Based on my experience, twenty-nine year old Deaf women should have twelve tattoos, read Paul Auster, and have a penchant for watching Buffy shows. Based on my experience, Deaf women my age should be spending their days and nights reading the latest (and the oldest) articles about what a sentence means in ASL. Based on my experience, Deaf women should consider themselves culturally Deaf but still cherish their participation in the hearing community because they just love musicals too much.
Obviously, I do not mean what I said in the first paragraph, I’m trying to show that the “based on my experience” logic does not work. I’ve had enough training – and experience, dare I say – to see that it does not. To take one person’s experience and say that it is representative of people who have similar characteristics does not work because there is always more difference than similarity.
This blog entry is a reaction to the latest article on cochlear implants in the health section of the New York Times. The article is written from the perspective of Josh Swiller, known for his recent novel on his Peace Corps experience in Zambia. It is an interesting article that explains how the cochlear implant works for Josh. He can now talk on the phone when he couldn’t before. Good for him.
But one comment struck me as a linguist-in-training (and as a twenty-nine year old Deaf woman who likes Paul Auster and Buffy), “Mr. Swiller says based on his experience, ‘a small child with severe hearing loss should be implanted as soon as possible. Sign language can be learned down the road, but not English. It’s a no-brainer to me if you want the child to succeed in a hearing world.’ ” This statement is heavy with false claims.
One of the claims is this: Because a cochlear implant ensures that a child will successfully hear, then it follows that the child will successfully acquire spoken English. What’s wrong with this claim? Cochlear implants do not have a high success rate (Johnson 2006). Cochlear implants are not a guaranteed method for access to and subsequent acquisition of spoken language. Robert E. Johnson says this so much better than I can. So if you can read the article, please do.
The other claim is that ASL can be learned down the road but that English cannot. Behind this kind of thinking is the assumption that English is a language that cannot be acquired later in life. It also then follows that it is assumed that ASL is not a language, but rather some kind of communication system that someone can be trained in later, like writing. The last fifty years has seen a crazy growth of sign language linguists demonstrating otherwise. ASL is a language and it is acquired – not learned – in exactly the same way that English is. Linguists do agree with Swiller that language must be acquired by a certain age. But what that first language is does not seem to matter. If a child has early access to any one language, then that child will be able to acquire other languages in life. That means that a Deaf child can acquire ASL first and then acquire English later in life.
Yet another claim, and the last I’ll bring up here, is that success in a hearing world requires that one use (hear and speak) spoken English fluently. Deaf people all over the world succeed in life using signed languages as their primary language. Or, to put in terms used in the article, based on my experience, I’m doing just fine, thank you.)
A “based on my experience” generalization (meaning that what happened to me should be true for others) causes considerable harm when published in a reputable newspaper. It creates an appearance of credibility and brings readers to perceive Josh Swiller as a spokesperson for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. It perpetuates the myths of ASL not being a language, of cochlear implants being 100% successful, of cochlear implants aiding the acquisition of a spoken language. All of these myths are harmful to the Deaf community which is comprised of different individuals who have successfully (or unsuccessfully) reached certain stages in language development, career development, et cetera, in different ways. While a cochlear implant may work for one individual, it will not work for another – or, more probably for most. We cannot endorse cochlear implants as a cure-all for deafness, because it isn’t.
Well, that’s based on something beyond just my personal experience.
Note: To be fair to Josh Swiller, let’s not forget how the media can distort the original message of interviewees. In this blog, I am not attacking Josh Swiller. On the contrary, I respect and support his decision in getting a cochlear implant. Instead I am addressing the claims that were implicit in the article.