(Frances M. Parsons is retired Associate Professor of History of Art and Coordinator of International Collections at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC)
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To: Sarah Wainscott, Director of Early Intervention and Preschool Programs
I came. I saw. I was conquered by the living evidence of how cochlear implant technology helps those toddlers at the River School. Words cannot describe how I felt when I finally visited the River School. I want to share this letter with anybody who wants to know about how cochlear implants benefit toddlers but are unable to get more information. The controversy about cochlear implants, especially in children, rages on with no let up. I have listened to pros and cons and met failures and successes. The most negative comment was "Those CI children at residential or day schools for the deaf could not speak!"
While sitting in waiting rooms at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere, I asked those happy looking mothers how they felt about spoken communication with their children. Their remarks: "It is a miracle." "My own daughter speaks our first language." "Close bonding between us." "CI makes our family life easy." "CI gives us HOPE!" et cetera. That was when I began to hear about the River School, but unbelievably just where the school was located remained in a shroud of obscurity, as though to avoid vicious attacks from those who are anti-CI. Finally I spotted a report about the River School that had been left on a rack at J.H.U. I had been under the impression it was located somewhere in Maryland, but it turned out to be in NW Washington, D.C.--a short drive to from my home! I lost no time making an appointment to visit, to observe, and to get the truth.
A turning point comes when one is able to actually see how children benefit from CIs. I watched how CI children talked with their hearing mothers. The younger the kids are when implanted, the better they hear and speak. It has been known that babies get brain stimulation from their earliest days as their parents communicate to them, whether signing or speaking...
"Seeing is believing" also applies to the difference of communication--sign-speak or speak. Some mothers, influenced by deaf "qualified experts" and ASL linguists, are encouraged to speak-sign to their children, who usually respond in signing and often without voice. Other mothers veer toward speech only. It is incredible to see the easy flow of spoken language between mothers and very young children with CI, as though the children have normal hearing.
Sarah Wainscott was as gracious a hostess as Debra Neumann, escorting me and explaining the school's policy, program, professional training, and parents' participation. Before I continue, I want to say that the philosophy and the difference between Le Clerc National Deaf Education Center at Kendall and the river school is amazing. It is unbelievable to see how those CI children talk a blue streak and their voices sound good. They listen without lip-reading intensively. In spite of my using a CI for the last two years at my very advanced age, I was not able to read their lips like I have done for years with hearing children, who, like CI kids, don't realize how the deaf depend on lip-reading slow speech! I felt lost by their rapid speech and had to ask Sarah to transliterate!
In the gym room, a very young girl ran to the other side, and when Sarah called out she whirled around and listened to Sarah. I was floored in sheer surprise because, in spite of my CI, I would have had to run across the room to lip-read Sarah! That girl made no more effort to hear and listen than normal hearing kids do.
Sarah Wainscott had previously taught at Gallaudet in the Education Department during her doctoral program, and as a part time employee. Two things have slowed her work on that dissertation. She now directs this special school as well as mothering an unwanted deaf boy, John, from Latvia, whom she adopted. His story is a long and beautiful one, but I must try to condense it here, but I will store that story in the file at Gallaudet Archives.
Three years earlier John was two years old when he was found as an unwanted street boy who came down with meningitis which left him profoundly deaf. He, as a ward of the state, was hospitalized for 6 months when no one visited him. Then he was transferred to an orphanage. A clinic discovered his deafness when he was then 32 months old. He underwent CI surgery and remained for six months before he was transferred to the Home for Defective Children. He was over three with no language. Through the help of the Cochlear Corporation, Dr. Niparko and Dr. Lehnhardt learned about John. Sarah heard of him.
In spite of being aware of the difficulties, Sarah and her husband, Bill, took him in, knowing the great challenge they faced to use knowledge, love, patience and teaching with strong family bonding. John stopped biting, scratching, throwing things, and rebelling against adults. Surprisingly he did not carry out his phenomenal tantrums on children. The Wainscotts started out with signing until he quieted down, and then worked on his listening and speech. His implant was a success. Amazing results took place. He functions well with children and teachers.
I saw John as a quiet but happy boy with a wonderful command of expressive English skills of a two-year old and is steadily improving. He primarily uses spoken English with occasional use of signs to understand something new or when communication breaks down. He enjoys playing with his best friend, a hearing child. In spite of a difficult adjustment with traumatic survival, he was able to telescope 30 months of skills to 19 months in America and especially at the River School.
Parents play a large role of continuing spoken communication with their children at home, rather than allowing teachers to be pseudo parents. There are no assistants or sub teachers. Heavy use of computers to assist with speech or reading is avoided. Sarah points out that they fully integrate deaf and hearing children together, sardine packing them with sensory experiences, dramatic play, as well as lots of activities and collaborative learning. The more the CI children learn from the consistency of speech language pathologists who support language and emphasize listening and speech skills all day long, the better they learn and remember.
Another beautiful highlight at that school is Christa Lopez. My first impression of her was she could easily win a beauty pageant, but she is actually a CI teacher--the most perfect role model for the CI children and for encouragement of their hearing parents. On achieving a M.S. in Education from the University of South Carolina and a B.A. in Special Ed. from Loyola Marymount University, she had taught hearing students in a regular classroom as well as deaf and hearing preschoolers. She also educates the River School staff. She is indeed the Star in the West!
The River School does not practice a traditional oral program of a heavy emphasis on isolated speech training and separate the deaf from the hearing (as a child. my four years of Alexander Graham Bell theory was the worst experience I ever had). For a long time oral deaf schools and schools for the deaf provided only one speech pathologist who gave lessons about 20 minutes in length once or twice a week to about 50 pupils. The River School has highly qualified speech pathologists with a masters degree, each concentrating on two to three toddlers at every hour and every day through the 11 month program. All the hearing peers are constantly exposed to CI children, with the hourly and daily focus of spoken language and literacy. (The school emphasizes literacy, too.)
Unlike Le Clerc National Deaf Education Center at Kendall, which has been mostly dominated in decision making by the deaf, the River School is independent of this influence, representing families who want to be heard, not to be advised by the deaf, and to support spoken language for their deaf progeny. The River school represents a clean break from years of isolating the deaf from the hearing, by integrating deaf CI children with their hearing peers. It is like new wine in new bottle. The younger toddlers and babies are when they are implanted, the better chance they have of learning English, but this theory was suppressed by the ASL Mafia.
Many deaf teachers use ASL and bilingual communication and drove out many speech therapists and audiologists from schools for the deaf. Hearing teachers were not welcomed unless they accepted and used ASL. ASL linguists have had a most damaging impact on education for the deaf.
I could rattle off like a model A Ford, but, to summarize the whole outlook, the River School provides many more wonderful programs, especially the development of spoken language and literacy as well as interaction between everybody at the school. The heavy emphasis is on ENGLISH! This program is flexible with the use of signs as a bridge to spoken language or speak/sign as an assistance for hearing impaired infants and toddlers. Two River School pupils are hereditary deaf of oral trained deaf fathers, and they speak well in spite of their knowing signs. They and John are the three who know signing. Speaking of English, fortunately there are deaf people like Bruce Gross, Tom Bertling, Greg Bland who are hereditary deaf teachers, social workers, writers, friends, etc and they strongly support English, based on their own experiences. Some of them have a cochlear implant.
Nancy Mellon is the Director and Founder of that School. The school started from her experience as a mother of a deaf son and she was frustrated with the limited options given. Currently there are four mothers with deaf progeny on staff, thus giving the family friendly feeling! In January, 2000, the River School opened with ten children, and is mushrooming to 120 children with about 25 CI children being enrolled in their programs for the Fall of 2003. They hope to move to a larger building across the street.
Also there are growing trends of various kinds of technologies like the deaf having Tel Cap that they can talk to a telephone and read captioned answers. Or the deaf read the spoken words from Viable Realtime Translation, a remote system designed for the educational setting for students with hearing loss or CI attending colleges and universities (and possibly for elementary and kindergarten schools). This method is more accurate than less qualified service providers, and gives high quality services for equal access to education. (FYI: look up Welcome to Viable Technologies)
I was asked if I were to live my life over again, would I like to have the philosophy of the River School? I have had wonderful years from the time I entered Berkeley School for the Deaf in California, enjoyed associating amiably with all kinds of deaf people, and respected our different signs and speech ability. I was a global campaigner for encouraging schools to accept sign language and I co-existed in the hearing world. I still have close friends, supporters, and allies who are seniors, baby boomers, and members of younger generations. I was a 43-45 and 64-67 student and a contented professor at Gallaudet University until the '80 when ASL linguists took over with iron clad control. Dr. Merrill, the past president of Gallaudet University, implemented the setup of Gallaudet University Regional Centers to offer courses in English, Psychology, Sociology, Museum, Mathematics, etc. Instead, GURC and the Clerc Center provide extension courses solely for "professionals" in ASL Linguistics, Deaf Studies, Deaf Education and Interpreting ASL. So Dr. Merrill's dream was thwarted.
If I had been born in 2000, I would prefer going to a school like the River School for the sake of early brain stimulation and communicate in English.
Yours for a better world
Frances Parsons
