You may have read the news about Wisconsin lawmakers passing a bill which would require insurance companies to cover the cost of cochlear implants and hearing aids:
Wisconsin Radio Network:
http://www.wrn.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=D5071979-5056-B82A-37C40DF6270D4E96
National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103425932
Green Bay Press Gazette: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090423/GPG0101/90423094
It’s a hotly contested issue - and rightly so, although my reason for being unhappy with it is not the same as as been published in the above linked articles and elsewhere.
The whole issue of insurance coverage for cochlear implants and hearing aids COMPLETELY MISSES A CRUCIAL POINT.
Nowhere did I see anything that said there would be any benefit for a Deaf child’s cognitive, emotional, or social development. Absolutely nothing. There was nothing about early exposure to a fully accessible, natural language that is freely available. There was nothing about what is best for the DEAF CHILD. All I saw is how parents can finally get coverage to make cochlear implants affordable for their Deaf children, so they can be taught to hear and speak.
That speaks to the hearing family’s “need” to have a child that speaks and hears, like them. Unfortunately, their child will never hear like them, although their child may speak like them.
What about their Deaf child’s need? The need for a fully accessible means to access information? The need for intellectual, social, cognitive, and emotional development through early visual language acquisition? Think about it. You don’t educate a Deaf person through his/her mouth or ears. Education, thinking, reasoning - they all happen in the brain, through the eyes. A hearing child absorbs information through his ears and expresses himself through his mouth, because that’s a natural mode for the child that is available to him from birth. A Deaf child is a visual being; he absorbs information through his eyes.
So, what are we missing? Early acquisition of language in a visual, 100% accessible form: American Sign Language (ASL). With access to ASL, a Deaf child can achieve socially, academically and emotionally on par with his hearing peers.
Moreover, I advocate that ASL be taught to ALL babies, but ESPECIALLY to Deaf babies. I’m deeply disappointed this isn’t happening on a wider scale. I cannot believe that parents are still being told to deny their Deaf kids access to their own language. It’s so obvious to me that this is WRONG.
Once a Deaf child acquires ASL, there is no limit to what he can achieve. With ASL, he can learn English and he will do it at the same rate - even better - as his hearing peers. He’ll read and write English fluently. He may even speak.
In conclusion, while the Wisconsin bill does make it easier to get cochlear implants and hearing aids, that’s really not as critical to a Deaf child as the importance of acquiring a fully accessible and natural language that acts as a catalyst for the child’s capability to learn and achieve in life. Cochlear implant? Hearing aid? That’s a decision that should be very well informed and carefully weighed by parents - sure, they’ve been informed by their audiologist or doctors - but they also should have consulted with people who KNOW and have direct, first-person experience of the impact of such a decision - Deaf people. They’ll ask you this: You’re willing to commit to years of working with the child to acquire whatever level of hearing he can, and whatever level of speech he can - but are you also willing to commit to empowering your Deaf child, too, by giving him access to his own language, from the start? If your answer to that question is “yes,” your child will thank you in years to come.
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The biggest problems Deaf communities all over USA face: 1) language access and 2) communication access.
Too many hearing people forget the fact that deaf people don’t listen to radios, many don’t subscribe to newspapers …or watch the news on TV. The problem that not many deaf people testified at the hearings, etc is because we did not get the word. That’s a COMMUNICATION barrier right there.
Now, for those who DID get the word, many don’t understand it! and since they don’t understand it, they just dismiss it. Then it becomes a LANGUAGE barrier.
Deaf people have a language …and it’s VISUAL. ASL (American Sign Language). It’s just like another language like German, Spanish and the like. I don’t speak or read Spanish so I won’t understand Spanish speaking people. That’s both communication and language barrier. Enter the picture: translator. Deaf people have translators …called interpreters. Translators breaks down both barriers.
But then again, bottom line, Deaf people are in the minority, HOWEVER, when combined with hearing impaired people, it’s the NUMBER ONE DISABILITY by far …taken together, we outnumber people who are blind. It’s a problem that few hearing people know how to deal with (or don’t want to deal with).