Oppose AB 2072- Kill this Bill!

Here is a recent comment that I made at http://kpfa.org/archive/id/60871
Its a broadcast made in regards to AB 2072 on a local radio station. Feel free to take a listen for yourself.

I am a mom with two sons. My youngest son is 7 yrs old and Deaf. We were fooled by the audiologists who informed us of our "communication options" and "choices" but never once was LANGUAGE and the importance of language, regardless of what we chose, given to us. The audiologist lead us to believe that our Deaf son needed to be fixed....little did I know that in just a few short years without any language, my son's world and life would be affected in all areas of development. The audiologists told us that a cochlear implant would help him to hear and to speak and be a "normal" mainstreamed child. They also told us that he must not use sign language because he would become lazy and depend only on sign language and not learn to hear with his cochlear implant. (The cochlear implant doesn't work instantaneously so what they were really suggesting was that he go without language until he learned to hear which takes about a year. That's if the implant works for the child to hear the speech spectrum clearly. Look at statistics and they will show that this doesn't happen often with a CI and many children will need to learn sign language later on) It's sick of anyone to suggest that a child be deprived language at any point! Language is a HUMAN RIGHT!) They also said he needed to attend a specific oral school in the bay area, in which I would drive 150 miles roundtrip a day to get him there at 2 yrs old. Mind you, the first implant was DEFECTIVE and he had to have it surgically removed and reimplanted. ( I mention the specific oral school because I've now researched and learned that there was a lot of money involved with all the things they required of us to implant our son. The first being that the audi said we must go to that specific oral school for him to be successful and then a specific speech therapist and a specific surgeon. These same people and organizations are now the ones sponsoring AB2072 and funding the brochure and insert. I know first hand the agenda that these people and organizations have and I can say that there is money involved on every level.)
To make a very long and sad story short, ASL and the Deaf community were my son's saving grace. At 4 1/2 yrs old he entered preschool at California School for the Deaf, Fremont, and had NO LANGUAGE. (We used signs but he did not have language. There is a difference. Just as a child may speak words does not mean they have language.) He was like a lifeless little boy with no understanding of the world around him and no way to communicate his thoughts and feelings. It was horrible! He is now 7 years old and finishing first grade. He is bilingual in that ASL is his first language and he reads and writes in english. He is bicultural. He plays sports on various sports teams and is an active, thriving little boy. I could not say this 4 years ago when we were at the mercy of the "professionals" that were leading and guiding our family. His world has opened and he now has hope for a future of endless possibilities.
I oppose AB2072 based upon our experience with exactly what the bill is proposing. Audiologists should not be informing parents of their "communications options" or "choices". First of all, there must be LANGUAGE for our Deaf children to ever have communication options or choices. Audiologist have a specific role and that is to diagnose and treat the ear. Deaf children are not born needing to be fixed. They are no in need of medical intervention...they are in need of language and education!
Second, the material being proposed to give to parents is from the same group and organizations that work with Oral schools and organizations. Where is the accountability for this? Also, how is it that there is not one Deaf person from the Deaf community who is involved in the creation of this bill? Can you imagine if we had men proposing bills on the specific rights of baby girls and their futures, or white politicians proposing bills on the specific rights of African American babies??? We're are talking about a human right here!!! LANGUAGE!!! Why are decisions for Deaf being made by anyone other then Deaf????
It is beyond my why communication options are even relevant to our Deaf children. There shouldn't be a second thought to the fact that LANGUAGE is a human right and necessity. There is no language except for ASL that is 100% accessible to a Deaf/HOH child regardless of the degree of loss and regardless if the child gets a cochlear implant or hearing aids.
If the people backing and supporting this bill were so concerned with making sure that Deaf children flourished and that parents were being fully informed from the beginning, then why would they deny then access to a fully accessible language? Why not inform parents about what happens to their child when they go without language? Or how about giving the child an accessible visual language while the parents decided what to do? Make sure that the child's need for language is being met while parents are researching and figuring out what to do? It makes no sense not to give a child language regardless of what the parents ultimately end up doing.
I can say this from experience....after all that has been said and done in our journey, I wish my son would have had language all along. There is only one fully accessible language, ASL, and if he would have had that while I made my ill-advised decisions to implant him and have him at an oral school and have him spend hundreds of hours working with a speech therapist at 3 yrs old....what a different life he would have now.