National Public Radio’s Article on Cochlear Implants–Heavily Biased?
Many of the comments under the article on cochlear implants that appeared on National Public Radio’s (NPR) website on April 8th, 2012 claim that it is heavily biased in favor of cochlear implants, and poorly researched. Also of note are two remarks by Dr. John Niparko, an expert in the field, and the lack of [...]
IMHO: From a Parent’s Viewpoint
In a recent article, “The Distrust Runs Deep on Both Sides?” the author asserts: It’s not like these parents find out their child is deaf, go on the internet, discover a deaf community sharply divided between the oral and ASL-using camps, panic, and somehow decide they’ll embrace the oral camp while never trusting any [...]
Don’t Blame Yourself: How We Flew Under the Radar for 15 Months
If you’re the parent of a deaf child, especially one that manages to avoid early detection from newborn hearing screenings, you might find yourself with a lot of guilt. Though my son did fail his newborn hearing screening, he later somehow passed an otoacoustic emission test (OAE) and was declared hearing until 15 months [...]
Your Child’s Best Advocate
“The best defense is a good offense.” These are words to live by for parents advocating for their deaf child. While the professionals—doctors, therapists, teachers, early intervention coordinators, school boards—may truly believe they have the child’s best interests in mind, it is up to the parents to digest all their recommendations and stand up [...]
Announcing Deaf Echo’s Parents of Deaf Children Information Page
Deaf Echo has begun an ongoing project to make crucial yet balanced information about deafness available for parents of deaf children. We are attempting to do a few things here that, to the best of our knowledge, are either not being done or else are not being done to the extent needed. Deaf Echo’s [...]
A Flawed System
There was a brief time when I could not have cared less if my deaf son ever knew any ASL. I wanted him only to be oral. I figured if he got a cochlear implant, he wouldn’t “need” sign language, so why learn it? As irrational as it sounds, I almost feared him becoming [...]
“Parents” Shouldn’t Be A Lot Of Talk
I want you to run an experiment with me. Go to Google. Type in “deafness.” Look at what pops up—the top five sites. As of right now, as I type this at precisely 9:00 p.m. on August 26th, 2010, those sites belong to: – Wikipedia – About.com – The World Health Organization – The National [...]