15 p.m.):

REMINDER TO COMMENTERS:

You are all welcome to comment here, but I request that from now on, please address the topic at hand and refrain from attacking or labelling people personally when you disagree with a viewpoint that is being brought up.

Thank you.