Ecouter is a French word for 'precious' by definition which means 'valuable.' 'Cheri' is French for precious also but its definition is 'endeared,' thus not an appropriate word to fit the meaning of my blog title. ASL is a valuable language. That is what my blog will be all about.
My career has been in teaching and am about to embark in research. My intention is using this blog for collecting information, opening discussions on various topics, and meeting people of all kinds!
I would like begin with the current controversy of a Washington State deaf girl whose hearing mother sued her deaf father in court to order this girl to continue wearing her cochlear implant during her weekend stays with her deaf father who is an ASL user. In that article, it was stated that the girl attends a public school and is mainstreamed in a regular class. She speaks well. Her grandmother said she speaks so well that she is easily passed as a hearing child. Clearly she had extensive cochlear implant therapy following the surgery to be such a successful recipient of bilateral cochlear implants.
This shows that her hearing mother invested all her energy into her cochlear implant therapy and this tells me her mother refused to be in a position to be dictated by the deaf father who allowed their daughter to retire her implants for two days on non-school days. She sees this as a setback to her implant therapy. She believes in that so firmly she was willing to go to court to enforce her belief upon the father and daughter duo.
Was the mother validated in her belief that going off the implants would delay her language acquisition? For two days, I would think not. The brain has large revesoir to store aural information processors. The mother underestimates the brain's ability to store information, both aural and visual. Her daughter would not forget or lose the language process she acquired the previous 5 days.
I would also be concerned that one implant is painful. I think the judge would do better to be more concerned about that rather than being concerned about her taking off the implants for two days while visiting her father. The judge would do better to order the mother to undergo a medical evaluation on that implant to find out why it hurts.
It is my opinion that the judge focused on the wrong thing in this case. I also suspect there were people called to the stand to testify on behalf of the mother because there is more support for cochlear implants from the hearing people than there is from the deaf community. This makes me wonder what support did the deaf father receive in his defense? Was his attorney ignorant about who he was representing? If this was the case, he harmed his client's position as well as his daughter's.
The case was already swayed in favor of the hearing mother mostly due to the general position by the society that cochlear implant is an essential tool for deaf children to process language and be a productive members of the society which means they would be speaking adults.
This case may prompt future defendants to call for support from NAD or local deaf community when a hearing family member sues to have the implant worn at all the times.
I really like your profile picture. A mix of cartoon and real picture?
ReplyDeleteYour discussions presented many valid points. I mostly agree with you that the judge would do better to be more concerned about the pain when using one of the implants. This is a red flag. It may mean the implant was not not surgically placed properly or that the external transmitter is malfunctioning.
Because he failed to recognize the red flag with the problematic implant, it tells me he knew nil about the deaf.
Of course the ruling would be in favor of the hearing mother. No big surprise there.
How funny our blog name are similar. Mine went inactive ages ago.
Isn't ecouter the french verb, "to listen"?
ReplyDeleteI will check, Linda. I used a translation program. Some words have multiple meanings. Ecouter is similar in spelling to English's Encounter...whose definitions are: to meet, to approach, to experience...therefore it might mean similarly in French. I will research and get back to you!
ReplyDeleteLinda, you are correct. Ecouter means 'to listen' in French. My guess is the translation program I used was not reliable. I used several other programs which came up with precieux for English's 'valuable'. As you can see, I've made the change. I appreciate your alerting this to me!
ReplyDeleteThe reason I chose French word is ASL originated from France. FSL is the original language of ASL. Laurent Clerc was brought to America by Thomas Gallaudet to build schools for the deaf and to establish a signing language as the tool of communication and instruction. I am sure Clerc played a large role in translating FSL into ASL as English is the language of the land here. So, I am paying homage to France and Clerc.
Cool! Thanks for explaining!
ReplyDelete