[sw-l] Denmark and SignWriting...

[Bill Reese]

Hello Val, Lucyna, Shane, et al.

In 1997 I was implanted with a CI.   I am totally deaf but my first
language is english, as I had grown up hard-of-hearing in mainstream
schools.   So, while my perspective is not cultural deaf, I'm still
deaf.   :-)

Let me just say a few things about my CI.   I hate it.  I can't do
without it.  :-)

I'm not one of these stellar cases of CI's.  I still need to speechread
when using it and I still need sign language or realtime when in a
group.  Indeed, every week now, a realtimer (CART) helps me at business
meetings - at a cost of  US $125/hr.

Some of my inability to utilize the CI fully is simply because I was
implanted at age 42.   But I didn't go deaf until age 35, so I wouldn't
have been implanted as a child anyways.

Right now I'm sitting in my office without my CI on.   My grandson comes
to me in the mornings wanting crackers I keep at my desk.  He signs
"crackers, please."  Then he shows me all his fingers and says "five".  :-)

At night I don't wear my CI.   Nobody with one wears it at night.  What
should I do if I need to rush out of my house at night, without my CI
and people want to talk to me?

So, I know that the CI is not a panacea.  People with CI's are still
deaf and there are times when they will not use their CI and they will
still need to communicate.  Even if sign language is used this way as a
backup, it would still be valuable and needed.

Further thought:
1. Don't go swimming with a CI.
2. Or scuba diving
3. Or sky diving
4. Or playing or walking in the rain
5. Or having a food fight
6. Or any kind of fight except a shouting match  :-)
7. Or playing a contact sport
8. Or rolling down a grassy hill
9. Or stomping in mud puddles
10. Or spraying with the hose while washing the car
11. Or being licked all over by the family dog (or any dog)
12.  Or when sweating profusely on Saturday while mowing the grass.
13. Or anytime you sweat profusely (pardon the image)
14. Or when playing with other deaf kids without a CI
15. Or when talking with a deaf adult
16. Or when meeting a deaf person in a foreign land
17. Or when hauling crab pots in the Bering Sea.
18. Or working at a sweltering furnace.
19. Or high in a tree chopping limbs
20. Or anywhere a wire would be dangerous to have attached to your head
21. Or wherever the new behind-the-ear CI would drop into oblivion (did
I mention sky-diving?)
22. Or working on a car close to metal (the CI magnet "pops" off your
head and attaches to the metal)
23. Or when showering or combing your hair.
24. Or when the CI pains you (yes, wearing the CI a long time can cause
pain).
25. Or whenever you don't want to wear it (personal choice is freedom of
expression).

Bill


Lucyna Dlugolecka wrote:

>
>> What they stopped, was their bi-lingual Danish Sign Language program
>> for Deaf children in the Danish School System - The cochlear implant
>> was invented, and when it came to be, they thought that Deaf children
>> did not need any sign language any longer...so the Bi-lingual Deaf
>> Education program was dropped, or at least placed on hold...
>>
>> I recently wrote to one of the best bi-lingual teachers in Denmark, and
>> one of the most skilled Signwriters in our history. Bente Sparrevohn
>> wrote some of the most beautiful SignWriting on this earth...and you
>> can see her in this picture with me, while I was visiting one of her
>> bi-lingual classrooms back in 1984...but Bente today tells me that sign
>> language is not used much any longer in the school system because of
>> the cochlear implant, and it makes it hard for her...
>>
>> In this picture, that is me with the long hair (yes...I had hair
>> then!), and that is Bente to the left in the picture...and those lovely
>> Deaf Danish children were all fluent in SignWriting!!
>
>
> Oh, a sad story, indeed... Here in Poland, our government has limited
> resources, so few deaf children can get CIs. Unless their parents pay
> for it, and it costs 17.000 euro, whereas the average (monthly) salary
> is about 575 euro... But then, the professor (Henryk Skarzynski) who
> is one of several surgeons implanting CIs, demands that the child with
> CI attend a mainstream school. But I could see children with CIs also
> in schools for the Deaf, and such is the reality...
> I wish PJM was recognized and widely accepted in Poland but, on the
> other hand, in some 20-30 years most Deaf children of rich countries
> will not use any sign language... Because of the CIs and the
> technology, of course...
>
> Lucyna
>
>