Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!wtm
From: ps299bd@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Romy Spitz)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Hi All.
Message-ID: <13585@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 20 Aug 90 03:42:42 GMT
References: <13327@bunker.UUCP>
Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Reply-To: ps299bd@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Romy Spitz)
Distribution: misc
Organization: University of California, San Diego
Lines: 68
Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference

Index Number: 9883

In article <13327@bunker.UUCP>, Ann.Stalnaker@p0.f14.n385.z1.fidonet.org
(Ann Stalnaker) writes:
> Index Number: 9655
> 
>  > At the same time I do subscribe also to the need to teach
>  > ASL as the primary language for the deaf to communicate with.
>  > I think Written and Reading English skills are much too low
>  > to be tolerated but feel english should be taught as a foreign
>  > language which is what it is.  ASL and English are different
>  > and need to be taught, but taught separately.
> I think we may have to agree to disagree here, Bill as I don't feel 
> ASL should be the primary language for the deaf to communicate.  
> As one who has a congenital profound nerve deafness (the oldest of 
> 3 siblings who are profoundly deaf), I have never used ASL, in fact, 
> I was almost 4 years old before my parents realized I was deaf since 
> I could speak and lipread.  I realize the concentration span is 
> stressful for one who lipreads but it can be done and it's not as 
> hard as so many say it is.  I'm just appalled at the fact that so 
> many of the deaf people cannot read beyond the 4th grade level due 
> to their lack of the English language and in order to overcome this 
> situation, we need to make some changes and I don't feel using ASL 
> as the primary language is the way to do this, it's already been 
> proven it isn't.

Hi all,
  Just thouht I might enter this thread.  I agree somewhat with both
of you, although I have to say I aggree more with Bill (first poster)
 than with you, Ann.  I also was raised entirely oral, and 
resisted any attempt to learn ASL until age 25 because I too have 
good speechreading skills and adequate speech.  
The change in perspective began in college.  I
went to a university where the lecture halls seat 300-400 students.
Even if you manage to get a seat in the front row, you are still too
far away to speechread the prof.  I "managed" by using other
people's notes on the lecture and got high grades.  Then I met
another deaf/hi student who had an interpreter for the same class,
and realized that while I had to rely on second hand info, she was
able to organize the lecture material for herself.  Ann, in a group
situation speechreading isn't always possible, and the everyday
class room that students, deaf and hearing, must attend is a group
situation.  Why force the kids to use a stradegy that can't possible
allow them to understand 100% percent of what is being said, when
you have an alternative mode of communication that will allow them
to understand the entire complement of what is being taught?

  Ann, I think you are execptional  with respect to the fact that
you (and I) can speechread this well.  I don't think everyone is
capable of doing so.  If you restrict deaf children to speechreading
entirely, you must defer teaching and everyday communication until
the child is old enough to be taught explicitly to speechread.  This
means that years will go by when the child cannot communicate.  The
first few years of life are too important to waste this way.  If the
parents are willing to learn a second language in order to provide
an accessible means of communicating with their deaf child I think
this should be lauded rather than criticized.

After experiencing lectures both with and without an interpreter..I
have to say that the presence of an Interpreter makes a hell of alot
of difference with respect to the amount of information I pick up..I
can't belive that children would be harmed by presenting information
in a language that they can understand directly.

I hope this thread continues...It has been very interesting to read
eveyone's comments!

Romy Spitz (rspitz@ucsd.bitnet)