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From: Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Robin Chronister)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Cochlear implants
Message-ID: <18859@bunker.isc-br.com>
Date: 16 Apr 91 20:46:15 GMT
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[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

>     Well certainly in the US I think it's in the Doctor's best intrest
> if they can convince some poor confused and worried family into a
[A> REALLY EXPENSIVE procedure.  I'm not sure if implants are covered by

It isn't just the implant that I was referring to here.  I think a lot
of parents are pressured into using only speech and speechreading with
their child, or Signed English, or Cued Speech, etc.  It depends on who
gets hold of them first, and what types of programs are available in
their area.  One of our students (the same one with the implant) has
parents who met another couple who used cueing with their son, and
convinced them that it was the only way to go - and they were very
radical about it for a long time.  They even wanted to put a video
camera in the classroom to make sure that the teacher was using cueing
in school.  Between the other couple they had met when their son was
first diagnosed, and a speech pathologist who was very interested in
cueing, the boy was 6 years old before he was allowed to be exposed to
sign language.  Unfortunately, that 6 years of cueing gave only a few
words of vocabulary, expressive and receptive, and he was way behind in
language development.  Finally, they began to accept that sign language
might be an option, and now he is light-years ahead of where he was a
couple of years ago.  There are still difficulties - for one thing the
family mixes sign and cueing, even within the same sentence - and he is
just beginning to grasp abstract concepts, such as "more" and
"tomorrow."
   I wish that the parents of these kids could have more information
from the beginning, so that they can make better judgements about what
might be best for their child.

                                                   Robin

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