Cochlear implants and Sign Language: April 2013

Does a cochlear implant eliminate the need for, and benefits of, Sign Language bilingualism?

Sign Language Bilingualism Debate

The subject of cochlear implants and language acquisition is a topic which is highly debated within the deaf/Deaf and medical communities, and understandably so. It is an emotional topic which is influenced by the complex history of the Deaf community, to which medical professionals are most likely oblivious.

While some believe that a cochlear implant is a 'miracle cure' and that learning Sign Language should be discouraged due to the perceived negative effects on English acquisition, others highlight the fallibility of cochlear implants alone and strongly advocate Sign Language as the first language of Deaf people and as a vital tool in connecting them to a community who provide invaluable support and a sense of identity.

Monolingual concerns

The history of Deaf education in New Zealand has heavily influenced attitudes by the Deaf community towards Oralism and technology advances like cochlear implants which would seek to 'fix' the Deaf person.

A speech therapy lesson:
trying to learn when you can hear neither
the example, nor your own attempt.

For almost 100 years, Deaf education focused solely on teaching deaf children speech and lip-reading, which could be a hugely frustrating and fruitless task if they didn't posses any residual hearing. Real education was sacrificed in pursuit of learning speech, and as a result they often experienced worse educational outcomes than hearing peers. Putting children in situations in which they're expected to learn using a sense they don't possess, and then judging poor outcomes as failure on their part, seems extraordinarily cruel. It is also widely accepted that in any child, repeated experiences of failure have a negative effect on self-esteem and self-efficacy, i.e. the child's belief about their capacity to succeed.

While pure Oralism has not been the recommended approach for Deaf education in New Zealand since the 1970's, the belief that allowing a deaf child to learn sign language will damage their English acquisition and assimilation with hearing peers prevails amongst much of the medical community. Keep in mind that this belief was at the cutting edge in the 1880's, and dismisses numerous examples of evidence during the past 133 years which strongly suggest to the contrary. This belief is often passed onto parents by the 'professionals' when their child is identified as deaf, and when we consider that around 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents, it is likely that most of those parents haven't had exposure to the Deaf community and are unaware of alternative options than those presented by medical specialists.

The introduction of cochlear implants (CIs) added a new dimension to an already complex debate. On the surface there are compelling examples of CI 'success stories', but looking deeper they are not always the miracle 'cure' they're often portrayed to be. As well as the health risks associated with CI surgery (including bacterial meningitis), implantation is only the beginning of a long and challenging journey. First the CI must be individually programmed, and then begins Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT), a process to make sense of the sound they're perceiving, which can be a long, unpleasant and sometimes fruitless journey, for both the child and their family (who must take on the primary teaching role). Being aware that CI outcomes differ substantially between individuals according to a range of factors, not all of which can't be predicted, shouldn't we be strengthening chances for success by arming people with multiple tools to succeed?

Rudimentary consideration of sign language considers it a tool for those who don't experience the expected success with CIs; comprehensive consideration strongly suggests that there are numerous benefits to using sign language regardless of CI outcomes.

Bilingual benefits

There are numerous examples of why learning Sign Language, in conjunction with CIs, can lead to better educational and social outcomes. This bilingual approach is similar to spoken language bilingualism, in that the benefits are more likely with early acquisition of the first (visual) language.

Early exposure to signing can often lead to better overall
language outcomes (both spoken and signed).

Sign Language gives deaf children a way to express themselves, make sense of their environment and create social bonds before their CI may make effective speech and hearing possible (if at all). While most medical standards dictate that CIs shouldn't be implanted in children younger than 11 months old (after which begins a long process to learn how to use it), babies can start expressing themselves using signs as early as 8-9 months old. In fact, children exposed to signing while waiting for a CI operation experienced better spoken language outcomes than those who hadn't, and those with Deaf parents (i.e. early signing exposure) performed at a similar level to hearing peers upon entering school, in contrast to deaf children whose families had focused on AVT.

Sign language can give children a strong first language foundation which is usually acquired more naturally, which can then be used for further instruction; their first language allows more effective instruction in a second language, and has the ability to improve general academic outcomes. The benefits of teaching babies to sign early are mirrored in the popularity and positive results seen with the Baby Sign trend used with hearing children.We can also consider international models of Deaf education and socialisation, which have seen positive results.

An Auckland Deaf Club social event, one of the many events
where the Deaf Community gathers to connect and socialise.

Aside from the potential academic advantages, signing is a tool which connects people to the Deaf community, allowing them to bond with others over their shared experience. There are Deaf clubs all over New Zealand which serve as the centre of the Deaf community. They offer a rich social life, a strong Deaf Sports culture, and the chance to seek advice and support from those who may have faced the same unique challenges as themselves.

We can also consider the role of bilingualism and community in mitigating mental health issues. As suggested by previous research, deaf people (not necessarily involved with the Deaf community) are at a higher risk of mental health issues, including depression. Other research has suggested that depression can be linked to isolation from a community and a feeling of shame (perhaps, the kind felt by children who grow up feeling that deafness needs to be 'fixed'), and that emotional wellbeing in Deaf children is often linked to forming a positive Deaf identity.

Conclusions

Receiving a CI is not a 'miracle solution' to deafness, and CI outcomes vary substantially between individuals. Discouraging Sign Language or failing to present the option impartially removes a tool which can lead to greater academic and social opportunities and membership in a supportive community.

While the choice to learn Sign Language should be just that - an individual choice - when people are not fully informed about their options they are denied the chance of the best possible outcomes in life. Since many parents must make the decision on behalf of their infants, we are even more ethically bound to ensure they have all the information before they do so.

The bilingualism approach strongly indicates better outcomes. Doesn't everybody have the right to the best life they can get?

Total word count: 1137

References

All links used

Reference list

Boswell, S. (n.d.). The mind hears: Tuning in with a cochlear implant. Retrieved from
              http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Tuning-In-With-a-Cochlear-Implant/

Collingwood, J. (2009). Teaching your baby Sign Language can benefit both of you. Retrieved from
              http://psychcentral.com/lib/2009/teaching-your-baby-sign-language-can-benefit-both-of-you/

National Deaf Children's Society. (2010). The emotional well being and mental health of deaf children
              and young people [report]. England: Gale, B. Retrieved from http://www.ndcs.org.uk/about_us
              /position_statements/mental_health.html

NZ Sign Language history. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://deaf.org.nz/nz-sign-language/about-sign-language
              /history

Oralism. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.deafwebsites.com/education/oralism.html

Comments on other blogs

Ana's blog - Emergency information for d/Deaf people

I know this is early days so feel free to take my comments with a pinch of salt!

I think the content you have is very persuasive for the fact that there should be more substantial services in place for emergency situations. But I think you're right (based on our previous discussions) that maybe your topic needs to be tweaked a bit so that there's a position which could be fought against. I think it'd be difficult for anyone to argue that services should exist, but if you pick a specific position about e.g. exactly what services should be available, or how much money should be spent from government budgets, or as you said earlier that there should be a consolidated and mandatory approach for all regions rather than them managing their emergency response services independently.

I think the challenge is that you need to find the opposing opinion already in existence so that you can talk about it and link to stuff, in order to then argue against it and convince people that your opinion is 'right'.

The content itself you have so far is good though. It's quite long, already more than half the word count (though I'm sure you were already planning on moving things around a bit) - I think you could have less detail in the introduction about the various services and preparation currently available, and move this to a subsequent post. If the introduction is kept a little more brief and just used to set up what the next posts will be, it makes the word count less daunting!

I'm looking forward to seeing your next posts, though. Interesting topic! :)

Shelby's blog - Cosmetic animal testing should be illegal

1) Hi Shelby,

You've picked a topic which has a lot of debate on both sides, so I'm sure you'll find plenty of links to back up your arguments.

I know it's just the introduction post so far and you may already be planning to cover this, but I'm wondering whether you'll be making a distinction between animal testing for medical research and animal testing for cosmetics?

I think for a lot of people, including myself, the issue of animal testing for cosmetics is very morally very black and white, in that there is no justification for putting animals through horrific and unnecessary torture for a new brand of lipstick.

But when it comes to medical research things become much more of a morally grey area because of the advances that have been made as a result of e.g. genetic research using mice. My gut says that I hate animal testing no matter what the scenario, but if I had a family member who was very sick and could be made well as a result of medical advances from animal testing, I would find it very hard not to feel very conflicted about that. I imagine that this would be the case for many people, so this might be a perspective you want to put forward (whether to acknowledge it or argue against it is up to you).

Also, there are varying degrees of animal testing. There is a substantial amount of medical research which uses animal subjects but in far tamer experiments than in the 'experiment' you mentioned with the polar bear. I think it'd be useful to distinguish between more reputable medical facilities and the type of tests they do and the highly disreputable places who ignore any kind of humane consideration, which essentially is just animal abuse with no purpose.

I'm sure you are very passionate about this subject, which is great, but I imagine that if it was me then I'd find it hard not to get too emotional about it and lose focus of the logic to back up the argument, so this might be something you want to watch out for.

Good luck with the rest of your posts, I'm sure they'll be great.

2) Hi Shelby,

You've got a lot of information here and you've obviously done a lot of research, which is great. I think it's good that you decided to focus on cosmetic testing and distinguish it from medical testing, as I think this will help you to focus your argument.

A couple of things which might be helpful to think about though:

"Currently in New Zealand there are no known companies testing their cosmetic brands on animals"

This might need a little clarification - do you mean no companies who supply products to New Zealand, or no New Zealand companies? My guess is the latter because L'Oreal/Gilette have been pretty notorious in the past for their animal testing.

Also, you have a lot of information about the tests themselves. While this is relevant to your argument and you need some of this information, maybe it'd be good to cut down the amount of description of tests and focus more on the actual debates which go on about these tests. For example, are there people who argue that the animals used aren't capable of perceiving pain the way humans are so we can't consider the tests as cruel as we would if they were performed on humans? And then is there research showing that the animals DO perceive pain in a similar way?

I totally agree with your outlook, but maybe it just needs a bit more of the back and forth of the debates rather than just straight information.

Good post, though!

Davy's blog - Music pirates: Are they a threat to legal music purchases?

1) Hi Davy!

Highly debatable topic! I won't specify which side of the debate I'm on but I am aware of a lot of the arguments on either side, so I'm looking forward to reading your perspective. I echo what Jenette said about needing some links to other sources to back up your points, but I'm sure you're planning on doing this.

I know that on the other side of your debate is the opinion that in the majority of cases the bulk of the money made from record sales goes to the record companies rather than the artists themselves, and it is only when artists become extraordinarily successful that they start to see a fairer proportion of the profits. My guess is that this is especially the case in NZ where most of our artists see success on a smaller scale than artists like Beyonce! However, I thought it might be interesting to explore the perspective of the increasing number of artists who are choosing not to sign to record labels and to be independent artists who distribute their own music, for the reason I mentioned above. There might be something interesting to explore in whether the fact that an artist is independent affects a person's willingness to pirate the music i.e. whether they're more likely to buy the music if they know the money is going more directly to the artist.

There's also the model of 'pay what you choose' which is becoming more and more popular even among big artists like Thom Yorke (Radiohead), by which they offer a digital download of their album and the customer chooses what they want to pay for it - the theory being that even if people only pay $1, if the model means that 100,000 people choose to purchase it who normally would have pirated it, that's still $100,000 the artist wouldn't have seen before. It also significantly reduces distribution costs etc. I know that a lot of comedians have also started to adopt a similar model of 'pay $5 for a download' for their stand up comedy specials, and that they see much greater success because the exposure they get is far more than if they were trying to distribute their CD's to retail outlets - this might be the case for lesser-known musicians as well. I believe Louis CK and Tig Notaro are examples of comedians who have done this, if you were interested to look into this further.

Great start, I'm looking forward to reading your next posts!

Nicola's blog - All Deaf children should be encouraged to learn Sign Language

1) Hi Nicola!

I echo what Jenette has said about needing to use more links to back up the statements you're making, but I'm sure this is something you're planning to do when you go into more detail in future posts.

I know that you have extensive experience in the Deaf community and that you've formed strong opinions as a result, and it's great that you're so passionate. I think now the key is just to find links to things which back up what you've been told anecdotally for the purpose of the brief so that you're able to put forward a strong argument to those who haven't had that exposure to real life examples. I know it can be challenging as there is often limited statistics, but from my own research there does seem to be just enough out there to back up an argument! And I suppose maybe you can also use the fact that there are limited statistics as an example in your argument as to why more hasn't been done already to ensure all Deaf children have access to NZSL?

Either way, I'm confident that you'll find what you need (feel free to have a look through the links post I made to see if anything is useful to back up the points you want to make).

Good luck with the rest of your posts, I'm sure they'll be great!

2) Hey Nicola,

Just to reiterate the conversation we just had..

Since I know the background behind all of the Deaf issues you mention, I know that you're correct in your content, and obviously have a wealth of experience from your interaction with the Deaf community. But I think in terms of the assignment you need to structure it in more of a debate format and make sure that you're back up what you're stating with research and other sources. I know that what you're saying is correct and totally agree, but for the purpose of the assignment it just needs those links! It can be a bit tricky to find them, but there is stuff out there so I'm confident you'll find them.

In terms of the feedback you wanted on the focuses of each post, since your overall topic is that all deaf children should be encouraged to learn sign language, maybe think about the different types of benefits to learning it. So, for example, the first post seems to be focused around the linguistic of it, so maybe the post could be focused on the language and educational benefits of learning it. This post is focused on growing up in a hearing family, so maybe the focus could be the benefits to family relationships and social bonds. That's basically how you've covered it anyway, but just with a clearer focus to your argument.

Also, it's good that you've included a mention of cochlear implants as I think you definitely need to acknowledge what the opposing opinions are to each benefit you suggest so that you're able to argue against them. I think your argument would be strengthened if you included a little more of this opposition in each post (with links!) so that people don't think you're ignoring any information which opposes yours to make your argument seem stronger.

I know you'll probably go through a do a spelling/grammar check at the end - keep a watch out in particular for there/their and apostrophes. Give me a shout if you need a hand with the grammar!

Jenette's blog - "Success for All - Every School, Every Child" - Reality for Deaf students?

1) Hi Jenette,

I think this is a good introduction, I like the background behind your opinion. You know I like your style of writing, it's very clear.

A couple of very minor things:

- might be good to link to the Deaf Aotearoa website to give a little context to the lecturer's background and approach. Also another link to add to the list!

- I would create a new paragraph at 'In their latest Statement of Intent', but I think this is a stylistic personal preference, and I think it's also fine as it is.

Okay, off to read your other posts now! :)

2) The background you've provided to the history of Deaf education is succinct but includes some interesting links for more information, and provides some vital context to the situation.

While I totally agree that the current offering to Deaf students is not sufficient, especially in the area of teacher aides, approaching it from the opposing side I imagine the response would be that there simply aren't the trained staff out there to meet the ideal scenario, and that they're 'doing the best they can'. While I don't think this is an excuse not to take action, I think maybe it'd be good to acknowledge the lack of trained teachers/aides out there as an explanation for why they aren't present in schools, but then counteract it with your suggestion for what measures they could/should take to improve the availability of these valuable skills in educators of the Deaf. I see you've gone into more detail about what the MOE are doing in your next post, but it might be persuasive to take a stance on what more they should be doing than they're currently doing?

3) I think overall your posts are great and very convincing. Your style of writing is clear and concise, and balances academic proof with emotion and common sense.

I definitely think it's good that you've compared the UN and MOE ideals against what the actual reality is, but I'm wondering whether the brief for the assignment means you need to be in opposition of someone who's saying NZ does meet those ideals? I totally agree with everything you're saying, but does everyone agree with it, or are there actually people out there who disagree and believe that the current educational options are sufficient for Deaf children? If there are those people, I think it would add a lot of weight to your argument to link to them to show that (miraculously and sadly) they do exist and that there is something to fight against.

This might just be me being confused about the brief, though. If you did want to be in opposition of someone, perhaps tweak the topic/content so that it focuses on those who believe that NZSL shouldn't be a prominent feature of education (i.e. the oralist perspective which is so prevalent), and how the increasing numbers of children with cochlear implants may be affecting how the MOE wants to approach resources for Deaf children?

Sorry to ramble, and I'm not intending to be negative, I really do think your writing is great. I'm just unsure about how strict the brief is in terms of fighting against an opposing opinion.

Great work!