Ten thousand infants are born yearly in the U.S. with sensorineural
deafness, and data suggest that half receive cochlear implants,
small devices that help provide a sense of sound to profoundly deaf
individuals.
While some specialists advise that all deaf children, with or
without cochlear implants, learn sign language, others fear that
learning sign language will interfere with the demanding
rehabilitation needed to maximize the cochlear device. Still others
worry that asking parents to learn a new language quickly is too
burdensome.
In an “Ethics Rounds” feature in Pediatrics, nine experts from
hearing and language-associated fields share their perspectives and
conclude, “The benefits of learning sign language clearly outweigh
the risks. For parents and families who are willing and able, this
approach seems clearly preferable to an approach that focuses solely
on oral communication," in which the child would depend only on the
cochlear device or other auditory-verbal approaches.
John Lantos, a professor of pediatrics at the University of
Missouri-Kansas City, writes in the journal, “The more languages
they learn, the better these children will be able to communicate.”
Lantos told Reuters Health that too many children who receive
cochlear implants fail to achieve full functionality in the hearing
world. “If the idea is to give kids the most potential to
communicate in the most ways that they can, it seems like learning
both is the best approach.”
Linguist Donna Jo Napoli contributed one of the most urgent
arguments for full adoption of sign language. “Children should be
surrounded by sign language as much as possible as soon as the
audiological status is determined," she told Reuters Health. "If the
child gets a cochlear implant and does well with it, fantastic. Then
the child is bi-lingual.”
But Nancy Mellon, head of The River School for the deaf in
Washington D.C., and University of Southern California
otolaryngologist John Niparko warn in a jointly-written opinion that
“reliance on sign language over an extended period of time may
negatively affect the child’s capacity to learn spoken language
after cochlear implantation.”
Sasha Scambler, a medical socialist and the hearing mother of a deaf
child, writes that her family is learning sign language "because we
need it when our son is not wearing his implants or is unable to
hear sufficiently because of background noise. We also believe that
it is important that he has access to sign language as a deaf
person.”
By teaching her son both oral/aural and signed language, she added,
the family is enabling him to make his own choice when he’s older.
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Data on language development and other academic outcomes are not
conclusive, and this gray area contributes to the variance in
opinions on the question of whether to sign or not to sign.
Patti Martin, audiology director at Arkansas Children’s Hospital,
who wasn’t on the Pediatrics panel, told Reuters Health that more
than 95 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, who
are then faced with difficult decisions that they often feel
compelled to make quickly, so as not to lose valuable time in
communicative development.
“One of the realities is that there are no easy choices for your
child to have full language access,” Martin said. “Regardless of
your choices, the level of family involvement is often a tipping
point of how successful your child might be.”
Tawny Holmes, a National Association of the Deaf attorney who also
wasn't on the panel, said she agrees with the majority of journal
contributors and ardently supports sign language use. “Not all deaf
children can learn to hear or speak,” Holmes, who is deaf, told
Reuters Health. “Children as old as 13 to 14 show up at schools for
the deaf, and they are language deprived. They have a limited
understanding. The social and emotional impact is so deep. They have
had no access to language since birth, despite being constantly
conditioned in spoken English.”
Barbara Raimondo, a deaf education consultant, applauds Pediatrics
for taking on an issue about which too few pediatricians are savvy.
“They really don’t get the training in medical school to
appropriately advise parents on this,” said Raimondo, who wasn't on
the panel. “Parents think the pediatricians know, but pediatricians
are lacking in sign language and in raising a deaf child. So this is
a problem.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1LbQEao Pediatrics, online June 15, 2015.
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