Dear Senator: My name is Dr. Christopher Jon Heuer, and my dissertation, professional research, and work all fall within the fields of literacy, language acquisition, and Deaf Education. HB 1367 will soon come before you for review. I hope you will consider my arguments against it and oppose it. At the very least, I urge…
Tag: Deafness
My Two Cents: Cochlear Implants
I used to feel sorry for children who had cochlear implants. I did. When I saw them it broke my heart because I really believed that their parents just didn’t understand deafness. I judged those parents. I assumed that the parents were looking for a quick fix to something that in my opinion didn’t require fixing. I…
Cued Speech and ASL—Why I Use Both
When we first confirmed my son was deaf, I had several communication choices presented to me by his Early Intervention coordinator. I had never heard of cued speech, and at first I was ready to dismiss it solely because it was not the dominant form of communication among Deaf people. But when an advocate of…
A Guide to the Maternal Reflective Method
Often, deaf children learn to sign so that they can communicate their needs and also learn in schools for the deaf. However, signing is not the only method of communication. In schools today, there is a Maternal Reflective Method, sometimes called Oral Reflective Method, which teaches partially or fully deaf children how to learn and…
Raising a Deaf Child
I once asked my toddler’s teacher for help: “how do you discipline a deaf child?” Her answer? “The same as any other child.” The simplicity of this answer shows just how little some people know of the hardships of being a hearing parent of a deaf child. Certainly I understand her point that you treat…
Deaf Education: Numbering Our Flaws
This is an article about numbers. It does not purport to be anything else. I will delineate numbers that varying researchers spent quite a bit of time gathering, and then I will discuss them briefly and draw connections to the potential political consequences of having the numbers listed define our reality. It is my personal…
Why I Almost Didn’t Sign The Dailykos Petition
Thu Dec 02, 2010 at 12:14:12 PM PST I was reluctant to sign the Dailykos petition in support of Netflix and asking the FCC to reign in Comcast’s abuse of corporate power. Why was I reluctant to do so? Because of the history of Netflix’s hostile business practices towards the deaf community, in refusing to caption streaming videos. Dana…
What Is Bigotry Against Deaf People? Audism.
[Editor’s note: The article you are about to read first appeared in Dailykos.com on 12/08/10. The thread referred to in the first sentence is taken from a discussion that followed a different article. Reviewing this may be helpful in establishing context.] Judging from this thread, not many people are aware about how their comments can offend and hurt those who are deaf and hard of hearing, and…
It Gets Better. It Really Does.
Unless you’ve been under a rock this week, you’ve probably seen this week’s troubling stories about gay teens committing suicide. The deaths of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown from a small town just outside Houston, Texas, and Seth Walsh in Tehachapi, California have haunted my thoughts this week. Watching Seth Walsh’s sister’s Youtube clip made before her brother…
Embracing Diversity in Communication
Communication is not just an exchange of ideas between two or more people. It is how we learn about each other. It is also a means of including people in or excluding people from a community. We are all aware of the difficulties we can face in communicating with hearing people. But what I want…