[sw-l] DHICE 2005 - not very positive!

[Shane Gilchrist Ó hEorpa]

From: Deaf Education Protestors who put up a protest at the "Deaf and
Hearing impaired Children Europe 2005" which took place last week at London,
organized by the EAR FOUNDATION.

http://www.dhice.org/dhice/

==

Hi

Just thought I'd give some feedback about the conference on Friday 13th...

It was not a conference about Deaf education as we were led to
believe.  The majority of speakers talked about cochlear implants,
mainstreaming, how to get deaf children on Europe's DISABILITY agenda,
etc.

They were discussing ways of networking with politicians to get more
money to develop 'hearing services' like audiology, and promote the
mainstreaming of Deaf kids.  This was a conference to promote
normalization; and the cochlear implant surgeons and representatives
were there in great force!

They were supported by the Ear Foundation, RNID and NDCS.

Two speakers provided research evidence that with cochlear implants a
child stops using sign language and uses speech more.  This is what
they seem to want to encourage.

Speakers talked about 'parent-centred' services; they did not talk
much about the Deaf child.  The second speaker, who was an excellent
speaker, talked about his experiences as a parent of a 'disabled
child' – the child was not deaf though.

The conference was very depressing.  They considered the Deaf child as
'disabled' and needed help or curing from the medical profession and
politicians.  Sign language was rarely mentioned.

NOT ONE SPEAKER used sign language, only one speaker was deaf, and
there were no time for questions at the end of the conference.

The best speaker was a sign language expert from Greece who did some
research that showed families were not happy with the information they
were getting from the medical experts.  They had been led to believe a
cochlear implant would restore their child to be like a hearing
person, but this was not the case.

The best thing that happened was that Deaf people came down to picket
the conference and gave out leaflets in protest. There were a
suprisingly large number of delegates who found the whole conference
experience depressing.

It is a shame that more people were not there protesting, which is
disappointing considering there is so much anger in the Deaf community
about cochlear implants and the mainstreaming of Deaf kids.

By NOT turning up to protest the Deaf community is allowing itself to
be decimated (the English language has a word for this; it's known as
acquiescence).

It was encouraging that several people DID turn up to protest though!

You can forward this to whoever you want.

A Conference Delegate
deafeducation at gmail.com