Brown Student Researching Parents Not Learning Sign
Sunday September 30, 2007
Nmstudent, a member of the About Deafness forum, asked on the forum about why many hearing parents of deaf and hard of hearing children never learn to sign. Read nmstudent's question and add your thoughts and personal experience.
Related article at About.com: Sign Language - Nonsigning Parents
Comments
They didn’t expect the baby to be deaf in the first place and don’t have to change their lives because a baby’s deaf either.
i believe it’s because of the medical professionals urging the parents that ASL will lessen the deaf kids’ chance of learning to speak, when discussing options that they want to ‘cure’ the child’s “deafness”
Nadia,
I am a hearing parent of a deaf daughter. We have signed from the start knowing that our daughter was deaf and her language is visual.
Unfortunately, most hearing parents don’t understand this simple concept and force speech and hearing upon their deaf children to make them more “hearing”. My theory after being around many hearing parents with deaf children over the past 22 years is this:
1. The number one problem is Early Intervention Programs. After a baby is diagnosed with a hearing loss, the first thing doctors/audiologists recommend is hearing aids or cochlear implants. It is a money driven business.
The first information about hearing loss is from doctors who have very little training or knowledge of the language, academic, social, and emotional benefits of ASL and Deaf Culture. The doctors do not recommend that hearing parents get in contact with deaf people. Instead they see how they can “fix” the hearing loss. With this misinformation, most hearing parents become so focused on speech and hearing that they fail to ever truly be introduced to sign and its benefits to the whole child.
Most deaf education programs, outside of Deaf Schools, are hearing-run and focus on oral approaches. AGBell Association has a huge following because doctors refer parents to this organization after they have recommended to parents hearing aids and cochlear implants…next is the Auditory Verbal Approach…no signing allowed. The lack of Deaf Professional Influence in Early Intervention Programs is the key factor as to why most hearing parents do not learn to sign.
2. Many hearing parents do not feel comfortable signing because they think they are not good at it. Crazy isn’t it?? They go around talking to their deaf child while all along the child is missing and missing so many things that they are saying. This goes on in SO many families. It comes down to “thinking of themselves first and not their deaf child’s needs”. They never think that maybe their deaf child isn’t good or capable of “listening” and “speech” which comes natural to a hearing person. They only think that signing is too difficult to learn so it is better make the deaf child do the work.
3. And many hearing parents just can’t bear the thought of their child being “deaf” and a “signer”. They think it is not normal. This is because they have not been educated about ASL and Deaf Culture or fail to venture outside of their comfort zone.
Believe me, I have seen countless cases of these hearing parents over the years. My daughter luckily was educated in a Bilingual/Bicultural Education Environment. So many children are mainstreamed and in oral programs. They not only are lost and isolated in their own hearing families who chose not to sign but then they are put into isolating educational environments that duplicate this lack of communication access.
We only hear about the oral/mainstreamed successes. There are many children that this system has failed. The children are not the failures but only victims of a flawed system. The hardships and struggles with language and idenity continue throughout their lives until they come to find ASL. Later in life, deaf people come to find ASL. Do you ever see signing deaf adults go back to oral communication? It is not natural.
So many deaf children and their families are victims of the flawed Early Intervention Program that is there to educate new parents about options for language development for Deaf and Hard-of Hearing babies and children.
Until Early Intervention Programs connect hearing parents to Deaf Professionals in language development who can explain clearly the benefits of ASL and self-idenity through connection to Deaf Culture, more and more deaf children will continue to be deprived and denied of their human rights to how they access language naturally….visually.
Hearing Mom nailed it perfectly. In addition, my growing up oral, even though my parents considered me mostly a success, caused a split in the family with me on one side and the rest of the family on the other side.
This was felt especially sharply during family gatherings at holidays and more so when I married a deaf man and we had a deaf son in addition to two hearing daughters. There were hearing people on one side of the house and deaf on the other side.
The dinner table syndrome is well known in oral households. This means the deaf child watches other family members conversing at the table, clueless as to what is being said unless directly addressed by one of the hearing family.
When this happens, other members of the family continue on with their conversation, leaving out both the deaf person and the one addressing him.
I chose ASL as soon as possible and have not looked back since. The deaf community is my true family and my hearing daughters sign fluently so they are also part of the deaf community and their friends.
However, my parents and sister still did not learn ASL and have been left far behind.
I have a profoundly deaf daughter. And as parents we had to research and choose a path for her. We opted for the bi-lateral cochlear implants. It is a choice that didn’t come easy nor without severe reservations.
As for sign language we have learned to sign with our daughter. She has two older brothers and they to have learned to sign. As a family we aren’t as active signers as we should be nor are we experts nor could hold a conversation above a 4 year olds level using sign. But the signs we use fit the age and needs of our daughter so far. She does well with her implants and even though the push by the therapist and “experts” is to be in a hearing world we realize she is deaf with assisted devices. We have butted heads with the both sides of the argument and we just did what we hope will be the best for her.
To leave sign out of deaf child’s learning we feel is wrong. But to also push signing as the only alternative is also wrong.
I know this off the topic.
Persons with implants are a bridge between the past and the future.
We are really into new an age of new thinking when it comes to what deafness means.
The bottom line is that our 3 and half year old can sign when she wants, read lips or listen, or all of the above.
When she doesn’t have her implants on she signs and read lips.
She easily vocalizes and signs her needs with or without the implants
And her speech is a clear as any child her age.
We are hearing parents and will never know what her life as a deaf individual will be like, but we hope she will have a chance to know what the hearing world has to offer.
One last thing
I love to listen to her when she sings to the music on the radio.
Richard…you must not be a parent!! When a child is born that parent should do whatever it takes to ensure that the childs needs are met. Whatever it may take! I feel that it is abuse when a parent will not even try to learn how to communicate with their baby. How alone that child must feel until they are able to go to school and be around others like them. I am a hearing mother of hearing children. I am trying to adopt a deaf 8 year old boy. My whole family has been learning asl for 2 years to prepare for his arrival. We all want to be able to communicate with him in his language. That is what love does!!
I am a deaf man. I grew up in hearing family who also do not sign. I have deaf son. I decided to go to college studying ASL and Literacy. The basic reason is no one know sign language is actually language with linguistic support until around just recently in late 1960 by Stokoe! Therefore, there is no sign language Cumlative in USA and Canada until 1999 at E.C.Drury School for the Deaf in Milton, Ontario Canada. That is why there is no standard system to support parents who happen to have deaf child at birth. Lastly, believe or not we deaf people live in this audism world make it more difficulty to educate professionals. There is a good book out of many to explain mostly related to history how people have misunderstood. The one I suggest you to start with is “A Journey into The Deaf-World” Bahan, B., Harlan, L. & Hoffmeister, B. (1996)Good Luck!
Simon
Another reason that parents are not signing is because the school districts discourage it for the most part. According to my son’s ABR and follow-ups, he has a mild-mod SNHL. They look at his Audiology results and see numbers only. My son was diagnosed with his hearing loss at 23 mos due to no speech and he learned to sign first, then speak. Although I use SEE & Speach with him at home and he comprehends more that way, the school won’t encourage the teacher to learn a few signs to at least aid him in comprehension.
All they can do is lump him im with others with his level of non-syndromic hearing loss instead of looking at him and every other HOH child individually to determine his/her needs.
My ds school district has been known to Sign with children with Down’s Syndrome and Autism, but for some reason its not OK for a HOH child.
Go figure!