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From: IJJT500@INDYCMS.BITNET (Mike Wheeler)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: In my case...
Message-ID: <17977@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 7 Mar 91 05:08:27 GMT
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Reply-To: IJJT500@INDYCMS.BITNET (Mike Wheeler)
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Index Number: 13824

James,
     The lady you mentioned went through about the same thing I did.
Only in my case it was part of a research program that used my case
to "prove mainstreaming works" in other word lie to support their case
Whil there were students in the Stanford study that it worked for I'm am
not one of them.  They were forced because of the scrutiny and testing to
fail me, which is often not the case with mainstreaming in California.
I am not dumb. I have a 160+ I.Q. (techinically a Genius) currently just
started my graduate work in computer science.  Sign as my first language
but speak well enough that most people don't realize right away I am deaf
due to 12 years of one on one speech therapy.  But in too many cases they
indiscriminantly mainstream into inadequately equiped schools systems
students who would be far better off in a residential or day school for the
deaf.  (like the one in Chicago)
                    I agree with you whole heartedly, they should let
many more of us learn sign as a first language.  Even then they should
seriously evaluate the situation before mainstreaming.
     I learned to sign first and in my case mainstreaming was "cruel and
unusual punishment".
                         Mike

 . . .  "Don't confuse your schooling with your education." - Albert Einstein