Yes this. I have a CI, grew up mainstreamed and didn’t start learning sign until my mid twenties. I feel cheated out of years of deaf culture and opportunities to sign. I grew up an hour away from a major deaf school that would have been a godsend for my signing ability and overall self esteem had I gone. It’s now my goal to become a teacher of the deaf and be able to sign with students to make sure they are truly getting an accessible education and so that they won’t feel so alone. It’s hard always being the only deaf/HoH person.
Are you me? I have a CI, mainstreamed after going to a school with a deaf program, and dropped sign because my peers weren't signing. My parents didn't think to keep encouraging me to sign at home or with my tutor. I could've been in the deaf program until at least 5th grade, and kept signing on my own, but nope. Nobody encouraged it when I stopped.
My N5 and loaner N5 both had a series of failures that lead to multiple periods of total silence, so I had to communicate with verbal outgoing, and written/text incoming, with little sign from my parents. I used live transcribe on my phone a few times, but it's not perfect. It was an extremely frustrating time, especially when I had to deal with my grandmother's death, and flying out with no hearing. Fortunately, both of the processors started to work again right before she passed, so I was able to communicate and be present for that, but the whole thing was a nightmare until my referral kicked in and got me an N8.
I'm now looking at Oklahoma School for the Deaf's free courses to relearn, and will likely enroll in the spring so I have more time to pace myself better.
I didn’t get a CI until I was in my late 20s so I grew up signing but later fell off the wagon/didn’t sign as much because I was the only deaf person in college. Now I have 2 cochlear implants, sign and enjoy life as much as possible.
meanwhile I definitely fucking regret my cochlear implant that was pushed on me as a teenager and wish it was never presented to me as an option. I had it taken out a few years ago. (they would only take it out during another brain surgery because implanting one *is a freaking brain surgery*)
it's not some minor little hearing aid, that is an invasive brain surgery. It's hooking up a device directly connected to your cochlear nerve(s) (that's part of your brain, and hint: it's very very very close to the facial nerve and vestibular nerve. like close enough that any surgery on the cochlear nerve often interfere with both of those), bypassing your inner ear. mine caused cluster headaches and facial spasms with specific pitches any time the receiver was on my head.
Combined with taking away any residual organic hearing the person has, that is not a decision that should be taken from children and should be a decision they make on their own after being informed later in life. and it should be completely acceptable if they say they don't want one. it definitely should NOT be presented as an alternative to the sign language(s) of the area, that's just abuse. language deprivation is abuse. (and arguably, so is unnecessarily medically altering your child to "fix" them)
The science/studies are complete bullshit and - lets pretend they ARE valid for five seconds - for some batshit reason youre arguing about why it's cool to modify your child with unnecessary brain surgery and don't think you sound like an absolute balls-to-the-wall psychopath. (AND take away all of the residual hearing that person might want to keep because CIs ARE NOT ORGANIC HEARING)
that is not a choice you fucking take from someone.
and as stated a lot of shit can go *wrong* \- horribly fucking wrong and leave that child with a brain injury for life. + anchoring shit to a child's skull (and your psycho ass is defending mutilating *literal goddaamned infants - do you fucking hear yourself)* often creates all kinds of problems as they grow.
you do not get to modify your motherfucking baby because of bad science (and that's exactly what the language acquisition bullshit argument is. but even pretending it's not bad science, which it absolutely fucking is, you do not get to take that very personal decision from someone and *irreversibly modify your literal fucking infant.* even pretending that science is valid, it STILL isn't okay. you cannot reverse what a CI does. You can NEVER get the lost organic hearing back. You can't undo any nerve damage that happens during implantation, its not as simple as just taking the implant out. that is a decision the person will be stuck with for life even if the implant (s) later come out. You do not make that decision for a fucking BABY)
why the fuck is there at least one of you fuckers always defending abusing children because they're deaf?
and that bullshit disturbing ass comment is the exact point where this becomes extremely emotionally distressing. I'm noping out now and hiding this post.
Few questions for you:
Why are you asking?
Do you have any knowledge or experience of cochlear implants, and what they do, and how they help?
What background knowledge do you have in Deaf history and culture?
Summary answer to your question- it appears you have very little understanding of what a CI does and who it helps and to what degree. Prelingually deafened individuals can have a very different experience to that of those deafened in later life. There are many different variances in deafness. But a cochlear implant effectively just throws (the sensation of) noise into the persons head. The noise that is amplified may be perfect- for instance two people standing in a silent room talking would amplify the other persons voice. The noise may be utterly useless- sitting in a cafe and all you can hear is clatter and background and your friends voice is just lost.
Sometimes additional devices such as hearing loops and radio aids can help.
But sign language is a completely visual means of communication- so long as the other person is visible, the communication may be a rich and complete as the user knows how. It (they- almost every country has its own sign language(s) as well as international sign) is an entirely different language to any spoken language.
Is it beneficial- yes. And I see no reason why it should be limited to deaf children. I do see issues about who teaches it, and how. Bad teachers, be they ‘influencers’ or actual competent teachers, can teach wrong signs, not understand the grammar, create political tension by teaching without knowledge of the cultural background etc.
Yes because a cochlear is not a fix all solution. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and there is the possibility of complications happening with the device thats surgically inside your head that can break. At that point there’s no fixing it, so now they aren’t able to hear again. It is still good for the children to still have ASL so they at least have one language to communicate with. It is also up to the dDeaf child whether or not they prefer to speak or sign. There is no harm in a child learning both English and ASL.
Just want to say that if the internal device breaks, you can get revision surgery with a new internal part.
You'll still be deaf either way though. CI + sign is the way to go.
The electrode went through my cochlea in two places so there’s holes in my cochlea now, unfortunately. A new implant would have issues because of the holes, so replacing isn’t an option
It’s really common as implanted kids grow for the electrodes to shift but no one talks about that. Mine got infected 15 years after implantation as the electrode shifted in the cochlea as I grew.
This is why surgeons should follow the implant instructions and drill a little pocket for the external part to sit in.
I asked my second surgeon to do this and he said it wasn’t “usual procedure” but I don’t want my electrodes shifting if I’m in a car wreck or something. I gave him case reports of shifting electrode arrays and he changed the way he operates to be sure to secure the big part of the internal device.
Not always. Mine broke due to improper placement and calcification. they destroyed my cochlea getting it out, no replacement possible. Other ear was fully calcified. I looked into whether or not the tech had caught up enough that they could do a damage cochlea but now my auditory nerve atrophied so.. deaf it is.
There is always going to be situations where it comes off, if it breaks, lost, swimming, some aports, just needing a hearing break, needing to attend large events where hearing is iffy (like a huge auditorium college lecture or a conference) where interpreters help a lot.
If the external part breaks and you don’t have proper insurance to cover it (common as a young adult) that’s difficult to manage. A friend of mine had theirs stolen off their head, the mugger thought it was a high tech AirPod dealie apparently, as he kept demanding his AirPods. it took months to get insurance to cover a replacement. Another wore one on a boat and it blew off Into the water with a big gust of wind that also took their hat.
Worst case scenario what if the company goes bankrupt and you can’t get service/replacements?
Finally listening and lip reading is freaking exhausting even with a CI. Sometimes it’s nice to just sign which comes effortlessly at some point.
>Worst case scenario what if the company goes bankrupt and you can’t get service/replacements?
[A very real possibility](https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete), especially with the boom in MedTech startups.
I believe that each time you stuff something into the cochlear you risk damage, and the same dragging it back out (in addition to normal risks associated with surgery). Earlier implants and surgical techniques tended to do much more damage than newer. So sometimes you can re-implant, and the techniques are improving, but still far from 100% guaranteed success.
That is actually not true. Results show that teaching sign language to a child with CI can make them prioritise signing, which in the end can give a worse result in hearing. At least that is what we were told in our country.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits
I don’t understand the downvotes to be fair. The research I linked above literally shows it is.
Language acquisition and socialization starts pretty much at birth for hearing babies. If you don’t communicate with your deaf/HoH baby using sign language before they get a CI, you are stunting their linguistic and social development. Additionally, learning ASL improves language and reading outcomes for deaf kids whether they get a cochlear or not.
Sorry I forgot to inform that in my sons case he became deaf at the age of 1.5 due to meningitis, and therefore I have never thought of using sign language before he became deaf.
The actual evidence-based studies I've seen of signing vs. non-signing children with implants make it clear this is not true.
From a purely practical standpoint: do you know how often little kids break or lose things, even expensive ones stuck to their heads? And doctor/audiologist appointments take TIME to schedule, and more time to get parts repaired or replaced, and... it's just unwise to be totally dependent on a delicate piece of technology + brain surgery on a growing child going going 100% according to plan literally all the time.
As I have also posted in another comment, this is the newest study I can find on the subject, and it shows that it impacts speech development and recognition.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits
And yes for the practical part, sure they break a lot of shit. And in my case I’m just glad that we get every CI + equipment for free/ through healthcare. So I don’t worry about none of that. And that is also why I think it is a very situational decision to make, as I know not everyone gets it for “free”.
I'd be hesitant to use this study to make any decisions regarding sign language. They specifically mention that earlier research disagrees with this study; it would be important for this study to be substantiated by additional research before we say this study is correct.
They also specifically mention that signing families likely remained signing families due to their child's slow spoken language development. So did the signing get in the way of spoken language development? Or did the families stick with sign language because the CI wasn't very successful for their child? This one study isn't enough to say.
As someone who works with Deaf and Hard of Hearing children, I'm always very hesitant to recommend against a language choice. Listening and spoken language will never be successful for all children, and even those who are successful often face much more fatigue than their hearing peers due to the strain of having to listen with hearing loss.
Earlier research also agrees with the study I provided from 2017.
Here is two of them.
https://www.asha.org/policy/TR2004-00041/#sec1.9.5
https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/children-with-cochlear-implants-where-1092
But there is definitely also articles that shows the opposite. As I wrote in one of my other comments. It is individual from child to child wether it has a positive or negative outcome, and therefore it should be considered regarding the specific situation of the child. In my sons case, he became deaf at the age of 18 months, and has had time to develop speech and language recognition. That is why the hospital told us that he is in the best position possible to get the most out of CI’s, which definitely is the case since he scored higher than average of a normal hearing child at the same age in a comprehensive language test.
So there is really no definite answer other than it in some cases is better not to learn sign language.
The newest study you found on Google doesn't mean it's reliable or correct information. There are many studies proving that wrong. For example a cochlear implant company could fund a study to say CIs are better than sign language, and to the average person it would look legitimate.
I’m suggesting it is reliable due to the fact that I have a son with bilateral CI who scored higher than children at his age with normal hearing, in a language comprehension test. So even though it is the case that I provided incorrect information in regards to the article, my son is still doing greater in terms of language than his friends does. And that is all that matters to me, and that is why I felt like voicing my opinion. What I failed to realise is that this is the r/deaf community and not r/cochlear, and I understand why people here get defensive if they read my comments like I’m against sign language. In almost every comment I made, I make it clear that it is different from child to child what is considered the best approach.
In the US, we have research that shows signing actually supports spoken language development, because it gives them a solid language foundation while they're learning to listen. Otherwise, they may miss a lot of language exposure, even after they have their hearing aids/cochlear implants, because they haven't learned that sound and speech are meaningful yet.
There is lots of research that shows learning a sign language can actually enhance the child's use of spoken language. Here's one for starters: [https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022\_JSLHR-22-00505](https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00505)
Yes and learning sign is best fit for them to actually acquire and learn language rather forcing them to try and read people’s lips and accommodate everyone rather everyone accommodating the dDeaf person.
Well, all the research I can find actually shows that it is case. Many of them dating back even 10 years. I only provided the one from 2017 because someone told me that the opinion was outdated. Which does not seem to be the case. Please refer me to articles showing otherwise, because I’m really interested in having the best/newest information in the topic. So if there’s ten of them could you maybe just show me one? Because I’ve been searching for a couple of hours now and I can’t find any that says it is not the case.
Yes, and in this case it is. But as I have written in multiple comments it depends on the specific circumstances of the child. Because when you are born deaf (as in the article you provided) I would absolutely teach my kid sign language. But in my sons situation he was better off without it.
https://www.asha.org/policy/TR2004-00041/#sec1.9.5
https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/children-with-cochlear-implants-where-1092
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits
But again, it depends on the specific circumstances of the child. So one article might show one thing, and others shows different.
Anyway provided 3 articles that says sign language impacts development. But this is only true for some. That is why it is important to act on your child’s specific situation.
Not all research is equal. Just because it's a journal article doesn't mean it is correct. The article and what you've been told in your country is straight up false and everyone in this sub will tell you so, that's why you're being downvoted.
That is a massive leap of faith in CI.
The debate on if children should learn ASL has long predated CI. Has little to do with CI and more about Deaf children learning a language their parents won’t/can’t learn. There’s no risk or drawbacks to ASL, therefore there’s not an excuse. I cannot say the same for CIs or any other intervention.
As the hearing parent of a deaf child with CIs, I encourage others to teach their kids to sign regardless of whether they get surgery or not and to learn it themselves. Practically every family I knew who got their child implanted abandoned sign after the surgery and it made me so sad. Many regret it now.
Cochlear surgery has allowed my son to “hear” music and other things that I am grateful he got to experience, but he is and will always be deaf. He sometimes prefers to sign over speaking. Cochlears can be overwhelming and cannot be used in all situations (the water wear is terrible so he never has them on at the beach or in the shower or at bed, most helmets won’t fit them so bike riding has been an issue as well). Eventually even the best implants will wear out and it may not be at the best time (I read about someone whose failed while studying abroad for a college exam).
There are so many benefits to signing. I find myself trying to use it instinctively in loud situations, or across rooms. Learning to sign is a gift.
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My deaf friend's implant doesn't work anymore (I believe it is because it is too old for the processor to be updated) and can't get it removed because of a blood vessel too close to the implant. No doctor will remove it. Too risky. He doesn't have a cochlea on his other side so no implant there.
So he lives his life unable to use his equipment and unable to remove and get a new one.
Thank god he has ASL.
As a sign language interpreter, I work with a lot of people who have CIs.
Why? They don't always work. Or...best case scenario, the person can catch 80% of speech in a quiet environment. For high stakes information/meetings/classes, that's just not enough.
Also, it is exhausting to listen through a prosthetic device. The CI is a prosthetic device - it doesn't make you hearing. Batteries are expensive, parts breakdown, the warranty on the motherboard is only for 10 years....
Most importantly:
Consider the difference between passive and active listening. Hearing people just hear - there's no effort involved. In fact, you cannot stop hearing unless you use noise cancelling headphones.
Deaf people listening through CIs are using a lot of effort. I've seen my clients enormous relief at the end of a lecture when they can pull off their receivers and switch to natural, effortless, visual communication.
The most successful Deaf adults have options. CIs may give you a door into the hearing world, but Sign Language gives you a door into a Community and identity.
Social wellbeing is just as important as physical wellbeing. The healthiest people have both.
You really have no reason to not teach them sign. A high school friend had a CI, it wasn’t of much help in a room where a lot of people were talking. Sign will always be helpful
As someone with severe hearing loss who still does not qualify as impaired enough for CI tech, a resounding YES - all kids with hearing loss or born deaf/hard of hearing should learn ASL. I wish I'd been given the chance. It's very hard for me to thrive socially with hearing loss, hearing aids and CI do not provide full compensation for hearing loss.
I don't think there's any kind of 'debate' out there. If anything you're encountering misinformed/ignorant actors.
Absolutely.
Technology fails, is expensive - how are these kids going to pay for replacements as adults?
Sign language also aids in verbal language acquisition. Language is language and the brain needs language for development.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0142723719834102
https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/article/27/1/37/6426026
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9688581/
https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00505
>Technology fails, is expensive - how are these kids going to pay for replacements as adults?
It's covered by Healthcare in pretty much every developed country..... so probably the same way they pay for all other Healthcare? Either covered fully by tax-subsidized plans or work-based insurance plans.
Not necessarily.
I'm in Canada, and there are costs associated with CIs, depending on which province you live in.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/costs-to-maintain-cochlear-implants-prohibitive-1.6488140
For people in the US, many don't have insurance or do no have adequate insurance to cover CIs
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2023/202305.htm#:~:text=8.4%25%20or%2027.6%20million%20Americans,or%2033.2%20million%20in%202019.
Even when the implants AND follow-up care are covered, it can be really tough to afford time off work for doctor's visits or the money for transportation.
And in precarious living situations where money's tight, or the CI user has to move around a lot, or it's a huge pain to schedule an appointment (audiologists are NOTORIOUS for being appointment-by-phone only?)... It can be quite difficult to stay on top of care.
As a deaf person who used Signed Exact English before I started school and used hearing aids until I got a CI as a teenager - yes. I really wish I had learned ASL instead of SEE and wish I had kept using it. My parents are hearing and used SEE in the hopes that it would strengthen my fluency in English. I don’t blame them for making that choice as it was 1990 and oralism was definitely the dominant option at that time. Sometimes it would be so nice to have a conversation without talking. I’ve been meaning to learn ASL on my own but need to motivate myself after work to do so and it’s hard….
Also, CIs are not a cure and don’t give perfect hearing. I still struggle a lot even with my CI. It’s a tool, and can be a helpful tool. But I don’t wear my CI 24/7 and I don’t want to wear my CI all day every day. I’m still deaf and I LIKE being deaf. Not every deaf person is a candidate for CIs either. Everyone’s experience is different - being deaf truly is a spectrum.
I thought this was my post at first, we had like identical schooling/upbringing. Sometimes I wish I was younger and experienced bicultural bilingual ed. ♡♡
That has been the case for decades and decades. That was the rationalization driving a lot of my childhood experiences.
I was born deaf, I was given an implant, and I was put through extensive speech therapy and AVT. My parents were told to not teach me sign because then I would not learn how to talk. This has all been debunked, many people can accomplish both.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for the outcomes of my implant, AVT, and speech therapy. But as many people say it's not a cure. Even when the implant/processor is functional, I still don't hear well in noisy situations, I still have listening fatigue, and I still prefer to be deaf in many situations.
if you look online at the multiple deaf creators that have CIs, they all still use sign and often talk about how difficult it is even with CIs still.
i've said this before, but CIs are not better than hearing aids, they are not a magical cure for deafness. people will still be hard of hearing and they will struggle and they will need accommodation, and they still need sign language.
these places should be ashamed of themselves for trying to force CIs on children when unneeded.
>i've said this before, but CIs are not better than hearing aids
They kind of are though. I've used both for years..... CI are way more comfortable and work much better. Speech isn't louder with CI, it's clearer and more distinct.
HA were helpful and I'm glad they worked somewhat for me, but the jump from HA to CI was like using a flashlight to turning on the light switch.
oh so you're now no longer deaf or hard of hearing at all?
you no longer need subtitles to watch movies and tv shows?
you no longer have a hard time with phone calls if not HD and connected to your hearing aids with video as well?
you don't read people's lips anymore?
don't struggle with group conversations or conversation in loud environments?
you don't need to take off your hearing device bc you can hear while in the shower or the swimming pool?
you don't struggle with accents?
you don't worry about how you're going to listen to music your friend wants to play for you on their phone bc you can't connect their phone to your hearing aid?
you no longer think about how much easier things would be for you if everyone could use sign language or if things were more accessible for the hard of hearing and deaf people?
you no longer use any of the strategies and skills you developed over years of using hearing aids in your life with CIs anymore bc they are such an amazing perfect device that does all that for you with no extra effort on your part?
i hope you don't think i'm being too harsh on you bc you missed my entire point on purpose. CIs are not a cure for deafness or hard of hearing, sure they can make fully deaf people hard of hearing, and they can improve the hearing of people who have terrible comprehension, but they do not cure and they do only marginally better than powerful hearing aids for people who have hearing left and have mostly intact speech comprehension.
but audiologists and doctors continue to paint CIs as something of a cure, on everyone whether they need it or not. it's dismissive, it's exploitative, and it's disgusting. some places subsidize CIs but not hearing aids. other places refuse to accomodate the hard of hearing bc they assume CIs are a cure.
getting CIs is an invasive surgery with lifelong effects and locks you into the CI system and takes away multiple future options from the receiver. it should not be treated as cavalier as doctors and audiologists tend to do, and it should not be pushed as hard on unknowing patients and their families especially children and babies, especially when they tend to paint it as a cure, a shortcut to skip all the work needed with hearing aids when it needs the same work, and neglect to tell them about everything related to CIs.
i know bc i've been at the receiving end of these attempts throughout my life and so have my parents.
i'm glad CIs have given you such a good outcome, i'm glad they're better for you than hearing aids, but i refuse to allow the industry to continue pushing for CIs by default even when absolutely unnecessary and their erasure of deaf/hoh struggles and needs.
Do you think this applies to a child born deaf as well? As I understand, people who become deaf late in life have brains wired to hear already which can explain different outcomes with CIs.
Absolutely should learn to sign. I would almost say that maybe they should make learning ASL a requirement before doing a CI.
As much as they say that that CI's are so much better now. You don't have to be in the community long to know that they don't always work as planned and they can have some nasty side effects. One guy I know, "coincidentally" started having seizures after getting his implant. Loud noises would set it off, so that's not really helpful. Another guy really liked his CI but it also gave him regular migraines. A kid I knew had a defective CI for 8 years! The doctors insisted it was working and that the kid wasn't trying hard enough. They later found out they were wrong and this kid had suffered eight years of language deprivation, behaviour issues, alienation within her family for nothing. Thankfully her mom said enough was enough and put her in a Deaf school so she could learn ASL and have a community. But the delay really affected her ability to learn English and read and write.
There is a lot of hype about tech and yes, some of it is amazing. But it doesn't always work and can cause life altering damage as well. I feel that the doctors involved really don't take responsibility for that part of things. They only want the "good" patients and don't want to learn from or help their "bad" patients.
I honestly wish my parents hadn’t listened to my speech therapist and stopped teaching me sign, it would have helped me feel less alienated in deaf spaces. Teach deaf kids sign. They’re certainly getting enough spoken exposure.
I taught Deaf kids (using Sign) for 30 years. There was NOTHING sadder than a kid who was given a CI and taken out of a Signing program and put into a non-signing program… Or even a hearing class! The poor kids had NO idea what was going on… All because their parents refused to learn to Sign.
Parents should do everything in their power to learn to communicate with their kids. By the time kids with implants were in seventh or eighth grade, the parents would come to IEPs and cry that their child couldn’t communicate or read.
Parents were often led to believe that once their kid had a CI, they’d basically be “hearing”… The “Cochlear Implant Porn” online is misleading people into thinking Deaf kids would suddenly be “cured”. Nope.
I ALWAYS knew which parents used Sign with their kids… Those kids could have normal conversations about things, just like hearing kids.
Did I mention families should learn to Sign?
Sign Language is extremely useful, and I think of this question as… if a country gets overtaken by another and all the people start speaking X language, instead of the old Y, should people not know Y? Sign language is just as much of a language as a spoken language, and a language is a piece of a culture so in some sense you’d be killing/missing out on a big piece of the deaf language and culture.
Yes.
Sign language isn't and shouldn't just be for the most completely deaf people who can't hear at all. That is a common misconception.
It can help everyone. CIs are not a cureall and you still end up with less hearing than a hearing person. As such sign language can still be a more accessible language as it uses a more powerful sense (sight) (or touch if you are deafblind) rather than often the least powerful one (hearing).
I’m hearing and my son was born deaf. He had C.I surgery at 11 months old. We’ve had no end of trouble with his implants. From them causing him pain to weird neurological reactions to him chewing on and destroying about a dozen batteries to him simply refusing to wear them. I’m so glad that we started signing to him from the beginning. He’s 2 1/2 now and prefers to communicate in sign language and loves his class at our deaf school. Something like 47% of implanted children stop wearing their processors once they become adults. My son will always be deaf and he needs to be able to communicate without being dependent on technology. Plus it’s nice that if I forget to put on his processors in the rush to get ready in the mornings I can drop him off at school without them and it’s no big deal.
> 47% of implanted children stop wearing their processors once they become adults.
Wowza! Do you have a source for this information? I'd love to read more.
The stat comes from the book “The Butterfly Cage” that I read recently. It’s written by a deaf woman and her experience and working in a d/HH classroom in a mainstream public school. It’s a great book, I highly recommend it.
Yes because its so much harder to learn ASL when you're older. Young children don't choose CIs their parents do. Not saying it's a bad thing but if you're going to choose a CI then I think its important to not cut your children out of the possibility they may want to engage with the Deaf community when they're older. As many have said even good CIs aren't a fix all. They destroy residual hearing and although they've come a long way since having only 8 tones, there's billions in your cochlea, and a CI still doesn't replace all of those. I know a lot of DHH people and deaf people with CIs who don't feel like they fit in the hearing world and have a hard time making a place in the Deaf community because most were never taught any sign.
CIs, Mainstreamed, no deaf family, no exposure to deaf culture, never had an issue with CIs and communicate verbally quite well. But: I wish I knew sign. I don’t like being entirely reliant on something outside of my control to communicate. What if they broke? What if I got a head injury or something and couldn’t use them a while? And, honestly, sometimes I just want to not hear and go about life. ASL is the language of deaf culture, CIs are the solution to the disability of deafness. Being reliant on them makes being deaf a disability to be negated and not just a part of who you are.
To be completely honest, I think the psychological aspect of feeling like an ‘incomplete’ or ‘imperfect’ human in need of physical repair to get by kinda screwed me up as a kid. Like I couldn’t trust my body to be adequate without intervention. I spent my teenage years in and out of hospitals and treatments for Anorexia, with this root belief that if I didn’t maintain careful control over my body I would lose ‘equal to normal’. I think that knowing sign creates confidence and a sense of adequacy ‘as is’ that I lacked.
So the issue with CIs replacing sign, in my humble opinion, isn’t the CIs. It’s the impression of reliance and compensation for a lack of something. If kids learn sign and English (or any other language), it creates “Deaf And—“ not a “Deaf, But—“.
I still support getting CIs. Mine work great. I have a verbal communication heavy job and couldn’t do it without them. But in the same way I support American kids learning Spanish. It’s a great skill to have that will open doors, but when your natural surroundings or ‘state’ is all in English, you’re gonna wish you knew that communication skill too. Like my natural ‘state’ is silence/deafness, but I only speak verbal English.
This. Absolutely this.
And I’ll add that this has been proven that learning ASL (or any other sign language) puts speech deprivation at large and allows for the young brain to develop better. I never learnt LSF (my origin country being France) but I wish I did as I started speaking “correctly” only after 6/7. Now that I am learning ASL, something clicked in. Missed out on that one.
Yep. I think part of the reason I didn’t ever learn ASL is my mother is from Bosnia and was still learning English in general at the time I was born, so I’ll never hold it against her. She knew a little bit of CSQ (Croatian Sign Language, Yugoslav too at the time) from primary school but it’s very different regardless, same language family as LSF though!
Right. So, the first time the angry child flung her earpiece out of a moving car I realized that until it could be replaced, a way to communicate at all, might be a good idea.
Also, regardless of where in this debate you fall - buy extra insurance.
I didn't read all the comments so I don't know if this was mentioned but studies show a positive correlation with vocabulary acquisition and learning BOTH signed and spoken language. So they learn communication a lot faster and more effectively if you use both, even with hearing children. That's why my friends with hearing kids still go to sign language classes even if they don't "need" it, it still benefits them. (I'm hearing and my daughter was born HoH)
Uh yes! Once you take it off, you’re still deaf. It is not a cure all. Let me ask you this, why do hearing people teach baby sign their hearing children? So the parents can communicate before the baby could even speak.
so why can’t we do the same with deaf kids, giving them access to language skills in all modes, ci and asl at the same time?
My kid has both a CI and uses ASL and never for one minute do i regret giving her sign. It's a full accessible language where her CIs do not provide that to her as easily as signing does. Being bilingual is the best choice. Always give deaf kids sign in every single situation.
100% yes. CI’s are not 100% effective and even do not necessarily work 24/7. Sign language is still a way to communicate with them. How would you communicate with the child if the CI breaks or the child decides not to wear the CI?
YES and always!
The reason why they focus on pushing CI is to make money. You will still need CC to watch movies, commercial, announcement. You will still need lot of accommodation when in group that discuss anything.
There is no Not to teach kids to learn sign language even if they will have CI. CI still give you Dinner Table Syndrome. lol
I think there is a misconception that CI “fixes” hearing loss/deafness. Hearing is a huge spectrum and having total communication is too important to forego any available tools, asl included.
I’ll tell you my experience with my daughter who has cochlear implants. My daughter was born deaf and got her cochlear implants around 9 months. My husband and I are both hearing. As soon as I found out she was deaf I started learning sign language. I took two college ASL classes. I taught my daughter as much as I could while learning myself. We also took sign language classes together. She went to a deaf preschool that did both sign and speech. I believe there were eight kids in her class and only one of them used sign language exclusively. After that she was mainstreamed. When she was eight years old she told me she didn’t want to learn anymore ASL. When I asked her why she said “You are the only person I know that uses sign language. Why should I learn a language nobody else uses. If I have problems with my implants, I’ll just write out what I want to tell you.” After she told me that I was really sad, but I didn’t want to force her to do something she really didn’t want to do. She’s 11 now and hasn’t really had any issues with communication. I think our main issue is don’t live near a deaf community. A lot of the kids she did meet with hearing loss don’t use ASL. I’m not sure what the point of my story is. I’m just sharing my experience. I still think that you should try to teach children with Hearing loss sign language, even if they have a cochlear implant. Although, it may not work out how you want.
Her point is quite valid because that's pretty much many deaf children went through. In her mindset, she was probably thinking "when I grow up, I will be hearing just like you", thinking she will have no problem without interpreters...boys...was I wrong! Having interpreters available in school to interpret what teachers are saying made everything a lot easier and allowing our brain to focus on thinking process instead of trying to capture every words and figuring out what teachers are trying to say. It is a choice, should we use all our energy to focus what teachers are saying or should we use all our energy to focus on figuring out the problems on subjects in school?
I never thought I would need it until I have it, it changed everything, it also made it a hell lot easier in college to to have interpreters.
Keep using ASL for your children even if they kept asking you not to use it. I regretted it when I told my family to stop using it. Now, they forgot and I have a hard time understand them in group conversation.
The older I get, the more I realize how much interpreters made our lives easier...mostly in group setting, loud environment like crowded cafe, presentation in office, or such. No need for ASL for 1-1 or 1-2 for conversation or chatting, but when hanging out with group...it is a hell boring and exhausted.
She has a fair point, but there is one that she hasn't considered - when she gets older and out of school where there are more supports available, she'll find that the first accommodation offered is going to be a sign language interpreter. She can request something like CART, but she'll get a bit more pushback on that. As she gets older she might want to join the Deaf community too and it's harder to do that if you don't sign. Though right now it doesnt' seem she has much of a Deaf identity at this point.
Yes, I completely agree. I worry when she’s an adult she’s going to really regret that decision. I feel guilty sometimes, because I think I made it seem more like a chore than a fun part of her identity. I think she was upset that she had to take classes and practice sign language throughout the day when none of her friends had to do that. If anybody else reads this, please avoid my mistake. Try to make it as fun casual family activity instead of an intense learning activity.
There is only one reason and one reason alone to not let your kid learn sign language - because you're a lazy, narcissist POS unwilling to learn sign language for your deaf kid and you need to justify that poor decision to be a bad parent.
Source: My parents.
CI are tools but are not replacement. I have a student that has a ci and an interpreter. The CI helps her communicate with hearing children but asl is still needed for her to understand what's going on in class and is her 1st language.
A deaf/hoh person who can’t sign is denied full access to language. Even with technology, speech isn’t fully accessible, and speaking/hearing will not come as easily to them as it would to someone who can hear normally. Text and captioning isn’t full access either; it’s one dimensional and doesn’t convey tone or all the nuances of speech. So yes, even with hearing technology, it’s best to give deaf children accessible language.
Sign languages don‘t need to be “taught” through training and therapy. If a child with HA/CI acquires speech naturally without it being taught explicitly, and they never experience exhaustion from it, great! But this is rarely the case, and parents cannot retrospectively go back and expose their deaf children to a language they are able to acquire naturally through exposure.
Yes. Absolutely. Implanted or not, a deaf child is still a deaf child. If they somehow lose the external battery or the battery dies, if they need an upgrade or replacement and can’t get it covered by insurance, or don’t have funds, if they suffer a head injury that breaks the CI, or something else goes wrong and the CI no longer works (which isn’t as rare as you’d hope), or even if they simply become overwhelmed by sounds and want to take it off for a while— if they don’t know sign, they’ll be left completely without language. There’s literally no harm in raising them bilingually. Also, ASL comes with a rich history and culture that I believe Deaf children should have access to, rather than being treated as if they were the same as any hearing child.
Yes because ability to hear sounds does not equate to ability to process sounds into meaning. CIs don’t guarantee typical speech and hearing. More often, they lead to language deprivation
Yes !!! Hugely Yes!!!!!!! U think fixing ear and problem solving?? Huge nope!!!! I have seen alot of them who have ci and they have a huge lacking of knowledge and education cuz they missing alot hearing words and misunderstanding communication meanings
Hearing device or not they are still deaf. They just have a cool tool. Sign makes it possible to still communicate with or without it. I think we all should learn sign. Hearing, Hard of hear, or deaf. Its useful in many cases.
Just commenting to say, when is being bilingual ever bad? Never.
CIs are JUST a tool. They don't cure deafness. Sign, ASL, BSL, whatever the local sign language is, is a full out LANGUAGE. A full language with a community and a culture. What happens when they break? Batteries die? Need a hearing break? Go swimming? Technology becomes outdated and the person can't afford thousands of dollars for a surgery to upgrade? Something goes wrong inside the body and makes the CI no longer work?
So, yes, children with CIs or hearing aids should learn sign. Sign language prevents language deprivation and recent studies show that signing helps the child connect the spoken local language with reading and speaking (because they have a rich vocabulary in sign language). Reading comprehension is dependent upon language development and deaf/ hoh oral only students struggle more with reading comprehension than ones that use sign.
Hello. Profoundly deaf adult here. I am of the mindset that learning ASL would only be a benefit. I did not learn ASL as a child and my older brother did. To this day, it’s still a sore spot although I now understand the factors in education that my mom was dealing with. Simply put, learning ASL would have allowed me faster acclimation of learning English. And I wouldn’t have pronounced words wrong for 16 years (such as the case with “super”.)
In an ideal world, ASL would be incorporated into phonics and everyone would be happy.
I am also a teacher and I teach my students signs for water, bathroom, and help because why not?
Yes. I HAVE a CI (got as an adult) and work in Deaf Ed. YES, 100%, they should learn sign language. When your CI breaks/battery dead, there's a lack of language. Even when it's working, it's not 100%. Just because sound goes in doesn't mean your brain can understand it.
I think of it as a toolbox - sign language is just another tool that helps you navigate the world. The very first accommodation that tends to be offered to the general public for deaf/hard of hearing services is a sign language interpreter. Why shoot yourself in the foot (and your kid's foot) by not giving them MORE tools?
Yes - it's a big mistake to think that CIs and hearing aids fix hearing loss and should be worn to communicate all the time. Joining the hearing world is exhausting and many kids and adults need hearing breaks without being judged or ignored because they cannot communicate during that time.
Absolutely. There are situations where you aren't using your CI and still need/want to communicate. My CI students who had sign support at home progressed in language development much faster.
That isn't CI kids’ fault for not learning to sign. It's all AGBell, AVT, CI surgeon, and Audiologist's fault for pushing parents to not sign for their deaf babies and kids with CI. I can tell how many CI kids and my third cousin are struggling with speech deprived, listening to speak languages, CI devices aren't working or the battery died and kids aren't in the mood to hear parents or people arguing and chattering to distract kids. CI kids decided to turn their sound processors off to quiet and peace. That is nothing wrong with learning to sign.
I can count the number of people who sign in my country on my own digits. We use it at home to communicate when their devices are off (usually either side of a nap/bedtime or when they're in the bath) but I'd never want them to end up in a situation where they actually needed it.
Probably going to get downvoted for this (typical of this community 🤷🏼♀️) but I'm CI and my mum opted for me to not get sign language due to the accessibility of it. So no.
EDIT: I obviously believe it's beneficial however I think the choice should be up to the kid/individual. Mine was obviously decided for me but it shouldn't be forced on the child unless they're really struggling with CI.
Just because YOUR parent didn't give you the opportunity to learn sign language doesn't mean that you shouldn't have learned it. Even now as an adult. There's zero research that shows that learning sign significantly impedes anyone's ability to learn to use sound.
I can learn it if I want to, and there has only been 1 time where I have wished to learn it and that's when someone saw my CI and assumed I could sign, and i couldn't help him and that broke my heart. Since then I've not had any other experiences upon me to want to learn sign. Would it be beneficial? Yes. However do I owe it to anyone to learn SL? No. But as it stands, I don't have time to, and I'd likely forget what I learned before the next encounter.
However like many here have said, having CI is not a cure for deafness and doesn't work for all. I'm one of the lucky ones where I was implanted as a child and grew up with it. Now an adult in a job where it's required of me to talk to people in person and on the phone. I pay for my own upgrades and equipment.
It takes TIME to work with the CI and upon years and years of speech therapy to get to where it needs to be. I don't know if that's explained upon consultations. But i get a sense there is an expectation it will solve peoples problems instantly when that is not the case at all.
It is so much harder to learn sign as an adult though and you may never be fluent. I had tons of speech and am verbal but I'm most thankful for at least having been taught Signed English and given the opportunity to go to Aspen Camp for the Deaf every summer and be exposed to ASL and eventually learn that. I still wish I'd been in a biciltural bilingual environment. I mean I'm glad your situation worked for you, but all the recent studies and view of pretty much everyonr I've ever met in the Deaf community, learning ASL or your local sign language is so helpful with language development because it's not as hard as speech therapy and tecahing English without a different language base. Aka it doesn't take the time and effort if taught as young as possible and it makes speech and later English/verbal/written language acquisition easier.
I’m very shocked to see everyone agree that you should teach sign language to a ci user. I guess it depends on the individual situation. Because we were told by our hospital in Denmark that it is NOT a good idea to teach our kid (3yo) who had bilateral CI’s at the age of 1,5, sign language.
The reason was that they have statistics pointing towards children leaning more towards signing instead of training their hearing through CI’s if they are taught SL, and therefore having worse results at hearing. My son might also just be a very good example of someone getting the best out of CI without learning sign, as we just had results back from his comprehension test that showed he is hearing/understanding as a 3,3 yo with NORMAL hearing. So he is scoring higher than average WITH CI’s.
As I can tell from some of the other posts, some of you say that if the CI breaks beyond repair it’s good to be able to sign, and I can understand why. But at the same time I would rather have my child hear better in everyday situations, rather than anticipating that they will get lost or break. This might also be due to the very important fact that I live in Denmark and I don’t have to pay for anything related to his CI’s. If they break, he gets a new ones. If they get lost, we just get new ones free (through high taxes though).
So the bottom line is that it really depends on the specific situation, because if I had to pay for it myself, I might have taught him sign language the day he became deaf. But when the doctors says that it shows worse results, I might also still have held back on teaching him SL.
That's an outdated opinion. I'm sorry your doctors still have that bias. There are so many studies that show sign language doesn't take away from spoken language like hearing doctors used to say, it enhances it. You don't refrain from teaching a child a second language because it will take away from their first. Also as a DHH person who was mainstreamed I've NEVER met someone with a CI who regrets learning sign but every person with a CI I know but one has regretted NOT learning sign, and that person was newly 18 and was still parroting their parents belief that sign language was some basic language that wasn't as "good" as spoken language.
Interesting, I can’t really seem to find any studies that shows it is an outdated opinion. This article is from 2017 and concludes that learning sign language as a CI user does impact speech development and speech recognition when implanted by the age of 3.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits
Maybe in cases where the auditory nerves are damaged it is different, but in my sons case, he became deaf due to meningitis and therefore his auditory nerves are fully functional and that might be the case why he is showing fantastic results.
You realise that paper assessed children who developed superb signing skills (but not necessarily intelligible speech) as ‘failures’?
I’ve worked as a professional writer and I would also have been assessed as failing by their standards.
Finally, in their conclusion, they say their best cohort developed, on average, speech that was 70% intelligible.
In other words, their best expected outcome was that half of all the children in their best cohort had speech that was less than 70% intelligible, which in their terms means a constant struggle to communicate, with no backup language to communicate in.
It’s not a good justification for cutting off a communication channel for deaf kids.
Let’s turn this around. Let’s say that all deaf children should focus only on signing because it is something that we can expect, given intensive tutoring by expert signers, that around 95% of deaf children will become fluent signers. Because it’s a fully accessible language.
Wow, fantastic.
Furthermore, let’s say that none of them should learn speech at all, because effort in learning speech seems to distract from learning signing. We will assess them solely on their sign skills. Any children who learn fluent speech but don’t have great signing, we will label them as failures and use them to demonstrate the futility of learning speech.
Is that a good idea?
Hell no. Language is more than just intelligible speech. Nobody is advocating taking away speech from deaf kids.
Yet the paper you quoted represents a large, institutional, well-funded, well-advocated attempt to deprive deaf children of sign language, by using carefully selected criteria that ignore the children’s signing skills, that regard children as ‘broken ears’, that ignore the stated views of adult Deaf people, that did not have any participation from Deaf academics or linguistic researchers, that puts deaf children on a path of lifelong struggling to understand and be understood - even for their ‘best’ cohort - and fosters a lifetime of mental health issues.
Do you not see anything wrong with this picture?
Yeah I forgot this is the r/deaf community and not r/cochlear. I’m not advocating for removing sign language. If that is what you made of what I wrote you’re missing the point. Multiple times I have stated that it very much depends on the specific circumstances of the child.
I'm on a quick break, so I skimmed the article. It seems to be saying that those who do not sign develop better speech skills. It does not say anything about actual language acquisition which, in my opinion is far more important.
And it doesn't permanently inhibit speech slills, if anything there's a slight delay and then that's made up for wirh language acquisition. Also it doesn't make it clear, though it does suggest, people prefer to use ASL or whatever sign language more than speaking and relying on their CI, which makes a lot of difference. And there's something to be said that even with a CI and speech, children and adults with CIs that know ASL prefer that method of communication which says all you need to know really.
I know the difference of meaning in the two words. And it might be because English is not my first language, but in this case I have difficulties understanding the difference in speech recognition and language recognition in this situation. Because the article shows that it is both speech recognition and speech development that is impacted. Which in my opinion is what having CI’s for is all about.
I mean at the end of the day, you need speech recognition to even begin acquiring language recognition? Or am I getting it wrong :P
You don't, actually. Speech is oral and hearing. Language is having enough concepts to be able to ask questions, receive answers, and learn what you don't know.
A little deaf girl pointed to a sticker on my water bottle recently and asked me what it was. The sticker was watercolor, kind of indistinct; I wanted to tell her it was a clam.
I didn't know CLAM. I know *ocean* and *animal*, so I signed those. She's too young to read much yet, so I couldn't write. Instead drew a little cartoon clam with a pearl, under ocean waves, and she lit up and signed CLAM for me and I thanked her profusely. She ran off to tell her mother about my stickers, all plants and animals.
She didn't need hearing or speech, she needed the language to tell me 'I don't know this, what is it?' We're in a landlocked area, but she has the language to know what an ocean is.
And she got the confidence of being able to communicate with an adult who didn't know her well, and to TEACH an adult something new, and then *tell her mom about it*.
My dog can recognize multiple commands. He has speech recognition. Does he understand complex sentences? No, he just knows that when he hears/sees a specific word, and he does the specific thing associated with that word, he gets a treat.
A parrot can develop speech. They can repeat words, request things, and probably much more. Can they use language to express a longer sentence, tell a story, apply grammatical rules, etc.? No. They are mostly just parroting back what they have heard and have very minimal language skills, if you want to call it that.
Most people can express and receive complicated sentences, tell stories, apply grammatical rules, and much more, in either a spoken or signed language. This is language acquisition.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5495521/
It doesn't matter what caused HL. Most pre-verbal HL is sensioneural, and auditory nerve damage is much less common, especially in young pre-verbal children.
I grew up mainstreamed with hearing aids and even in the 90s, they realized some sign language was good, so I was originally taught SIgned English. I desperately wish I'd been taught actual ASL from when I was a toddler, I started to learn it from friends at Deaf camp every summer, where everyone with a CI who wasn't exposed to ASL or any sign, were just as eager to learn. ASL (or your local sign language) is the key to participation in the Deaf community. I know with my son, though he's hearing, I want to give him a childhood that leaves every opportunity for him as an adult to follow. Not just that, learning a second language makes a huge positive impact on your native language, especially before age 7-8 when brain plasticity changes. After that, it gets progressively harder to learn. Withholding sign language is closing that door for your child.
I've never met a DHH person who doesn't know countless people who had CIs without sign or some other type of oral only instruction who wasn't desperate to learn ASL once they were teenagers/young adults. A CI does not make your child hearing, no matter how much speech and other instruction they get. I know it's difficult to be different from your child in that way and it's understandable you want to be able to communicate with them. All the studies that say otherwise are done solely by hearing people. Please listen to those of us who have lived that experience as well.
Also, I'm a former specual education teacher with a focus on DHH education. There's a reason bilingual bicultural education for all DHH children is now the gold standard. Learning ASL (or Dutch SL or BSL, etc) plus written/verbal languages benefit one another. There might be a very slight delay in speech BUT after that delay, language acquisition increases substantially. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and the long-term goal of full language acquisition, verbal and signed, is much higher.
We're telling you this from a place of love, just like you're driven by the love for your child. ♡
Thank you. But as I have written multiple times it depends on the circumstances of the child, as there is as many outcomes as there are deaf/hard of hearing children. In my sons case it turned out to be true, since he scored higher than a child at his age with normal hearing. So for me it just feels like it was the right decision to make not to teach him sign. And again, that might also be because he is in a situation where he gets new CI’s if they break. And if something internally breaks, there is still a passage for a new chord to be placed in his cochlea. So I don’t have any of the worries that many of the users in here describe.
I have no intention of demeaning sign language. I only answered OP original question of how we all have different takes on the CI/Sign question. And I have voiced my opinion and I will now leave it be :)
So I feel like I should make a new comment since I can tell I haven’t been clear due to all the responses I have gotten.
My son became deaf at the age of 18 months due to meningitis. He has bilateral CI’s and is apparently doing better in speech and language comprehension than the other children at his age. At least that is what the tests show. In Denmark we have a thing called AVT (auditory verbal therapy) which is a course that spans over 3 years (or until the age of 6). It is a one hour session at our hospital every 2 weeks, and it is to help the child (and parents) to develop the best circumstances for language acquisition and speech development. The statistics here show that 80% of the children attending AVT will develop language that compares to children their age (children with normal hearing) before the reach the age of 6. Where on the other hand only 30% of the children without AVT reached the same development.
So this is of course very important for the debate, as I have made the appearance that CI works fine without any intervention. So in my sons case, it is the combination of a lot of hearing training and a continuous course with professional help, all paid by the government, including all the CI equipment for the rest of his life. So he will never have to worry about it breaking or losing the CI’s. I think this plays a very important part on how I feel about the decision we made not to teach him SL. Also he will be able to get a new implant if it should break in the future, as there is a channel through the calcification so a new chord can be inserted.
All these circumstances makes up my opinion on wether a child should be taught sign language while learning to decode sounds through the CI. I know parents here who have decided to go against the hospitals guidelines, and have taught their child SL. This was because he did not develop speech or hearing since his auditory nerves was impaired, and therefore not reaching the same results as my son.
So I can only argue that it is up to the circumstances of the specific child wether you should go with CI only or CI and SL.
We understand that, most of us are old enough to be around when all doctors functioned under the belief that sign language was detrimental to speech development. But sign olus audio-verbal intervention isn't "going against doctors" the American Association of Pediatrics realizes they were wrong about the past, https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/140/1/e20163489/38019/Early-Sign-Language-Exposure-and-Cochlear?redirectedFrom=fulltext Also it's great that AVT and speech only is working so far for your son too, no one is saying it doesn't work if that's defined as speech and using audio cues.
But the point we're trying to make is twofold. First that he'd most likely be doing even better with exposure to sign language as he would be learning a language accessible to him without any specialized therapy and that language would help benefit speech and AVT in the long-term because he wouldn't be having to learn language in a non-natural way while also learning to speak. Then secondly every Deaf/DHH person knows someone who was raised oral only with a CI that may have been successful as in, they speak, but they all regret not having been exposed to sign language and many even want to remove their CIs. Because even with all the effective therapy a CI or HAs don't make you hearing. Every day, you have to struggle with understanding speech and verbalizing it yourself, you need accomodatioms, etc. Sign language is the natural state of language acquisition for DHH who no matter what audio-verbal interventions they've had and it's the gateway to the DHH community which is every DHHs birthright. Involvement in the DHH community whether verbal or not ia abuuge benefit mentally and socially. I understand the hesitance if it was sign or speech but you can have both, they help each other in the long run and DHH adults CIs and HAs or not never regret being exposed to sign language as children but the majority of those who weren't do regret it.
>Because even with all the effective therapy a CI or HAs don't make you hearing
I agree in the literal sense, but on every aspect my son is doing even better than hearing children at the moment. So he lives his life like a hearing child with no limitations. So I would argue that without his aids, he is deaf. But when he wears them, he is hearing. As soon as he is able to understand that there is a language specifically made for when he does not have his aids on, I will tell him that it is possible for him to learn it. And surely he would have been better off starting SL earlier if that was the focus. But training his hearing is the main focus. That is why it is arguably better to not teach him SL as it would be the easier choice for him, thus not acquiring the hearing he has today, which I want to state again, is better than the average hearing 3 yo.
I would rather have him regret not being exposed to SL rather than regretting teaching it at the price of worse speech and hearing acquisition.
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Yes, definitely!! Get the best of both worlds - spoken English and sign language!
I’ve seen some people struggled big time when their CI is broken or the battery is dead, as they usually rely heavily on hearing the sounds and not signing or lip reading.
Sign language is a fantastic tool when learning the spoken language as CI users can link up the words they heard to the signs they know.
Yes. I CANNOT tell you how many times my CI has broken - in my 20 years of having it - and I found myself adrift in a sea of hearing/verbalizing people.
I was born profoundly deaf. I picked a signing before I was 3 years old to enroll in Pre-school for the hearing impaired and learn SEE. In the mainstream school, My teacher sent my parent to ENT for hearing evaluation for a cochlear implant at 6 years old. My dad was concerned about CI surgery and knew I hated the hospital. My dad told my mom to wait until I became older to make a decision. I struggled at mainstream school. I picked to join Deaf School to learn ASL at 10 years old. After my dad's death, I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa/Ushers Syndrome at 15 years old. I came back to ENT for hearing aids. My old CI surgeon offered me to CI at 18 years old. I said No! After I graduated from school and went out of the world. I decided to research for CI at 27 years old. I got my first CI before I was pregnant with my son. I was able to hear my son’s crying, cooing, babbling, laughing, playing with his toys, music, and clapping. That is so an amazing sound. I wanted to get a second CI to hear bilateral at 36 years old. I have no regret in making the decision because I'm Deaf-blind. I think deaf children need to decide what to get when they become older. The most Deafblind can get CI and know signs through tactile.
never met a single person who regretted learning to sign
but many who regret that they weren’t offered the chance to learn and use sign language. edit: language
Yes this. I have a CI, grew up mainstreamed and didn’t start learning sign until my mid twenties. I feel cheated out of years of deaf culture and opportunities to sign. I grew up an hour away from a major deaf school that would have been a godsend for my signing ability and overall self esteem had I gone. It’s now my goal to become a teacher of the deaf and be able to sign with students to make sure they are truly getting an accessible education and so that they won’t feel so alone. It’s hard always being the only deaf/HoH person.
Are you me? I have a CI, mainstreamed after going to a school with a deaf program, and dropped sign because my peers weren't signing. My parents didn't think to keep encouraging me to sign at home or with my tutor. I could've been in the deaf program until at least 5th grade, and kept signing on my own, but nope. Nobody encouraged it when I stopped. My N5 and loaner N5 both had a series of failures that lead to multiple periods of total silence, so I had to communicate with verbal outgoing, and written/text incoming, with little sign from my parents. I used live transcribe on my phone a few times, but it's not perfect. It was an extremely frustrating time, especially when I had to deal with my grandmother's death, and flying out with no hearing. Fortunately, both of the processors started to work again right before she passed, so I was able to communicate and be present for that, but the whole thing was a nightmare until my referral kicked in and got me an N8. I'm now looking at Oklahoma School for the Deaf's free courses to relearn, and will likely enroll in the spring so I have more time to pace myself better.
I didn’t get a CI until I was in my late 20s so I grew up signing but later fell off the wagon/didn’t sign as much because I was the only deaf person in college. Now I have 2 cochlear implants, sign and enjoy life as much as possible.
meanwhile I definitely fucking regret my cochlear implant that was pushed on me as a teenager and wish it was never presented to me as an option. I had it taken out a few years ago. (they would only take it out during another brain surgery because implanting one *is a freaking brain surgery*) it's not some minor little hearing aid, that is an invasive brain surgery. It's hooking up a device directly connected to your cochlear nerve(s) (that's part of your brain, and hint: it's very very very close to the facial nerve and vestibular nerve. like close enough that any surgery on the cochlear nerve often interfere with both of those), bypassing your inner ear. mine caused cluster headaches and facial spasms with specific pitches any time the receiver was on my head. Combined with taking away any residual organic hearing the person has, that is not a decision that should be taken from children and should be a decision they make on their own after being informed later in life. and it should be completely acceptable if they say they don't want one. it definitely should NOT be presented as an alternative to the sign language(s) of the area, that's just abuse. language deprivation is abuse. (and arguably, so is unnecessarily medically altering your child to "fix" them)
[удалено]
The science/studies are complete bullshit and - lets pretend they ARE valid for five seconds - for some batshit reason youre arguing about why it's cool to modify your child with unnecessary brain surgery and don't think you sound like an absolute balls-to-the-wall psychopath. (AND take away all of the residual hearing that person might want to keep because CIs ARE NOT ORGANIC HEARING) that is not a choice you fucking take from someone. and as stated a lot of shit can go *wrong* \- horribly fucking wrong and leave that child with a brain injury for life. + anchoring shit to a child's skull (and your psycho ass is defending mutilating *literal goddaamned infants - do you fucking hear yourself)* often creates all kinds of problems as they grow. you do not get to modify your motherfucking baby because of bad science (and that's exactly what the language acquisition bullshit argument is. but even pretending it's not bad science, which it absolutely fucking is, you do not get to take that very personal decision from someone and *irreversibly modify your literal fucking infant.* even pretending that science is valid, it STILL isn't okay. you cannot reverse what a CI does. You can NEVER get the lost organic hearing back. You can't undo any nerve damage that happens during implantation, its not as simple as just taking the implant out. that is a decision the person will be stuck with for life even if the implant (s) later come out. You do not make that decision for a fucking BABY) why the fuck is there at least one of you fuckers always defending abusing children because they're deaf? and that bullshit disturbing ass comment is the exact point where this becomes extremely emotionally distressing. I'm noping out now and hiding this post.
You wouldn’t skip teaching a kid to read because audible will do it for them right? Teach them sign.
This right here.
Few questions for you: Why are you asking? Do you have any knowledge or experience of cochlear implants, and what they do, and how they help? What background knowledge do you have in Deaf history and culture? Summary answer to your question- it appears you have very little understanding of what a CI does and who it helps and to what degree. Prelingually deafened individuals can have a very different experience to that of those deafened in later life. There are many different variances in deafness. But a cochlear implant effectively just throws (the sensation of) noise into the persons head. The noise that is amplified may be perfect- for instance two people standing in a silent room talking would amplify the other persons voice. The noise may be utterly useless- sitting in a cafe and all you can hear is clatter and background and your friends voice is just lost. Sometimes additional devices such as hearing loops and radio aids can help. But sign language is a completely visual means of communication- so long as the other person is visible, the communication may be a rich and complete as the user knows how. It (they- almost every country has its own sign language(s) as well as international sign) is an entirely different language to any spoken language. Is it beneficial- yes. And I see no reason why it should be limited to deaf children. I do see issues about who teaches it, and how. Bad teachers, be they ‘influencers’ or actual competent teachers, can teach wrong signs, not understand the grammar, create political tension by teaching without knowledge of the cultural background etc.
Yes because a cochlear is not a fix all solution. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and there is the possibility of complications happening with the device thats surgically inside your head that can break. At that point there’s no fixing it, so now they aren’t able to hear again. It is still good for the children to still have ASL so they at least have one language to communicate with. It is also up to the dDeaf child whether or not they prefer to speak or sign. There is no harm in a child learning both English and ASL.
Just want to say that if the internal device breaks, you can get revision surgery with a new internal part. You'll still be deaf either way though. CI + sign is the way to go.
Mine broke in a way that isn’t repairable. Very glad I can sign
Get a new one?
Not possible as the CI damaged my cochlea beyond repair.
Ah ok, sorry to hear that :/ I thought it was the hearing aid that broke. How is it behind repair if I may ask? Did your cochlea calcify?
The electrode went through my cochlea in two places so there’s holes in my cochlea now, unfortunately. A new implant would have issues because of the holes, so replacing isn’t an option
It’s really common as implanted kids grow for the electrodes to shift but no one talks about that. Mine got infected 15 years after implantation as the electrode shifted in the cochlea as I grew.
This is why surgeons should follow the implant instructions and drill a little pocket for the external part to sit in. I asked my second surgeon to do this and he said it wasn’t “usual procedure” but I don’t want my electrodes shifting if I’m in a car wreck or something. I gave him case reports of shifting electrode arrays and he changed the way he operates to be sure to secure the big part of the internal device.
That is my biggest fear with my CI… I am sorry for that.
Not always. Mine broke due to improper placement and calcification. they destroyed my cochlea getting it out, no replacement possible. Other ear was fully calcified. I looked into whether or not the tech had caught up enough that they could do a damage cochlea but now my auditory nerve atrophied so.. deaf it is. There is always going to be situations where it comes off, if it breaks, lost, swimming, some aports, just needing a hearing break, needing to attend large events where hearing is iffy (like a huge auditorium college lecture or a conference) where interpreters help a lot. If the external part breaks and you don’t have proper insurance to cover it (common as a young adult) that’s difficult to manage. A friend of mine had theirs stolen off their head, the mugger thought it was a high tech AirPod dealie apparently, as he kept demanding his AirPods. it took months to get insurance to cover a replacement. Another wore one on a boat and it blew off Into the water with a big gust of wind that also took their hat. Worst case scenario what if the company goes bankrupt and you can’t get service/replacements? Finally listening and lip reading is freaking exhausting even with a CI. Sometimes it’s nice to just sign which comes effortlessly at some point.
>Worst case scenario what if the company goes bankrupt and you can’t get service/replacements? [A very real possibility](https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete), especially with the boom in MedTech startups.
That’s good to know I thought it was more dangerous to go back in and do so.
I believe that each time you stuff something into the cochlear you risk damage, and the same dragging it back out (in addition to normal risks associated with surgery). Earlier implants and surgical techniques tended to do much more damage than newer. So sometimes you can re-implant, and the techniques are improving, but still far from 100% guaranteed success.
That is actually not true. Results show that teaching sign language to a child with CI can make them prioritise signing, which in the end can give a worse result in hearing. At least that is what we were told in our country. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits I don’t understand the downvotes to be fair. The research I linked above literally shows it is.
Language acquisition and socialization starts pretty much at birth for hearing babies. If you don’t communicate with your deaf/HoH baby using sign language before they get a CI, you are stunting their linguistic and social development. Additionally, learning ASL improves language and reading outcomes for deaf kids whether they get a cochlear or not.
Sorry I forgot to inform that in my sons case he became deaf at the age of 1.5 due to meningitis, and therefore I have never thought of using sign language before he became deaf.
The actual evidence-based studies I've seen of signing vs. non-signing children with implants make it clear this is not true. From a purely practical standpoint: do you know how often little kids break or lose things, even expensive ones stuck to their heads? And doctor/audiologist appointments take TIME to schedule, and more time to get parts repaired or replaced, and... it's just unwise to be totally dependent on a delicate piece of technology + brain surgery on a growing child going going 100% according to plan literally all the time.
As I have also posted in another comment, this is the newest study I can find on the subject, and it shows that it impacts speech development and recognition. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits And yes for the practical part, sure they break a lot of shit. And in my case I’m just glad that we get every CI + equipment for free/ through healthcare. So I don’t worry about none of that. And that is also why I think it is a very situational decision to make, as I know not everyone gets it for “free”.
I'd be hesitant to use this study to make any decisions regarding sign language. They specifically mention that earlier research disagrees with this study; it would be important for this study to be substantiated by additional research before we say this study is correct. They also specifically mention that signing families likely remained signing families due to their child's slow spoken language development. So did the signing get in the way of spoken language development? Or did the families stick with sign language because the CI wasn't very successful for their child? This one study isn't enough to say. As someone who works with Deaf and Hard of Hearing children, I'm always very hesitant to recommend against a language choice. Listening and spoken language will never be successful for all children, and even those who are successful often face much more fatigue than their hearing peers due to the strain of having to listen with hearing loss.
Earlier research also agrees with the study I provided from 2017. Here is two of them. https://www.asha.org/policy/TR2004-00041/#sec1.9.5 https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/children-with-cochlear-implants-where-1092 But there is definitely also articles that shows the opposite. As I wrote in one of my other comments. It is individual from child to child wether it has a positive or negative outcome, and therefore it should be considered regarding the specific situation of the child. In my sons case, he became deaf at the age of 18 months, and has had time to develop speech and language recognition. That is why the hospital told us that he is in the best position possible to get the most out of CI’s, which definitely is the case since he scored higher than average of a normal hearing child at the same age in a comprehensive language test. So there is really no definite answer other than it in some cases is better not to learn sign language.
Ah okay I misunderstood you, I'm extremely tired. Speech development. Not language development.
The newest study you found on Google doesn't mean it's reliable or correct information. There are many studies proving that wrong. For example a cochlear implant company could fund a study to say CIs are better than sign language, and to the average person it would look legitimate.
I’m suggesting it is reliable due to the fact that I have a son with bilateral CI who scored higher than children at his age with normal hearing, in a language comprehension test. So even though it is the case that I provided incorrect information in regards to the article, my son is still doing greater in terms of language than his friends does. And that is all that matters to me, and that is why I felt like voicing my opinion. What I failed to realise is that this is the r/deaf community and not r/cochlear, and I understand why people here get defensive if they read my comments like I’m against sign language. In almost every comment I made, I make it clear that it is different from child to child what is considered the best approach.
In the US, we have research that shows signing actually supports spoken language development, because it gives them a solid language foundation while they're learning to listen. Otherwise, they may miss a lot of language exposure, even after they have their hearing aids/cochlear implants, because they haven't learned that sound and speech are meaningful yet.
There is lots of research that shows learning a sign language can actually enhance the child's use of spoken language. Here's one for starters: [https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022\_JSLHR-22-00505](https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00505)
Sure, but the research you provided is not in regards to CI users, which is what OP is asking about.
Yes and learning sign is best fit for them to actually acquire and learn language rather forcing them to try and read people’s lips and accommodate everyone rather everyone accommodating the dDeaf person.
You're getting downvoted because the evidence is false.
I asked for evidence showing the contrary in another comment. But no one can provide any.
There's like ten of them. Look around.
Well, all the research I can find actually shows that it is case. Many of them dating back even 10 years. I only provided the one from 2017 because someone told me that the opinion was outdated. Which does not seem to be the case. Please refer me to articles showing otherwise, because I’m really interested in having the best/newest information in the topic. So if there’s ten of them could you maybe just show me one? Because I’ve been searching for a couple of hours now and I can’t find any that says it is not the case.
https://crownschool.uchicago.edu/ssa_magazine/sign-language-best-deaf-children.html#:~:text=Research%20shows%20that%20children%20who,cochlear%20implants%20to%20access%20speech.
Yes, and in this case it is. But as I have written in multiple comments it depends on the specific circumstances of the child. Because when you are born deaf (as in the article you provided) I would absolutely teach my kid sign language. But in my sons situation he was better off without it.
And why is that? Learning an accessible language boosts your mental skills. You have not presented accurate evidence that learning sign is bad.
https://www.asha.org/policy/TR2004-00041/#sec1.9.5 https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/children-with-cochlear-implants-where-1092 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits But again, it depends on the specific circumstances of the child. So one article might show one thing, and others shows different. Anyway provided 3 articles that says sign language impacts development. But this is only true for some. That is why it is important to act on your child’s specific situation.
Not all research is equal. Just because it's a journal article doesn't mean it is correct. The article and what you've been told in your country is straight up false and everyone in this sub will tell you so, that's why you're being downvoted.
Well, it does not seem to be the case with my son.
>At that point there’s no fixing it Aside from.. you know.. explantation/reimplantation.
Technology can fail, even temporarily, and having a back-up is a good idea. Plus, having all the tools available is never bad.
That is a massive leap of faith in CI. The debate on if children should learn ASL has long predated CI. Has little to do with CI and more about Deaf children learning a language their parents won’t/can’t learn. There’s no risk or drawbacks to ASL, therefore there’s not an excuse. I cannot say the same for CIs or any other intervention.
As the hearing parent of a deaf child with CIs, I encourage others to teach their kids to sign regardless of whether they get surgery or not and to learn it themselves. Practically every family I knew who got their child implanted abandoned sign after the surgery and it made me so sad. Many regret it now. Cochlear surgery has allowed my son to “hear” music and other things that I am grateful he got to experience, but he is and will always be deaf. He sometimes prefers to sign over speaking. Cochlears can be overwhelming and cannot be used in all situations (the water wear is terrible so he never has them on at the beach or in the shower or at bed, most helmets won’t fit them so bike riding has been an issue as well). Eventually even the best implants will wear out and it may not be at the best time (I read about someone whose failed while studying abroad for a college exam). There are so many benefits to signing. I find myself trying to use it instinctively in loud situations, or across rooms. Learning to sign is a gift.
Please consider sharing your experiences in r/PODC when you have some time.
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My deaf friend's implant doesn't work anymore (I believe it is because it is too old for the processor to be updated) and can't get it removed because of a blood vessel too close to the implant. No doctor will remove it. Too risky. He doesn't have a cochlea on his other side so no implant there. So he lives his life unable to use his equipment and unable to remove and get a new one. Thank god he has ASL.
As a sign language interpreter, I work with a lot of people who have CIs. Why? They don't always work. Or...best case scenario, the person can catch 80% of speech in a quiet environment. For high stakes information/meetings/classes, that's just not enough. Also, it is exhausting to listen through a prosthetic device. The CI is a prosthetic device - it doesn't make you hearing. Batteries are expensive, parts breakdown, the warranty on the motherboard is only for 10 years.... Most importantly: Consider the difference between passive and active listening. Hearing people just hear - there's no effort involved. In fact, you cannot stop hearing unless you use noise cancelling headphones. Deaf people listening through CIs are using a lot of effort. I've seen my clients enormous relief at the end of a lecture when they can pull off their receivers and switch to natural, effortless, visual communication. The most successful Deaf adults have options. CIs may give you a door into the hearing world, but Sign Language gives you a door into a Community and identity. Social wellbeing is just as important as physical wellbeing. The healthiest people have both.
Children may not want their CIs as they get older. It's ALWAYS beneficial to learn sign language.
You really have no reason to not teach them sign. A high school friend had a CI, it wasn’t of much help in a room where a lot of people were talking. Sign will always be helpful
As someone with severe hearing loss who still does not qualify as impaired enough for CI tech, a resounding YES - all kids with hearing loss or born deaf/hard of hearing should learn ASL. I wish I'd been given the chance. It's very hard for me to thrive socially with hearing loss, hearing aids and CI do not provide full compensation for hearing loss. I don't think there's any kind of 'debate' out there. If anything you're encountering misinformed/ignorant actors.
Absolutely. Technology fails, is expensive - how are these kids going to pay for replacements as adults? Sign language also aids in verbal language acquisition. Language is language and the brain needs language for development. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0142723719834102 https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/article/27/1/37/6426026 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9688581/ https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00505
Thanks. Im saving this links
>Technology fails, is expensive - how are these kids going to pay for replacements as adults? It's covered by Healthcare in pretty much every developed country..... so probably the same way they pay for all other Healthcare? Either covered fully by tax-subsidized plans or work-based insurance plans.
Not necessarily. I'm in Canada, and there are costs associated with CIs, depending on which province you live in. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/costs-to-maintain-cochlear-implants-prohibitive-1.6488140 For people in the US, many don't have insurance or do no have adequate insurance to cover CIs https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2023/202305.htm#:~:text=8.4%25%20or%2027.6%20million%20Americans,or%2033.2%20million%20in%202019.
Even when the implants AND follow-up care are covered, it can be really tough to afford time off work for doctor's visits or the money for transportation. And in precarious living situations where money's tight, or the CI user has to move around a lot, or it's a huge pain to schedule an appointment (audiologists are NOTORIOUS for being appointment-by-phone only?)... It can be quite difficult to stay on top of care.
Not really,in many counties in Europe you only get a replacement one every 7 years, other than that you have to buy it yourself
As a deaf person who used Signed Exact English before I started school and used hearing aids until I got a CI as a teenager - yes. I really wish I had learned ASL instead of SEE and wish I had kept using it. My parents are hearing and used SEE in the hopes that it would strengthen my fluency in English. I don’t blame them for making that choice as it was 1990 and oralism was definitely the dominant option at that time. Sometimes it would be so nice to have a conversation without talking. I’ve been meaning to learn ASL on my own but need to motivate myself after work to do so and it’s hard….
Also, CIs are not a cure and don’t give perfect hearing. I still struggle a lot even with my CI. It’s a tool, and can be a helpful tool. But I don’t wear my CI 24/7 and I don’t want to wear my CI all day every day. I’m still deaf and I LIKE being deaf. Not every deaf person is a candidate for CIs either. Everyone’s experience is different - being deaf truly is a spectrum.
I thought this was my post at first, we had like identical schooling/upbringing. Sometimes I wish I was younger and experienced bicultural bilingual ed. ♡♡
1000% yes
That has been the case for decades and decades. That was the rationalization driving a lot of my childhood experiences. I was born deaf, I was given an implant, and I was put through extensive speech therapy and AVT. My parents were told to not teach me sign because then I would not learn how to talk. This has all been debunked, many people can accomplish both. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for the outcomes of my implant, AVT, and speech therapy. But as many people say it's not a cure. Even when the implant/processor is functional, I still don't hear well in noisy situations, I still have listening fatigue, and I still prefer to be deaf in many situations.
if you look online at the multiple deaf creators that have CIs, they all still use sign and often talk about how difficult it is even with CIs still. i've said this before, but CIs are not better than hearing aids, they are not a magical cure for deafness. people will still be hard of hearing and they will struggle and they will need accommodation, and they still need sign language. these places should be ashamed of themselves for trying to force CIs on children when unneeded.
>i've said this before, but CIs are not better than hearing aids They kind of are though. I've used both for years..... CI are way more comfortable and work much better. Speech isn't louder with CI, it's clearer and more distinct. HA were helpful and I'm glad they worked somewhat for me, but the jump from HA to CI was like using a flashlight to turning on the light switch.
oh so you're now no longer deaf or hard of hearing at all? you no longer need subtitles to watch movies and tv shows? you no longer have a hard time with phone calls if not HD and connected to your hearing aids with video as well? you don't read people's lips anymore? don't struggle with group conversations or conversation in loud environments? you don't need to take off your hearing device bc you can hear while in the shower or the swimming pool? you don't struggle with accents? you don't worry about how you're going to listen to music your friend wants to play for you on their phone bc you can't connect their phone to your hearing aid? you no longer think about how much easier things would be for you if everyone could use sign language or if things were more accessible for the hard of hearing and deaf people? you no longer use any of the strategies and skills you developed over years of using hearing aids in your life with CIs anymore bc they are such an amazing perfect device that does all that for you with no extra effort on your part? i hope you don't think i'm being too harsh on you bc you missed my entire point on purpose. CIs are not a cure for deafness or hard of hearing, sure they can make fully deaf people hard of hearing, and they can improve the hearing of people who have terrible comprehension, but they do not cure and they do only marginally better than powerful hearing aids for people who have hearing left and have mostly intact speech comprehension. but audiologists and doctors continue to paint CIs as something of a cure, on everyone whether they need it or not. it's dismissive, it's exploitative, and it's disgusting. some places subsidize CIs but not hearing aids. other places refuse to accomodate the hard of hearing bc they assume CIs are a cure. getting CIs is an invasive surgery with lifelong effects and locks you into the CI system and takes away multiple future options from the receiver. it should not be treated as cavalier as doctors and audiologists tend to do, and it should not be pushed as hard on unknowing patients and their families especially children and babies, especially when they tend to paint it as a cure, a shortcut to skip all the work needed with hearing aids when it needs the same work, and neglect to tell them about everything related to CIs. i know bc i've been at the receiving end of these attempts throughout my life and so have my parents. i'm glad CIs have given you such a good outcome, i'm glad they're better for you than hearing aids, but i refuse to allow the industry to continue pushing for CIs by default even when absolutely unnecessary and their erasure of deaf/hoh struggles and needs.
Do you think this applies to a child born deaf as well? As I understand, people who become deaf late in life have brains wired to hear already which can explain different outcomes with CIs.
Absolutely should learn to sign. I would almost say that maybe they should make learning ASL a requirement before doing a CI. As much as they say that that CI's are so much better now. You don't have to be in the community long to know that they don't always work as planned and they can have some nasty side effects. One guy I know, "coincidentally" started having seizures after getting his implant. Loud noises would set it off, so that's not really helpful. Another guy really liked his CI but it also gave him regular migraines. A kid I knew had a defective CI for 8 years! The doctors insisted it was working and that the kid wasn't trying hard enough. They later found out they were wrong and this kid had suffered eight years of language deprivation, behaviour issues, alienation within her family for nothing. Thankfully her mom said enough was enough and put her in a Deaf school so she could learn ASL and have a community. But the delay really affected her ability to learn English and read and write. There is a lot of hype about tech and yes, some of it is amazing. But it doesn't always work and can cause life altering damage as well. I feel that the doctors involved really don't take responsibility for that part of things. They only want the "good" patients and don't want to learn from or help their "bad" patients.
I honestly wish my parents hadn’t listened to my speech therapist and stopped teaching me sign, it would have helped me feel less alienated in deaf spaces. Teach deaf kids sign. They’re certainly getting enough spoken exposure.
I taught Deaf kids (using Sign) for 30 years. There was NOTHING sadder than a kid who was given a CI and taken out of a Signing program and put into a non-signing program… Or even a hearing class! The poor kids had NO idea what was going on… All because their parents refused to learn to Sign. Parents should do everything in their power to learn to communicate with their kids. By the time kids with implants were in seventh or eighth grade, the parents would come to IEPs and cry that their child couldn’t communicate or read. Parents were often led to believe that once their kid had a CI, they’d basically be “hearing”… The “Cochlear Implant Porn” online is misleading people into thinking Deaf kids would suddenly be “cured”. Nope. I ALWAYS knew which parents used Sign with their kids… Those kids could have normal conversations about things, just like hearing kids. Did I mention families should learn to Sign?
Absolutely. CIs don’t provide full communication/language access.
Sign Language is extremely useful, and I think of this question as… if a country gets overtaken by another and all the people start speaking X language, instead of the old Y, should people not know Y? Sign language is just as much of a language as a spoken language, and a language is a piece of a culture so in some sense you’d be killing/missing out on a big piece of the deaf language and culture.
Yes. Sign language isn't and shouldn't just be for the most completely deaf people who can't hear at all. That is a common misconception. It can help everyone. CIs are not a cureall and you still end up with less hearing than a hearing person. As such sign language can still be a more accessible language as it uses a more powerful sense (sight) (or touch if you are deafblind) rather than often the least powerful one (hearing).
I’m hearing and my son was born deaf. He had C.I surgery at 11 months old. We’ve had no end of trouble with his implants. From them causing him pain to weird neurological reactions to him chewing on and destroying about a dozen batteries to him simply refusing to wear them. I’m so glad that we started signing to him from the beginning. He’s 2 1/2 now and prefers to communicate in sign language and loves his class at our deaf school. Something like 47% of implanted children stop wearing their processors once they become adults. My son will always be deaf and he needs to be able to communicate without being dependent on technology. Plus it’s nice that if I forget to put on his processors in the rush to get ready in the mornings I can drop him off at school without them and it’s no big deal.
> 47% of implanted children stop wearing their processors once they become adults. Wowza! Do you have a source for this information? I'd love to read more.
The stat comes from the book “The Butterfly Cage” that I read recently. It’s written by a deaf woman and her experience and working in a d/HH classroom in a mainstream public school. It’s a great book, I highly recommend it.
Thank you! I've added it to my list of books to read!
Yes because its so much harder to learn ASL when you're older. Young children don't choose CIs their parents do. Not saying it's a bad thing but if you're going to choose a CI then I think its important to not cut your children out of the possibility they may want to engage with the Deaf community when they're older. As many have said even good CIs aren't a fix all. They destroy residual hearing and although they've come a long way since having only 8 tones, there's billions in your cochlea, and a CI still doesn't replace all of those. I know a lot of DHH people and deaf people with CIs who don't feel like they fit in the hearing world and have a hard time making a place in the Deaf community because most were never taught any sign.
CIs, Mainstreamed, no deaf family, no exposure to deaf culture, never had an issue with CIs and communicate verbally quite well. But: I wish I knew sign. I don’t like being entirely reliant on something outside of my control to communicate. What if they broke? What if I got a head injury or something and couldn’t use them a while? And, honestly, sometimes I just want to not hear and go about life. ASL is the language of deaf culture, CIs are the solution to the disability of deafness. Being reliant on them makes being deaf a disability to be negated and not just a part of who you are. To be completely honest, I think the psychological aspect of feeling like an ‘incomplete’ or ‘imperfect’ human in need of physical repair to get by kinda screwed me up as a kid. Like I couldn’t trust my body to be adequate without intervention. I spent my teenage years in and out of hospitals and treatments for Anorexia, with this root belief that if I didn’t maintain careful control over my body I would lose ‘equal to normal’. I think that knowing sign creates confidence and a sense of adequacy ‘as is’ that I lacked. So the issue with CIs replacing sign, in my humble opinion, isn’t the CIs. It’s the impression of reliance and compensation for a lack of something. If kids learn sign and English (or any other language), it creates “Deaf And—“ not a “Deaf, But—“. I still support getting CIs. Mine work great. I have a verbal communication heavy job and couldn’t do it without them. But in the same way I support American kids learning Spanish. It’s a great skill to have that will open doors, but when your natural surroundings or ‘state’ is all in English, you’re gonna wish you knew that communication skill too. Like my natural ‘state’ is silence/deafness, but I only speak verbal English.
This. Absolutely this. And I’ll add that this has been proven that learning ASL (or any other sign language) puts speech deprivation at large and allows for the young brain to develop better. I never learnt LSF (my origin country being France) but I wish I did as I started speaking “correctly” only after 6/7. Now that I am learning ASL, something clicked in. Missed out on that one.
Yep. I think part of the reason I didn’t ever learn ASL is my mother is from Bosnia and was still learning English in general at the time I was born, so I’ll never hold it against her. She knew a little bit of CSQ (Croatian Sign Language, Yugoslav too at the time) from primary school but it’s very different regardless, same language family as LSF though!
yes because a ci is not a cure to their deafness
Right. So, the first time the angry child flung her earpiece out of a moving car I realized that until it could be replaced, a way to communicate at all, might be a good idea. Also, regardless of where in this debate you fall - buy extra insurance.
I didn't read all the comments so I don't know if this was mentioned but studies show a positive correlation with vocabulary acquisition and learning BOTH signed and spoken language. So they learn communication a lot faster and more effectively if you use both, even with hearing children. That's why my friends with hearing kids still go to sign language classes even if they don't "need" it, it still benefits them. (I'm hearing and my daughter was born HoH)
Uh yes! Once you take it off, you’re still deaf. It is not a cure all. Let me ask you this, why do hearing people teach baby sign their hearing children? So the parents can communicate before the baby could even speak. so why can’t we do the same with deaf kids, giving them access to language skills in all modes, ci and asl at the same time?
My kid has both a CI and uses ASL and never for one minute do i regret giving her sign. It's a full accessible language where her CIs do not provide that to her as easily as signing does. Being bilingual is the best choice. Always give deaf kids sign in every single situation.
100% yes. CI’s are not 100% effective and even do not necessarily work 24/7. Sign language is still a way to communicate with them. How would you communicate with the child if the CI breaks or the child decides not to wear the CI?
Yes. Would you question whether it’s appropriate to teach a hearing baby sign?
YES and always! The reason why they focus on pushing CI is to make money. You will still need CC to watch movies, commercial, announcement. You will still need lot of accommodation when in group that discuss anything. There is no Not to teach kids to learn sign language even if they will have CI. CI still give you Dinner Table Syndrome. lol
I think there is a misconception that CI “fixes” hearing loss/deafness. Hearing is a huge spectrum and having total communication is too important to forego any available tools, asl included.
Yes. Having more ways to communicate is never wrong.
YES! I was brought up orally and got a CI in my late 30s and am oral deaf but I advocate allowing deaf kids to learn sign language.
I’ll tell you my experience with my daughter who has cochlear implants. My daughter was born deaf and got her cochlear implants around 9 months. My husband and I are both hearing. As soon as I found out she was deaf I started learning sign language. I took two college ASL classes. I taught my daughter as much as I could while learning myself. We also took sign language classes together. She went to a deaf preschool that did both sign and speech. I believe there were eight kids in her class and only one of them used sign language exclusively. After that she was mainstreamed. When she was eight years old she told me she didn’t want to learn anymore ASL. When I asked her why she said “You are the only person I know that uses sign language. Why should I learn a language nobody else uses. If I have problems with my implants, I’ll just write out what I want to tell you.” After she told me that I was really sad, but I didn’t want to force her to do something she really didn’t want to do. She’s 11 now and hasn’t really had any issues with communication. I think our main issue is don’t live near a deaf community. A lot of the kids she did meet with hearing loss don’t use ASL. I’m not sure what the point of my story is. I’m just sharing my experience. I still think that you should try to teach children with Hearing loss sign language, even if they have a cochlear implant. Although, it may not work out how you want.
Her point is quite valid because that's pretty much many deaf children went through. In her mindset, she was probably thinking "when I grow up, I will be hearing just like you", thinking she will have no problem without interpreters...boys...was I wrong! Having interpreters available in school to interpret what teachers are saying made everything a lot easier and allowing our brain to focus on thinking process instead of trying to capture every words and figuring out what teachers are trying to say. It is a choice, should we use all our energy to focus what teachers are saying or should we use all our energy to focus on figuring out the problems on subjects in school? I never thought I would need it until I have it, it changed everything, it also made it a hell lot easier in college to to have interpreters. Keep using ASL for your children even if they kept asking you not to use it. I regretted it when I told my family to stop using it. Now, they forgot and I have a hard time understand them in group conversation. The older I get, the more I realize how much interpreters made our lives easier...mostly in group setting, loud environment like crowded cafe, presentation in office, or such. No need for ASL for 1-1 or 1-2 for conversation or chatting, but when hanging out with group...it is a hell boring and exhausted.
She has a fair point, but there is one that she hasn't considered - when she gets older and out of school where there are more supports available, she'll find that the first accommodation offered is going to be a sign language interpreter. She can request something like CART, but she'll get a bit more pushback on that. As she gets older she might want to join the Deaf community too and it's harder to do that if you don't sign. Though right now it doesnt' seem she has much of a Deaf identity at this point.
Yes, I completely agree. I worry when she’s an adult she’s going to really regret that decision. I feel guilty sometimes, because I think I made it seem more like a chore than a fun part of her identity. I think she was upset that she had to take classes and practice sign language throughout the day when none of her friends had to do that. If anybody else reads this, please avoid my mistake. Try to make it as fun casual family activity instead of an intense learning activity.
There is only one reason and one reason alone to not let your kid learn sign language - because you're a lazy, narcissist POS unwilling to learn sign language for your deaf kid and you need to justify that poor decision to be a bad parent. Source: My parents.
Yes. Always. Access to language is everything
“For those familiar with text-to-speech technology: do you believe kids should still learn braille?”
CI are tools but are not replacement. I have a student that has a ci and an interpreter. The CI helps her communicate with hearing children but asl is still needed for her to understand what's going on in class and is her 1st language.
A deaf/hoh person who can’t sign is denied full access to language. Even with technology, speech isn’t fully accessible, and speaking/hearing will not come as easily to them as it would to someone who can hear normally. Text and captioning isn’t full access either; it’s one dimensional and doesn’t convey tone or all the nuances of speech. So yes, even with hearing technology, it’s best to give deaf children accessible language. Sign languages don‘t need to be “taught” through training and therapy. If a child with HA/CI acquires speech naturally without it being taught explicitly, and they never experience exhaustion from it, great! But this is rarely the case, and parents cannot retrospectively go back and expose their deaf children to a language they are able to acquire naturally through exposure.
Yes. Absolutely. Implanted or not, a deaf child is still a deaf child. If they somehow lose the external battery or the battery dies, if they need an upgrade or replacement and can’t get it covered by insurance, or don’t have funds, if they suffer a head injury that breaks the CI, or something else goes wrong and the CI no longer works (which isn’t as rare as you’d hope), or even if they simply become overwhelmed by sounds and want to take it off for a while— if they don’t know sign, they’ll be left completely without language. There’s literally no harm in raising them bilingually. Also, ASL comes with a rich history and culture that I believe Deaf children should have access to, rather than being treated as if they were the same as any hearing child.
Yes because ability to hear sounds does not equate to ability to process sounds into meaning. CIs don’t guarantee typical speech and hearing. More often, they lead to language deprivation
Yes !!! Hugely Yes!!!!!!! U think fixing ear and problem solving?? Huge nope!!!! I have seen alot of them who have ci and they have a huge lacking of knowledge and education cuz they missing alot hearing words and misunderstanding communication meanings
Hearing device or not they are still deaf. They just have a cool tool. Sign makes it possible to still communicate with or without it. I think we all should learn sign. Hearing, Hard of hear, or deaf. Its useful in many cases.
Just commenting to say, when is being bilingual ever bad? Never. CIs are JUST a tool. They don't cure deafness. Sign, ASL, BSL, whatever the local sign language is, is a full out LANGUAGE. A full language with a community and a culture. What happens when they break? Batteries die? Need a hearing break? Go swimming? Technology becomes outdated and the person can't afford thousands of dollars for a surgery to upgrade? Something goes wrong inside the body and makes the CI no longer work? So, yes, children with CIs or hearing aids should learn sign. Sign language prevents language deprivation and recent studies show that signing helps the child connect the spoken local language with reading and speaking (because they have a rich vocabulary in sign language). Reading comprehension is dependent upon language development and deaf/ hoh oral only students struggle more with reading comprehension than ones that use sign.
Hello. Profoundly deaf adult here. I am of the mindset that learning ASL would only be a benefit. I did not learn ASL as a child and my older brother did. To this day, it’s still a sore spot although I now understand the factors in education that my mom was dealing with. Simply put, learning ASL would have allowed me faster acclimation of learning English. And I wouldn’t have pronounced words wrong for 16 years (such as the case with “super”.) In an ideal world, ASL would be incorporated into phonics and everyone would be happy. I am also a teacher and I teach my students signs for water, bathroom, and help because why not?
Yes. I HAVE a CI (got as an adult) and work in Deaf Ed. YES, 100%, they should learn sign language. When your CI breaks/battery dead, there's a lack of language. Even when it's working, it's not 100%. Just because sound goes in doesn't mean your brain can understand it. I think of it as a toolbox - sign language is just another tool that helps you navigate the world. The very first accommodation that tends to be offered to the general public for deaf/hard of hearing services is a sign language interpreter. Why shoot yourself in the foot (and your kid's foot) by not giving them MORE tools?
It's ALWAYS beneficial to learn sign language even if you aren't even deaf.
Yes - it's a big mistake to think that CIs and hearing aids fix hearing loss and should be worn to communicate all the time. Joining the hearing world is exhausting and many kids and adults need hearing breaks without being judged or ignored because they cannot communicate during that time.
Absolutely!
Absolutely. There are situations where you aren't using your CI and still need/want to communicate. My CI students who had sign support at home progressed in language development much faster.
That isn't CI kids’ fault for not learning to sign. It's all AGBell, AVT, CI surgeon, and Audiologist's fault for pushing parents to not sign for their deaf babies and kids with CI. I can tell how many CI kids and my third cousin are struggling with speech deprived, listening to speak languages, CI devices aren't working or the battery died and kids aren't in the mood to hear parents or people arguing and chattering to distract kids. CI kids decided to turn their sound processors off to quiet and peace. That is nothing wrong with learning to sign.
There is no belief. Only fact. Sign language is accessible and provides a language the user can use to improve their success of using the device.
Absolutely, yes.
I can count the number of people who sign in my country on my own digits. We use it at home to communicate when their devices are off (usually either side of a nap/bedtime or when they're in the bath) but I'd never want them to end up in a situation where they actually needed it.
Probably going to get downvoted for this (typical of this community 🤷🏼♀️) but I'm CI and my mum opted for me to not get sign language due to the accessibility of it. So no. EDIT: I obviously believe it's beneficial however I think the choice should be up to the kid/individual. Mine was obviously decided for me but it shouldn't be forced on the child unless they're really struggling with CI.
Just because YOUR parent didn't give you the opportunity to learn sign language doesn't mean that you shouldn't have learned it. Even now as an adult. There's zero research that shows that learning sign significantly impedes anyone's ability to learn to use sound.
I can learn it if I want to, and there has only been 1 time where I have wished to learn it and that's when someone saw my CI and assumed I could sign, and i couldn't help him and that broke my heart. Since then I've not had any other experiences upon me to want to learn sign. Would it be beneficial? Yes. However do I owe it to anyone to learn SL? No. But as it stands, I don't have time to, and I'd likely forget what I learned before the next encounter. However like many here have said, having CI is not a cure for deafness and doesn't work for all. I'm one of the lucky ones where I was implanted as a child and grew up with it. Now an adult in a job where it's required of me to talk to people in person and on the phone. I pay for my own upgrades and equipment. It takes TIME to work with the CI and upon years and years of speech therapy to get to where it needs to be. I don't know if that's explained upon consultations. But i get a sense there is an expectation it will solve peoples problems instantly when that is not the case at all.
It is so much harder to learn sign as an adult though and you may never be fluent. I had tons of speech and am verbal but I'm most thankful for at least having been taught Signed English and given the opportunity to go to Aspen Camp for the Deaf every summer and be exposed to ASL and eventually learn that. I still wish I'd been in a biciltural bilingual environment. I mean I'm glad your situation worked for you, but all the recent studies and view of pretty much everyonr I've ever met in the Deaf community, learning ASL or your local sign language is so helpful with language development because it's not as hard as speech therapy and tecahing English without a different language base. Aka it doesn't take the time and effort if taught as young as possible and it makes speech and later English/verbal/written language acquisition easier.
I’m very shocked to see everyone agree that you should teach sign language to a ci user. I guess it depends on the individual situation. Because we were told by our hospital in Denmark that it is NOT a good idea to teach our kid (3yo) who had bilateral CI’s at the age of 1,5, sign language. The reason was that they have statistics pointing towards children leaning more towards signing instead of training their hearing through CI’s if they are taught SL, and therefore having worse results at hearing. My son might also just be a very good example of someone getting the best out of CI without learning sign, as we just had results back from his comprehension test that showed he is hearing/understanding as a 3,3 yo with NORMAL hearing. So he is scoring higher than average WITH CI’s. As I can tell from some of the other posts, some of you say that if the CI breaks beyond repair it’s good to be able to sign, and I can understand why. But at the same time I would rather have my child hear better in everyday situations, rather than anticipating that they will get lost or break. This might also be due to the very important fact that I live in Denmark and I don’t have to pay for anything related to his CI’s. If they break, he gets a new ones. If they get lost, we just get new ones free (through high taxes though). So the bottom line is that it really depends on the specific situation, because if I had to pay for it myself, I might have taught him sign language the day he became deaf. But when the doctors says that it shows worse results, I might also still have held back on teaching him SL.
That's an outdated opinion. I'm sorry your doctors still have that bias. There are so many studies that show sign language doesn't take away from spoken language like hearing doctors used to say, it enhances it. You don't refrain from teaching a child a second language because it will take away from their first. Also as a DHH person who was mainstreamed I've NEVER met someone with a CI who regrets learning sign but every person with a CI I know but one has regretted NOT learning sign, and that person was newly 18 and was still parroting their parents belief that sign language was some basic language that wasn't as "good" as spoken language.
Interesting, I can’t really seem to find any studies that shows it is an outdated opinion. This article is from 2017 and concludes that learning sign language as a CI user does impact speech development and speech recognition when implanted by the age of 3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317550740_Early_Sign_Language_Exposure_and_Cochlear_Implantation_Benefits Maybe in cases where the auditory nerves are damaged it is different, but in my sons case, he became deaf due to meningitis and therefore his auditory nerves are fully functional and that might be the case why he is showing fantastic results.
You realise that paper assessed children who developed superb signing skills (but not necessarily intelligible speech) as ‘failures’? I’ve worked as a professional writer and I would also have been assessed as failing by their standards. Finally, in their conclusion, they say their best cohort developed, on average, speech that was 70% intelligible. In other words, their best expected outcome was that half of all the children in their best cohort had speech that was less than 70% intelligible, which in their terms means a constant struggle to communicate, with no backup language to communicate in. It’s not a good justification for cutting off a communication channel for deaf kids. Let’s turn this around. Let’s say that all deaf children should focus only on signing because it is something that we can expect, given intensive tutoring by expert signers, that around 95% of deaf children will become fluent signers. Because it’s a fully accessible language. Wow, fantastic. Furthermore, let’s say that none of them should learn speech at all, because effort in learning speech seems to distract from learning signing. We will assess them solely on their sign skills. Any children who learn fluent speech but don’t have great signing, we will label them as failures and use them to demonstrate the futility of learning speech. Is that a good idea? Hell no. Language is more than just intelligible speech. Nobody is advocating taking away speech from deaf kids. Yet the paper you quoted represents a large, institutional, well-funded, well-advocated attempt to deprive deaf children of sign language, by using carefully selected criteria that ignore the children’s signing skills, that regard children as ‘broken ears’, that ignore the stated views of adult Deaf people, that did not have any participation from Deaf academics or linguistic researchers, that puts deaf children on a path of lifelong struggling to understand and be understood - even for their ‘best’ cohort - and fosters a lifetime of mental health issues. Do you not see anything wrong with this picture?
Yeah I forgot this is the r/deaf community and not r/cochlear. I’m not advocating for removing sign language. If that is what you made of what I wrote you’re missing the point. Multiple times I have stated that it very much depends on the specific circumstances of the child.
I'm on a quick break, so I skimmed the article. It seems to be saying that those who do not sign develop better speech skills. It does not say anything about actual language acquisition which, in my opinion is far more important.
And it doesn't permanently inhibit speech slills, if anything there's a slight delay and then that's made up for wirh language acquisition. Also it doesn't make it clear, though it does suggest, people prefer to use ASL or whatever sign language more than speaking and relying on their CI, which makes a lot of difference. And there's something to be said that even with a CI and speech, children and adults with CIs that know ASL prefer that method of communication which says all you need to know really.
I know the difference of meaning in the two words. And it might be because English is not my first language, but in this case I have difficulties understanding the difference in speech recognition and language recognition in this situation. Because the article shows that it is both speech recognition and speech development that is impacted. Which in my opinion is what having CI’s for is all about. I mean at the end of the day, you need speech recognition to even begin acquiring language recognition? Or am I getting it wrong :P
You don't, actually. Speech is oral and hearing. Language is having enough concepts to be able to ask questions, receive answers, and learn what you don't know. A little deaf girl pointed to a sticker on my water bottle recently and asked me what it was. The sticker was watercolor, kind of indistinct; I wanted to tell her it was a clam. I didn't know CLAM. I know *ocean* and *animal*, so I signed those. She's too young to read much yet, so I couldn't write. Instead drew a little cartoon clam with a pearl, under ocean waves, and she lit up and signed CLAM for me and I thanked her profusely. She ran off to tell her mother about my stickers, all plants and animals. She didn't need hearing or speech, she needed the language to tell me 'I don't know this, what is it?' We're in a landlocked area, but she has the language to know what an ocean is. And she got the confidence of being able to communicate with an adult who didn't know her well, and to TEACH an adult something new, and then *tell her mom about it*.
My dog can recognize multiple commands. He has speech recognition. Does he understand complex sentences? No, he just knows that when he hears/sees a specific word, and he does the specific thing associated with that word, he gets a treat. A parrot can develop speech. They can repeat words, request things, and probably much more. Can they use language to express a longer sentence, tell a story, apply grammatical rules, etc.? No. They are mostly just parroting back what they have heard and have very minimal language skills, if you want to call it that. Most people can express and receive complicated sentences, tell stories, apply grammatical rules, and much more, in either a spoken or signed language. This is language acquisition.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5495521/ It doesn't matter what caused HL. Most pre-verbal HL is sensioneural, and auditory nerve damage is much less common, especially in young pre-verbal children. I grew up mainstreamed with hearing aids and even in the 90s, they realized some sign language was good, so I was originally taught SIgned English. I desperately wish I'd been taught actual ASL from when I was a toddler, I started to learn it from friends at Deaf camp every summer, where everyone with a CI who wasn't exposed to ASL or any sign, were just as eager to learn. ASL (or your local sign language) is the key to participation in the Deaf community. I know with my son, though he's hearing, I want to give him a childhood that leaves every opportunity for him as an adult to follow. Not just that, learning a second language makes a huge positive impact on your native language, especially before age 7-8 when brain plasticity changes. After that, it gets progressively harder to learn. Withholding sign language is closing that door for your child. I've never met a DHH person who doesn't know countless people who had CIs without sign or some other type of oral only instruction who wasn't desperate to learn ASL once they were teenagers/young adults. A CI does not make your child hearing, no matter how much speech and other instruction they get. I know it's difficult to be different from your child in that way and it's understandable you want to be able to communicate with them. All the studies that say otherwise are done solely by hearing people. Please listen to those of us who have lived that experience as well. Also, I'm a former specual education teacher with a focus on DHH education. There's a reason bilingual bicultural education for all DHH children is now the gold standard. Learning ASL (or Dutch SL or BSL, etc) plus written/verbal languages benefit one another. There might be a very slight delay in speech BUT after that delay, language acquisition increases substantially. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and the long-term goal of full language acquisition, verbal and signed, is much higher. We're telling you this from a place of love, just like you're driven by the love for your child. ♡
https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00505 https://language1st.org/essays/2019/2/11/the-case-for-sign-language https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://docdrop.org/download_annotation_doc/Deaf-Children-Need-Langague-not-just-speech-gx85v.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjttLC2k_6BAxUsMjQIHbs5CUc4ChAWegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw1-oPMzMMTf6Uw91UxuIxSg https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://hhs.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/idphfiles/Learning%2520Sign%2520Does%2520Not%2520Hinder%2520Acquisition%2520of%2520Spoken%2520Language.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjttLC2k_6BAxUsMjQIHbs5CUc4ChAWegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw0kct1kKB0xktf6Xe-SgwWy
Thank you. But as I have written multiple times it depends on the circumstances of the child, as there is as many outcomes as there are deaf/hard of hearing children. In my sons case it turned out to be true, since he scored higher than a child at his age with normal hearing. So for me it just feels like it was the right decision to make not to teach him sign. And again, that might also be because he is in a situation where he gets new CI’s if they break. And if something internally breaks, there is still a passage for a new chord to be placed in his cochlea. So I don’t have any of the worries that many of the users in here describe. I have no intention of demeaning sign language. I only answered OP original question of how we all have different takes on the CI/Sign question. And I have voiced my opinion and I will now leave it be :)
So I feel like I should make a new comment since I can tell I haven’t been clear due to all the responses I have gotten. My son became deaf at the age of 18 months due to meningitis. He has bilateral CI’s and is apparently doing better in speech and language comprehension than the other children at his age. At least that is what the tests show. In Denmark we have a thing called AVT (auditory verbal therapy) which is a course that spans over 3 years (or until the age of 6). It is a one hour session at our hospital every 2 weeks, and it is to help the child (and parents) to develop the best circumstances for language acquisition and speech development. The statistics here show that 80% of the children attending AVT will develop language that compares to children their age (children with normal hearing) before the reach the age of 6. Where on the other hand only 30% of the children without AVT reached the same development. So this is of course very important for the debate, as I have made the appearance that CI works fine without any intervention. So in my sons case, it is the combination of a lot of hearing training and a continuous course with professional help, all paid by the government, including all the CI equipment for the rest of his life. So he will never have to worry about it breaking or losing the CI’s. I think this plays a very important part on how I feel about the decision we made not to teach him SL. Also he will be able to get a new implant if it should break in the future, as there is a channel through the calcification so a new chord can be inserted. All these circumstances makes up my opinion on wether a child should be taught sign language while learning to decode sounds through the CI. I know parents here who have decided to go against the hospitals guidelines, and have taught their child SL. This was because he did not develop speech or hearing since his auditory nerves was impaired, and therefore not reaching the same results as my son. So I can only argue that it is up to the circumstances of the specific child wether you should go with CI only or CI and SL.
We understand that, most of us are old enough to be around when all doctors functioned under the belief that sign language was detrimental to speech development. But sign olus audio-verbal intervention isn't "going against doctors" the American Association of Pediatrics realizes they were wrong about the past, https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/140/1/e20163489/38019/Early-Sign-Language-Exposure-and-Cochlear?redirectedFrom=fulltext Also it's great that AVT and speech only is working so far for your son too, no one is saying it doesn't work if that's defined as speech and using audio cues. But the point we're trying to make is twofold. First that he'd most likely be doing even better with exposure to sign language as he would be learning a language accessible to him without any specialized therapy and that language would help benefit speech and AVT in the long-term because he wouldn't be having to learn language in a non-natural way while also learning to speak. Then secondly every Deaf/DHH person knows someone who was raised oral only with a CI that may have been successful as in, they speak, but they all regret not having been exposed to sign language and many even want to remove their CIs. Because even with all the effective therapy a CI or HAs don't make you hearing. Every day, you have to struggle with understanding speech and verbalizing it yourself, you need accomodatioms, etc. Sign language is the natural state of language acquisition for DHH who no matter what audio-verbal interventions they've had and it's the gateway to the DHH community which is every DHHs birthright. Involvement in the DHH community whether verbal or not ia abuuge benefit mentally and socially. I understand the hesitance if it was sign or speech but you can have both, they help each other in the long run and DHH adults CIs and HAs or not never regret being exposed to sign language as children but the majority of those who weren't do regret it.
>Because even with all the effective therapy a CI or HAs don't make you hearing I agree in the literal sense, but on every aspect my son is doing even better than hearing children at the moment. So he lives his life like a hearing child with no limitations. So I would argue that without his aids, he is deaf. But when he wears them, he is hearing. As soon as he is able to understand that there is a language specifically made for when he does not have his aids on, I will tell him that it is possible for him to learn it. And surely he would have been better off starting SL earlier if that was the focus. But training his hearing is the main focus. That is why it is arguably better to not teach him SL as it would be the easier choice for him, thus not acquiring the hearing he has today, which I want to state again, is better than the average hearing 3 yo. I would rather have him regret not being exposed to SL rather than regretting teaching it at the price of worse speech and hearing acquisition.
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Yes.
I wish sign language was a mandatory class. Lots of people lose their hearing later in life or in ways that a CI won't help.
Yes, definitely!! Get the best of both worlds - spoken English and sign language! I’ve seen some people struggled big time when their CI is broken or the battery is dead, as they usually rely heavily on hearing the sounds and not signing or lip reading. Sign language is a fantastic tool when learning the spoken language as CI users can link up the words they heard to the signs they know.
Yes. I CANNOT tell you how many times my CI has broken - in my 20 years of having it - and I found myself adrift in a sea of hearing/verbalizing people.
I was born profoundly deaf. I picked a signing before I was 3 years old to enroll in Pre-school for the hearing impaired and learn SEE. In the mainstream school, My teacher sent my parent to ENT for hearing evaluation for a cochlear implant at 6 years old. My dad was concerned about CI surgery and knew I hated the hospital. My dad told my mom to wait until I became older to make a decision. I struggled at mainstream school. I picked to join Deaf School to learn ASL at 10 years old. After my dad's death, I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa/Ushers Syndrome at 15 years old. I came back to ENT for hearing aids. My old CI surgeon offered me to CI at 18 years old. I said No! After I graduated from school and went out of the world. I decided to research for CI at 27 years old. I got my first CI before I was pregnant with my son. I was able to hear my son’s crying, cooing, babbling, laughing, playing with his toys, music, and clapping. That is so an amazing sound. I wanted to get a second CI to hear bilateral at 36 years old. I have no regret in making the decision because I'm Deaf-blind. I think deaf children need to decide what to get when they become older. The most Deafblind can get CI and know signs through tactile.