Open Mouths, Eyes, and Minds: AG Bell Convention 2008

The past few days I attended the AG Bell Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was my first convention and I had no idea what it would be like. Little would I know that I'd have a great experience meeting new people and reuniting with old friends.

Friday

The first thing I did after registration was attend a short course titled "Fostering Critical Links Between Early and Complex Language." With many decades of experience working with children, Barbara Lee provided much insight into utilizing the Bloom and Lahey model for developmental language. As the first person to evaluate my language Barbara Lee played a crucial role in how my parents raised me, encouraging them to cue more and not give up.

During the break in the short course, I met Elizabeth of cochlearimplantonline.com for the first time ever. It was the first time any founders of Deaf Village had met each other in person, and we just chatted about our morning and what we planned to do for the rest of the day. Right off the bat, I could see how Elizabeth had that passion for working with kids and that she'd make a great professional in the field of deafness.

After the short course I had lunch with what I should describe as the first generation of Cued Speech advocates, which included professionals, parents, and current board members of the National Cued Speech Association. I spent the afternoon visiting the Milwaukee Museum of Art with Sarina Roffe, Barbara LeBlanc, and Jane Smith. It was nice to be able to experience at least one thing that Milwaukee had to offer while I was in town.

Later in the afternoon after helping set up the Cued Speech booth for the NCSA I came across some fellow cuers, Catharine McNally and Brian Kelly who have been longtime AG Bell members. They were talking with Alexi, who's a CI user and another longtime member of AG Bell. Immediately Alexi and I hit it off and we ended up spending most of the weekend hanging out and getting to know each other.

It ended up being five of us, Mary-Beth, Dmitri (another deaf member), Brian, Alexi, and myself that went out to eat and get to know each other better. We came back to the Midwest Airlines Center to see who was still out at the opening reception. I came across a few people I knew, some from CID in St. Louis. After the reception, the group I was with went on to Miller Light Time for some pool and brew, then we went on to Rock Bottom Brewery where the night got even more interesting...

Rock Bottom

Some of the AG Bell members had already been at Rock Bottom outside on the patio for quite a while when we got there. We introduced ourselves to each other and started to make some chit-chat. It came to my attention that some members of Deaf Bilingual Coalition were inside Rock Bottom having their own conversations.

The subject then turned to the banner that I observed Jack Barr and cohorts hanging up on the side of a trailer in the parking lot across from the Midwest Airline Center. Someone actually made a comment, stating that the message was grammatically incorrect. Instead of "tearing down THE wall," the message read as "AG Bell, Tear This Wall Down. Let All Deaf Children Sign." This wouldn't be the only time I heard the same comment as people would make the same observation throughout the convention. I did have to wonder, what was the real meaning behind the message?

Some of the AG Bell members went on to share their experiences in relation to the controversy surrounding DBC and AG Bell. Nothing really out of the ordinary caught my attention, other than that quite a few of the deaf adults were signing and speaking at the same time. Whether it was fluent ASL or pidgin, I could not discern. We eventually moved on to other subjects and started to get to know each other more.

Eventually we had some visitors from DBC including Sean and Jason who came by to see what was up. I started chatting with Sean, asking him where he was from along with Jason. There was no conflict here, only mutual respect as we shared our perspectives. Initially I was wondering whether any thing would happen, but then that concern quickly went away as we conversed more. They eventually departed and I continued on chatting with the AG Bell members.

As the night went on, some people started making their way back to the hotel and once the rain started coming down I went inside with Alexi, Mary-Beth, and Dennis. We continued enjoying the brews at a table right next to the DBC members. I could tell some of the DBC members were noticing the transition between cueing, signing, and speaking amongst ourselves.

I decided to step up and introduce myself to Jack Barr who I recognized from the vlogs through Deaf Read. Given that I had quite a few brews, I can't recall exactly what I said, but I made a point to state that I just wanted to say hello and that it was nice to meet fellow peers even though we had different views. I returned back to my group and rejoined the conversation.

Eventually Jack came over to our table and we started talking about current events, our views on ASL and spoken language, experiences growing up. Jack made it clear he had a negative experience growing up with the methods used to improve his speech. We all knew that we had very different perspectives on how deaf children should grow up, but we still maintained that mutual respect as David Eberwein, Barb Digi, and others eventually joined the conversation.

The conversation certainly got heated up, as one side indicated that children needed to learn sign language, while the other side argued that cued/spoken language is critical to literacy and overall language comprehension. We all had our beliefs set in stone, and it was apparent there was no changing each other's minds.

One thing that really struck me as out of the ordinary was how one girl from California made the assertion that somewhere in AG Bell's policies or bylaws, lipreading and signing were not allowed. That statement left me with a feeling of disbelief. Is this the kind of mistruths that are being perpertrated within the ASL community? I just chose to let that go because I wasn't going to argue with someone who apparently has strong beliefs against AG Bell.

The lights started flickering and we all realized how late it was at 3 am. We all left each other wishing each other well as we went on our own ways. Alexi, Mary-Beth, and I shared our thoughts about the night we just had and our experiences with speech therapy, education, and the cochlear implants until 4 am, when I just had to cut it short and confess... "I haven't had any sleep since the night before. I must at least get four hours of sleep before I wake up tomorrow for another long day at the convention."

Saturday

Unfortunately Mary-Beth and I only could stay for one night, so we had the task of getting ourselves together and ready to check out before the day's events began. After some free breakfast in the lounge of the hotel, Mary-Beth and I made our way to the Cued Speech booth in the exhibit hall where I had the first shift.

It was interesting to observe various people's reactions when they saw what the booth was about. Some came in for some information and I conversed with them, finding more about who they were and what they were looking for. For the next 3 hours and half I passed out information and speaking with various people.

I did manage to talk to one mother who indicated real interest in Cued Speech. She told of how she had a 14 month old son, diagnosed at 9 months with profound hearing loss since birth, and that she didn't really know what Cued Speech was. The more I explained what Cued Speech was and how it impacted my life, the more I could see her interest begin to grow. I felt reassured that at least one parent wanted to go the extra length to ensure their child would have complete access to spoken language.

I had planned to make a short trip across the street to the DBC rally to see what was up, but I was pressed for time since I had to get lunch for people at the booth. I did see the large number of people standing outside by the trailer and some of the signs being held. While getting lunch at the mall, I noticed various DBC members signing about AG Bell. Being the fluent signer I'm not, I picked up pieces here and there. Some were people who just met each other and were getting to know each other, while a few others were just decrying AG Bell's oppression of sign language (note I'm just paraphrasing what I saw).

Cuers from India

Later in the afternoon, several of the NCSA members and cuers met with Hema and Anand Navkal from India. They had come to the United States perviously and learned about Cued Speech. Now they have adapted Cued Speech to their home language of Marajthi. We spent most of the afternoon speaking about how to teach Cued Speech in India and the ways of advocating it for deaf children.

It was interesting to see how we struggled in addressing certain questions of theirs. For example, Anand was asking how we showed numerals in Cued Speech. We just cue it like we say it, such as "one" (won) or "two" (too). Anand had a bit of a tough time grasping the concept but eventually got it after we used the parallel of how one writes an amount on a check, both numeric and written form.

I also gained some insight from the conversation that took place for two hours. One thing I learned was that due to socialism tendencies in France, the French version of the NCSA had a better organization thanks to government funding. The NCSA had to start from the bottom up, while the Navkals have the advantage of utilizing both top-down and bottom-up strategies in organizing a legitimate Cued Speech organization. I can only wonder where Cued Speech would be in India 40 years from now.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Reception

The AG Bell's DHOH Reception took place at the Eisner Museum of Advertising, located in the Third Ward neighborhood of Milwaukee. It was an interesting place to have the reception at, with all these different selections of advertisements from the past. Electic would be the best word to describe the setting.

Everyone hopped on the three charter buses and rode about 10 minutes to the museum. We hopped off and gave our tickets once we came inside. Alexi and I were the first ones in so we had a funny moment where we were just exploring, but people ended up following us. We went into a room which was just an empty theatre with nothing of interest. We proceeded to go upstairs and just explore a little bit more, but we realized that everyone was doing the same thing that we were doing and the museum staff were trying to direct everyone upstairs. Talk about following the leader.

Dinner wouldn't be served for another thirty minutes so everyone checked out the exhibits and bought some drinks from the cash bar as they settled into their seats. People sat with those who they knew the best, while others just picked whatever seats were left open. I found myself sitting with a deaf adult from Colorado by the name of Che. As a former leftist radical who read the biography Che, I couldn't help but think of how closely this Che resembled the Che Guevera who helped lead the Cuban Revolution of the 50's.

I learned more about Che, who was a mechanical engineer and a long time member of AG Bell. He shared his observations about this weekend, including how it was his first convention in almost a decade and how there weren't as many people in Milwaukee as in past years. Because I'm such a conniving guy who can't wait to feed himself, I told Che to follow me and stand by for the buffet to open. We promptly helped ourselves to the buffet while everyone else continued to chat away.

For the next hour, Che and I just sat there idly eating our food observing all the people who went by us waiting in line for their chance to pile food on their own plates. As a "people watcher," I found it the perfect chance to anaylze each person's characteristics and personality. Young and old, signers and oral, I found the reception to be composed of a diverse selection of people with various experiences growing up.

Eventually everyone found their seat and started filling their stomachs. One of the people sitting at my table turned out to be Paul Jacobs, author of the book Neither - Nor, from the University of Melbourne in Australia. I gave him one of my Cue Chart cards with info about the NCSA on the back. Mary-Beth said she would have to buy the book and send it to him so he could sign it and send it back. Shucks for not being there on Sunday to save all that trouble.

Towards the end of the night Jay Wyant took to the microphone and made a few announcements. He thanked Rachel Arft and Lindsey Rentmeester for organizing the reception and helping raise over $4000 for accessibility services for the deaf and hard of hearing (CART, interpereters, etc). This marked the end of the reception and everyone started making their plans for the rest of the night. Unforunately Mary-Beth and I would have to make the hour and half drive back to Chicago after the reception.

I said my goodbyes to my old and new friends and told them I'd be staying in touch with them. In the end I left Milwaukee feeling positive about all the new friendships I made and the experiences I gained from attending the AG Bell Convention 2008. I look forward to the next one in Orlando the summer of 2010.

AG Bell Convention 2008

Going to the AG Bell Convention in Milwaukee next weekend (I mean two weekends from now)? I sure am. I'll be coming up from Chicago for Friday and Saturday to attend one short session and to sit at the National Cued Speech Association exhibit. I'll also be attending the D/HOH social Saturday Night. Be sure to keep your eyes open for me if you want to chat with me. I'll most likely be wearing a "I Cue" pin.

I recently became a new member of AG Bell after hearing the Executive Director speak at the NCSA board meeting in Cleveland. I decided that being a member of AG Bell would provide me with more opportunities to network with professionals and parents in regards to deaf education and advocating spoken language through Cued Speech. Contrary to the beliefs of some, AG Bell is open to all that support the use of spoken language, even cuers.

If you're planning to go to the convention and want to meet me, feel free to send an email to me at: a a r o n c u e s (at) g m a i l (dot) com (no spaces) . I look forward to the convention!

Preschool Programs for the D/HOH – Merging Different Modalities Together?

Recently there has been talk of Fairfax County schools in Virginia possibly combining the different preschool programs for the deaf and hard of hearing together into one, which has resulted in a lot of agitated parents who believe their children should only be exposed to what they are using, whether it is Cued Speech, American Sign Language, or spoken language.

I recently received an email from a parent of an eighteen month old child asking whether there were any research indicating the importance of focusing on the language spoken in the home at the preschool level, rather than utilizing a combination of different communication modalities. Having recently decided to go with Cued Speech, the parent expressed her concerns about the future of Canterbury Woods’ preschool program. Not having that information I passed her request on to people who I expected would be more help to her.

To provide some insight into this developing situation, another school system in Maryland on the opposite side of DC did the same thing with their deaf/hard of hearing preschool programs a few years ago, and now parents of deaf cuers enrolled in the program are expressing their frustrations with the school system. Not just hearing parents, but deaf parents too.

Montgomery County Schools merged the three different tracks into one, with all the deaf and hard of hearing children attending the same preschool. Now all the children are exposed to sign language, Cued Speech, and auditory-oral approaches in the same setting. I can’t see consistency as one of the program’s strong suits. Another issue is whether the teachers are fluent in all modalities. It’s a matter of specialization versus generalization.

One of my good friends, a native deaf cuer, has deaf twin daughters attending this preschool and has indicated his dissatisfaction with the program, stating that the teachers aren’t qualified enough in Cued Speech. Observers have sat in the classes and confirmed his concerns.

The twins came into the preschool at or above grade-level in regards to language, but the parents are frustrated with the preschool because they feel the twins are not learning anything new. They are contemplating pulling their children out and putting them in a mainstream program with a Cued Speech Transliterator. Frankly I wouldn’t blame them. After all I would want the best for my children too.

After preschool, the children are sent off to separate elementary schools relative to their track. I haven’t seen the statistics myself, but I’ve been told that the children are consistently going to kindergarten behind in language compared to their peers. Is this what the school system imagined would happen? I don’t think so. The idea may have looked good on paper, but in reality it just doesn’t seem practical.

Why is it such a big deal to merge different tracks into one preschool program? The preschool years are the formative years where each child develops the basic skills and foundations essential for the rest of their academic experience. In the Cued Speech community, educators place an emphasis on consistent exposure to the cued form of the home language (English in this case) in order for the child to have the most access to spoken language, just like hearing children.

In the case of Fairfax County Schools, each track has its own preschool program within an elementary school, thus providing an environment in which each deaf/hoh child is fully immersed in the modality of their parents’ choice, whether it’s ASL, Cued Speech, or Oral. The school system then incorporates all the deaf/hoh students into the same middle and high schools, providing services tailored to each student’s needs.

The question now is what is the best for these children? Should we expose them all to the various modalities at such an early age or focus on their primary modality? If I had deaf children in Fairfax County, I would prefer them to be immersed in a cued/spoken language environment as that’s what they would receive at home. I’m sure parents would say the same for their own children in regards to sign language or the oral method.

Responding to "DeafRead and Commercial Sites"

Jared Evans of DeafRead published an official blog regarding the role of commercial sites in DeafRead. I took the liberty of leaving a comment to his blog, posted below

------------------

Deafread Staff,

I would understand your decision only if there was sufficient evidence to indicate that Rachel of Cochlear Implant Online was marketing one brand of cochlear implants over others.

There is a difference between advocating for a certain type of technology and marketing specific brands.

I spent some time looking for indications that Rachel had indicated a preference in regards to specific products, but could not find any. The only connections to Cochlear Americas was through her own admission that she received the Nucleus 22 and recently that she was a member of Cochlear Awareness Network, a volunteer support group for recipients of the Nucleus implant and Baha.

Certainly there was no “aggressive marketing” on behalf of CAN or Cochlear Americas anywhere in Rachel’s blogs. Therefore to insinuate that her website is a commercial website that markets products out of Cochlear Americas is inaccurate and falls within the definition of libel.

The reality of it is that more and more deaf children and adults are receiving the cochlear implant, so it makes sense to have an independent website that provides resources, information, and experiences for those with an interest in cochlear implants.

------------------

Even though everyone knows I disagree with this decision, I understand the rational in forbidding blogs that carry out active marketing of certain products when the author benefits from such posts. In this case it's just mind boggling that the DeafRead staff found Rachel's website to be a case of "aggressive marketing" when many in the CI and AVT communities perceives her website as a source of information and resources and as an outlet for sharing experiences.

Certainly the guidelines are open to interpretation and it's apparent DeafRead has made its choice. Instead of focusing on the negative, I'm looking forward to the positives that this situation has created through DeafVillage, a separate aggregator which will be more lenient in moderating entries and provide an alternative forum for members of the deaf and hard of hearing community. I still will continue to keep my blogs a part of DeafRead so that I will contribute to whatever diversity that remains, but will always know that readers have the option of customizing their DeafRead page to their own tastes.

Behind the Creation of Deaf Village

On June 3^rd, 2008 the unthinkable happened. A regular blogger, Rachel Chaikof of Cochlear Implant Online, received an email that her blog feed was summarily removed from Deafread’s active blog list without warning. The explanation for her removal did not rest easy within Deafread’s community of bloggers.

As a result, a select few bloggers including myself came together to discuss what course of action to take in response to this turn of events. This group quickly came to the consensus that a new aggregate was needed and that it had to be formed quickly. We all spent some amount of time trying to decide what we should call this new aggregate. It was Paotie who came up with the name “Deaf Village” and we all agreed it truly represented the vision of the new aggregate, which was to embody diversity and inclusiveness and offer a place for bloggers to share their posts without fear of personal attacks.

As we the founders went further with the concept of creating a “deaf village,” we asked ourselves how we could be different from Deafread. There will be no “extras” page. Entries will be published automatically so that there is no moderation until the “village” has seen it. In the event that an entry is deemed to violate the guidelines of Deaf Village, the moderators will contact the author to remedy the situation. We are all human, thus no one is perfect and make mistakes from time to time. Rather than judging quickly, we understand the importance of discourse. The moderators of Deaf Village will utilize the removal of posts only as a last resort.

As Deaf Village develops further, we will incorporate new features such as a calendar where national and regional events will take place. We also will have a resource page which will provide access to information on various communication modalities and technologies related to hearing loss and deafness. As soon as the process of registration is established, members will be able to submit events into the calendar and information for the resources page.

Whether you are a cuer, a product of the AVT approach, hard of hearing, or culturally Deaf, we want you to be part of Deaf Village and share your experiences and perspectives on hearing loss and deafness. We only ask that you keep your entries civil and treat others as you would want them to treat you.

Aaron Rose, Public Relations - Deaf Village

Deafread - Signs of Fascism or Censorship?

I recently received an email from Rachel Chaikof explaining that her website, Cochlear Implant Online, has been removed from the active list of blogs because Deafread believes her website is a commercial website. What the.... I strongly disagree with Deafread's decision.

It's very obvious Rachel's website is not commercial. I wonder whether TaylorInfoMedia, the owner of Deafread, perceives her website as a threat to American Sign Language. It wouldn't surprise me because Rachel has done a great job of sharing the stories of various individuals, not just products of AVT, but also cuers too! The success of deaf adults with spoken language can be enticing for hearing parents who want to communicate in their own language with their children.

Lately I haven't spent much time on Deafread due to work and other engagements, but reading through the latest blogs I can see blogs that have no relation to deafness or hearing loss make it to the extra section, where my most two recent blogs on Cued Speech currently are located.

I have experienced the "dark side" of Deafread myself, when I tried to submit www.WeCue.net, a new blogsite for the Cued Speech community. One would think that WeCue.net should be easily accepted for submission to Deafread, but that's not the case. Two different submissions and almost two weeks later, I still yet have to see Deafread allow WeCue.net to be part of the "aggregator."

I have to state that I did contact Amy Cohen Efron, and she responded stating she would get in touch with the editors. I still yet have to hear back from her on why wecue.net was never added to Deafread.

What happened in the last six months for Deafread to be more exclusive instead of inclusive?

Email the people behind Deafread and let them know diversity and inclusiveness are the best policies.