Deaf Children Frustrated with Family Communication
Tuesday December 9, 2008
Fortunately I have not had to deal with this when raising my own children, but in other families, deaf and hard of hearing children may be so frustrated with their inability to communicate effectively that they act out or have temper tantrums. Parents who do not learn sign language and whose children need sign language, may not be aware of the potential long term impact on a family's dynamics. Oral deaf children can experience this kind of frustration too - I remember the childhood frustration of what it was like to be able to hear some, yet not be able to hear enough to get the full experience of family communication.
Comments
Having faith in Bilingualism, ASL and English at start is the answer to all the problems.
It is simple common sense that full ability to communicate whether it’s visual or auditory, for anybody, babies or adults, communication is the most important tool or whatever you want to call it, is to create a bond between parents and children in harmony with understandable communication.
To disregard visual language, American Sign Language, for any babies or children that cannot hear well is the biggest problem of those being a self-centered person choosing not to communicate to or for their children’s need to understand the communication terminology whether is visual or auditory according to the child’s ability to comprehend.
It is not what the parents want, it is what the child needs.
A visual language is a bridge between deaf and hearing worlds.
This is something we can focus on, advocate for the rights and educate the public.
Family communication is important despite my frustrations with my family while growing up. I was raised oralist until I discovered ASL. I fell in love with ASL so it has been a journey trying to cut down audism in all walks of life. It is everywhere!
We need education to reduce audism and we need laws with teeth in them to protect our rights and culture.
There were always miscommunication, attitudinal barriers, surfism, ego trips, selfishness, ignorance and whatever you label it in the past.
Let’s put AG Bell and his cronies in the past and we can resolve to do more at present and be prepared for the future.
Rub your elbows with politicians in your hometowns. It is time to educate them and have them on our sides to protect our proud culture. It is not a hard thing to do. The politicians are human like us.
The future is what we make it.
Let’s chart a new course!
Let’s pick up where we left off on September 11, 1880 and move on!
It is time to use our resources to reduce audism, colonialism and paternalism.
Sincerely,
Paul
*”Audism spreads while good deaf people do nothing!”
-Paul Kiel
It can work both ways you can get deaf parents struggling with being able to follow their hearing children too. Not all CODA’s are wanting to sign all the time, and often exploit a deaf parent as we know ! Sometimes you need a 3rd party to get the real lowdown on what your children are saying and doing ! I HAVE to lip-read my child, because he won’t sign, end of.
All parents should learn ASL for their Deaf children s rights that is what it should be done. Period! Dont expcet all Deaf babies and chlidren can speak between from day one to three years old. That is why ASL is so important to our Deaf children s basic needs.
Deaf will be always deaf. It doesnt make any sense for anyone to use their excuses of using this term words like this Not enough deaf! Then you dont understand what is like to be deaf. NO MORE DENIAL for being deaf for a real. Nothing wrong to be deaf as is. We all Deaf being are human being if you care enough to know better than this.
No more force and conformity toward Deaf babies/children. Sighs! Thats cruel of manipulate toward Deaf children s mental and emotional conidition that has been all mixed up their heads and physical. IT S TOTALLY wrong for those people mistreats us badly for years and years that is evenually still happens today s world. That is very sickness by AGBell s cruel mentally and black/cold heart.
Thank you.
MM,
I marked five tallies on my wall. I agreed with you completely about CODA children. It s not easy for not having ASL around us with those hearing children. I can understand it very well however that’s all up to them if they want to have a good communication with us. If not, then don’t blame Deaf parents for having a very good effort to have a real communication with our hearing children. It works so well for both of us Deaf and Hearing, I can see people do not get it that is very hard for me to believe why cant people understand how important to have ASL anytime in our lives? It s very odd and strange to believe people do still not understand it yet.
Visual body language and language is always for us (Deaf/Hearing) to use everyday of our lives. Many people do not realize the true facts that Human being depends on Visualization eyes except for Visual impairment/Blind.
Good to talk about it.
Thanks!
The problem is not the lack of ASL– it’s the lack of a vehicle to communicate. For many deaf children today, with the advent of cochlear implants, spoken language works absolutely fine and is a great vehicle for communication because it allows them to satisfy a desire to communicate with everyone around them in the community, rather than limiting them to a rather seldom used language in most general populations. The crime today is not when parents do not learn ASL as often as it is a complete failure to to get their ducks in a row early enough to allow their children to benefit from current technology.
Sweetmind. I was at a hospital visit with my son this week for his check up, and there was an interpreter there for my partner, when she asked my son, are your parents deaf ? he said , my Mum is, my dad isn’t !
In reality, my profound loss is absolutely total in both ears, my partner’s isn’t ! my lip-reading apparently has convinced my son I can hear… his mum’s total use of sign has convinced him she is deaf. I was astounded he thought I was hearing, he has always been told his dead is deaf… seems fair speaking voice and a bit of lip-reading can change all that !
All babies did not ask to be born. If they were asked to be born or became deaf later, it is their parents who should and must learn ASL FOR them.
I am a hearing mother too. It is ashame when parents are so concerned about making sure their Deaf children and babies learn to speak that they deny them visual language through ASL. Speaking does not mean that “hearing” is completely accessible. Cochlear implants do not make a deaf baby/child a hearing person. When the battery fails, they are Deaf When they shower, bath, or swim, they are Deaf. When they are in bed ready to sleep, they are Deaf. When they play contact sports, they are Deaf.
Just because a person speaks, does not mean they “hear”. Communication is a two way street..not a one way method to communicate with hearing people.
Research shows that Deaf children regardless if they use auxillary aids or not, do better when they are allowed access to ASL, accepted as a Deaf person, and exposed to Deaf mentors.
There are millions of people today that use ASL. It is the number 4 most studied language. Yet Deaf babies are being denied ASL because hearing professional marketers continue to use propaganda on hearing parents leading them to believe that if they get the miracle “hearing device, then their kids won’t be Deaf. What purpose does this serve? Why are Deaf babies getting the short end of the stick with exclusive oral only options. It certainly doesn’t serve the Deaf baby or child. The real “miracle” is simply giving Deaf babies their birthright of visual language. ASL… Through a fully accessible primary language, everything is possible including fluency in the English language via written and/or spoken. True Bilingualism is possible.
One could easily argue that it’s a shame when parents are NOT concerned with giving access to spoken language. If children are bilaterally implanted, battery changes do not render them deaf. It is far less than 1% of the time that one is immersed in water; and much of that is really private time, alone in the bathroom. My children participate in sports with cochlear implants on; there are a limited number of sports which would require removal of the device. Skiing, running, basketball, gymnastics… all can be done with the CI on.
Research shows that cochlear implants are becoming so advanced that the youngest implantees are often indistinguishable from their hearing peers.
The propaganda lies in the idea that the poor deaf kids need ASL and a special, separate culture or education. They are not deprived by spoken language– they THRIVE with spoken language. And to deny that by emphasizing a language which they will rarely meet as they go about their pursuits (school, stores, churches, clubs) is the shame.
True bilingualism is fine when using the same pathways. Bilingualism using auditory and visual pathways means that one or the other will take over. There is clear evidence that the brain rewires to use visual in the place of auditory pathways. Once that happens, the auditory will never be the way it needs to be to fully understand and utilize speech, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy which people use as “proof” that spoken language is too hard for deaf children. Having seen that problem be avoided, I can attest to the fact that deaf kids CAN hear and speak with cochlear implants. They can fully understand, they can fully speak and they can be completely independent.
“There is clear evidence that the brain rewires to use visual in the place of auditory pathways. Once that happens, the auditory will never be the way it needs to be to fully understand and utilize speech, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy which people use as “proof” that spoken language is too hard for deaf children.”
This appallingly false statement is akin to the oralist dirge, “if the child learns to sign, he will never learn to speak”
Don’t believe it!
Bilingualism is an important goal; it involves using all available tools for communication so that the child enjoys a total multisensory input just as other children do.
The Deaf child with cochlear implants still needs sensitivity around Christmas and holiday times; don’t assume the implant makes them fully hearing and participating in the conversational stream. This is the time to keep your antennae extended all the way up so that the child doesn’t fall out of the community.
Great information, My daughters hearing is slowley detorating. She is 6 and can talk. I have been reasearching where i can learn ASL as i think any thing that may help her later on in life is a plus. I don’t see hearing loss as a disability but as apart of who she is and i want to know that part of her and if i need to teach her to sing just in case she needs it then thats what needs to happen. Because her hearing is going slowley we have not been offered support not one has every suggestion we teach her to sign, and i am sure that when my ENT finds out he will think it is unnecessary due to the advancements in surgery. I am a mother and i can’t rely on one thing, where would my daughter be if we did nothing, noone will be there when she can’t communication because the Doctors thought it was unnessary to teach her. I believe sing language should be taught in schools everywhere. It is a language, and helps more people then the deaf communtiy.
To mother (10): Your “science” is absurd. If what you say about bilingualism is true, there would be no one fluent in both ASL and English and obviously this is nowhere close to being the case. As a college instructor with an emphasis in applied linguistics, I have to beg you not to make ridiculous claims like “the auditory will never be the way it needs to be to fully understand and utilize speech.” This is patently untrue.
You display a poor understanding of what most ASL proponents — not extremists — want for children. There is no desire to deprive them of anything; rather the idea is to provide them with EVERYTHING so that they can make their own communicative choices when old enough to do so.
I don’t understand why the stigmatism with sign language. I’m an adult who just recently lost my hearing. I can’t get my family to communicate with me.. period! Cochlear Implants ARE NOT AVAILABLE to everyone. It’s unfair to assume there is such a simple solution. In my state, Medicare does not cover Cochlear Implants. My family thinks I turned it down. they believe I have an unwillingness to want to hear again. They don’t want to accept the fact I can’t hear. I get left out of the loop with everything. I can only imagine what would have happened if I lost my hearing when I was young or born deaf. I know some sign language.. Still learning. But it doesn’t help my family talk to me. They just flat out refuse.
The true problem? Not enough people “speak” Sign Language! Research Martha’s Vineyard history….there was a time when practically everyone on the island used ASL, both hearing and Deaf alike. THAT is what I hope/wish our country to foster.
For those who would like to learn, my favorite website is http://www.ASLUniversity.com.
Mary (comment 14), don’t lose hope! Find just one family member who is curious, and show them how easy it is to begin learning!
My wife is deaf, while I am a hearing man.
She grew up mainly oral, but also knows sign language (mostly ASL, but not completely).
We have already discussed that, whether we have a hearing or deaf child, we will teach them both languages (although, if the child is deaf, ASL will obviously be their primary language).
As someone who is planning to go into an ASL-English interpreting program, I continully see the necessity for sign language.
Would being able to speak be helpful to a d/Deaf person? Absolutely (this is only my own opinion, I am not stating it as a fact)
HOWEVER, it is unfair to deny a deaf person (child or adult) sign language. Communication is essential and a big part of that for North American Deaf people is ASL.
Regardless, whether my children are hearing or deaf, they will learn both spoken English AND American Sign Language….after all, they’ll need to communicate with BOTH parents, right?
I grew up in a hearing family, as the only deaf in the family. I went through oral education and eventually learned sign and learned to speak perfectly. I married a hearing woman and have three hearing children. Being left out, not always understanding all of what’s happening around me has been a common theme in my life. It is very frustrating even now, in my 50s. I suppose that one could say that my life today has a specific condition, that is predictable and has had a common thread through out my life. I should be used to the situation and not be so frustrated by now. But the reality is that it still feels the same.
A child needs to be able to communicate with parents and siblings in a manner in which is natural to them and the can use to express their emotions fully. If there are problems with the communications it is up to the *parents/family* to adapt, that is, learn to sign. Of course, the child is not born communicating; they learn this. In a subtle way, the parents/family learn to communicate with the child no matter if the child is deaf or hearing. The communication with the child is unique for each child based on their personality (and many other variables).
If the child is able to hear *some* but not all then it is a problem for all. Therefore, it is the responsibility of *all* to learn to communicate together. If the family learns to sign together then they have a greater chance of communicating together.