Lisa's Reviews > Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Is this missing the link to your op-ed? Or is that not allowed?

I thought I put in the link! Argh!

Link works now, fyi!

Wow. I agree with you on the d/Deaf chapter, and was unable to complete that. I found the rest of the book if not uniformly excellent, intriguing.

I read your op-ed - very informative. Thanks you

Thanks for this review. I was just about to buy the book and after reading your op-ed I will think twice. My sister-in-law is also a deaf person who has been lip reading and speaking all of her life and she seems very happy in her life with as a happily married person running her own business.

My takeaway from the books was less about the statistics and more about understanding the challenges that are faced. I read the op-ed, your perspective is passionate and commendable, but for those of us who bear the burden of ignorance in so many of these areas it was enlightening. My pursuit was not academic, rather to gain empathy for the challenges of parenting children with a variety of needs. I am more aware for reading the book. It is limited, however I appreciate the work and will pass the book on.

thank you for linking to your op-ed. i found it very interesting and insightful! i love this book. i feel as though i've learned a lot about other ways of being. i did notice that people with positive experiences of mainstreaming weren't adequately represented, but chalked that up to the book's premise of alternative ways of viewing the self. perhaps because i knew close to nothing about deaf people and Deaf Culture, i didn't come away thinking the author is advocating only sign. i think he provides a description of those who do, believing that being deaf is their identity and attempts to mainstream threatens the community they are deeply connected to and invested in. also fascinating is how the horizontal and vertical (deaf-of-deaf) identities shape one's views. i think his portrayal was even-handed because i concluded that though i respect their beliefs, understand the need to belong and feel a sense of pride in one's self that their views are militant and unrealistic. learning that there is no universal sign language contributed to my forming of the opinion that learning to communicate solely by sign would be very limiting.

"Over forty years of research on linguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of sign languages demonstrate that they are human languages acquired and used in the same ways as spoken languages with all the requisite grammatical properties. The lack of awareness of medical professionals that sign language gives deaf children unambiguous and total access to a human language is a source of great harm to many deaf children." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

The linked article from the poster above is a position piece rather than a scientific analysis or study. It is deeply biased and ignores contradictory research. There is significant high-quality evidence showing better English skills for children raised with cochlear implants and oral education. The article also downplays the desire of many parents to communicate with their children and raise them in their culture. Sign language is romantic, but that does not make it the right choice for most children.

"Deaf children need to be exposed regularly and frequently to good language models in both visual and auditory modalities from the time hearing loss is detected and continued throughout their education to ensure proper cognitive, psychological, and educational development."
"Many studies report that deaf children who sign, regardless of other factors (such as whether their parents are deaf or hearing and whether or not they have assistive hearing devices and/or oral training), achieve better in school than those who don’t sign." -Journal of Clinical Ethics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

This is another position paper by the same authors (see my comments above). Furthermore, the paper referenced by the authors in that quote (45) is a Deaf Culture book, not an empirical, peer-reviewed study. It happens to also be co-authored by one of the authors of the paper you cited. You can keep finding position pieces like this, but they are still contradicted by multiple, large-scale, longitudinal, empirical studies showing better English skills for children raised with cochlear implants and oral education.

I am interested in your comment, and followed the link you supplied for your op-ed and read it. I am hearing, and have started learning BSL (level 1 for now) Maybe because I gravitate towards those who do and live with BSL I may not have heard so many success stories like yours. I DO know that 50% of the Deaf community suffer with Mental Health issues due to isolation and more. I also know that until recently, Auralism was at the expense of learning other topics. Your op-ed rebuttal lacked information of any numbers about mainstreamed Deaf students completing University studies. I have linked in a few BSL Deaf to your article and I hope to hear how their experience compares to yours. I remember my BSL instructor's assistant was a former hearing person who had attempted and failed 3 times to keep cochlear implants. He was so sad and even angry. The instructor was impassive while we listened to the assistant's travails with technology and biophysical rejection of the hearing equipment.

Thank you so much for review and your op-ed article. As a parent of a hard of hearing child, I couldn’t go past that chapter in Solomon’s book. I felt outraged by his views and his portrayal of deafness. My daughter has been mainstreamed, is bilingual and is finishing high school. I would never want her to feel segregated. Thanks for shining some light on such a biased chapter of the book.

Karina wrote: "Thank you so much for review and your op-ed article. As a parent of a hard of hearing child, I couldn’t go past that chapter in Solomon’s book. I felt outraged by his views and his portrayal of dea..."

I was hoping parents like you would see this review!! Congrats to you and your daughter on her incredible accomplishments!