Calling the deaf moot

Okay, now that I've spent last night wearing my Queen of Snarkdom tiara and poking every finger -- and a couple of toes -- at Dorothy and Kip Baulisch for being clueless parents of KODAs, it's time to get real. 

What you saw last night was a very serious case of the pot calling the kettle black.  Here's why:

Until we finally figured out at the very late age of 15 months that Leah was deaf, we barely signed to her.  She "passed" the hearing screening test in the hospital, and because there's no genetic deafness in either side of the family that we know of (we've all been tested), we assumed we were in for a life of KODA goodness.  I'd say we signed to her 25% of the time, sloppily sim-commed half the time, and spoke the last fourth. 

Yeah, us, two perfectly well-educated proud Deaf parents -- we spoke to our "hearing" baby.

We both grew up in hearing families that both emphasized speaking.  We both grew up largely in mainstream educational environments that emphasized speaking. 

Though we've both gone miles in terms of self-image and transformed ourselves into culturally Deaf people enjoying our deafhood (and not necessarily our deafness), our image of "family" and "parenting" was still that of the hearing norm we'd always been taught to follow.

So yeah, that episode of Supernanny last night hit a raw nerve.  Because as much as I was shaking my head at the moronic parents, poking fun at the awful signing, and giggling at how stupid the whole situation was, deep down somewhere the very dark reality was lurking and waiting to bite my head off: DUDE, THAT COULD HAVE BEEN US.

We're now big advocates of unfettered intra-family communication especially when even one member of the family is deaf (and it doesn't matter if it's a dad, an aunt, or a kid), but six years ago, being stupid, we assumed everything would take care of itself.  That, or we believed a little too hard in fairy godmothers.

Even once I got over kicking myself for not realizing my daughter was deaf earlier than my pain-in-the ass "your daughter has a language delay" doctor did, it took the monumental time and effort of some amazing people to get me to start talking meaningfully to my daughter. 

A few weeks after attending the local school for the deaf's early childhood education classes, I was still uncomfortable and unsure about signing to her.  Teachers there who didn't have their own deaf children had to take my hands -- literally -- and be all, "Woman, talk to your baby."  To this day, I'm sure behind closed doors there was lots of eye-rolling when my name came up in parental support meetings.

But still, I was embarrassed and helpless, caught in the same matrix of victimspeak that Dorothy and Kip displayed last night. 

But babies don't sign back!  She doesn't understand me!  What do I say?  I feel stupid talking to a baby!  Why me?!  This is hopeless!  What do I do?  How do I do it?  How do I read her a book when she won't look at me?  I'm so stupid.

And even after Leah started signing full-time (which I credit wholeheartedly to the early childhood professionals at both Maryland School for the Deaf and Kendall Demonstration School for going right ahead and exposing her to language while I was trying to pull my very confused thumbs out of my butt), I had a hard time getting going with cueing, my own native communication modality. 

We happen to live in the municipality of one of the nation's very best (if not THE BEST) cueing programs, so their early childhood interventionists paid us a couple of visits as well, but they did diddly-squat except to recommend more audiological testing.  I'm still bitter, but it wasn't their job to teach Leah to cue.  It was mine.

We're now well adjusted to using our hands all the time, both with ASL and cueing, and are also blessed with a family that has no communication barriers, but knowing it's only because Leah ended up being diagnosed deaf is always a cold, hard reality check. 

Today, inasmuch as we have fun, we're still dealing with the consequences of her late arrival to the world of language and connection to us as her family and bona fide teachers.

So while I had fun poking fun for a few minutes at Dorothy and Kip for being so blind to what was going on in their own family, I can also relate on a visceral, gut-wrenching level.  There's no doubt in my mind that this is also what happens to hearing families with deaf children everywhere.  I know firsthand that this happens to KODA families too. 

For whatever reason -- and it doesn't really matter in the end what the reasons are -- Parents assume that spoken English, being the majority language of the US today, is the kids' natural language and everything will resolve itself, somehow.  The parents themselves are fine, so why wouldn't the kids be? 

But we parents often forget how complex the language acquisition process is.  Couple that with the importance of family interaction during that process, and pretty soon it's clear how so many of us mommies and daddies are cluelessly dropping the ball.

But I digress.  For Kip and Dorothy, it wasn't about language acquisition.  It was about communication access.  There's one thing that distinguishes this deaf family from almost every other family that's been on Supernanny in the past:

The parents asked Jo more than once, "Tell us what to do.  We want to work on this family.  We want them to listen.  We want to be able to talk to them."

And the kids more than once were shown on camera absolutely starving for their parents' attention and guidance.

Nearly the only thing Jo did was to get them to start signing full-time, rather than seeing it as some quirky thing that only the parents did because they were deaf, and the kids didn't have to do it because they were hearing.

And bingo, bango: instant family harmony.

Okay, okay, so it wasn't that simple.  But the point is still clear:  No matter how many times you teach a deaf person to speak, and no matter how many times a hearing person yells at a deaf person in an attempt to be heard, it's not gonna work.  Communication isn't about hearing and listening and talking.  It's about message received, message sent.

What Kip and Dorothy generously let us watch them learn last night was just that.  Message received: they need to talk with their children themselves in a way that's open and accessible to all.  Message sent:  They love their family more than anything else and are willing to get over being stupid and clueless in order to show that.

Comments

[sazzy]

Yes!!! Exactly!!! Kudos Alli, just the words I wanted to hear.

What I saw last night was a clear desire for everyone to be able to send and receive messages to the DIRECT person. No middle man. Who cares if the parents didn't teach them how to sign from the start - because NOW they will. I can imagine the parents were at a loss how to even communicate. Sure it sounds easy, just sign to them, but it's a lot harder than it sounds like, right? No one is perfect, but we can all learn finally at one point or another.

I'm just glad Jo stepped in and helped them all take an action to START. It is never too late. Nothing fixes itself, only actions do.

I'd love to see a "follow up" on this family in the future. :)

BTW - you guys are great parents. :)

[Bert]

How exactly do you get babies to look at signs or cued speech? It seems that for babies learning spoken language through hearing, they don't have to be oriented in a particular way to get that exposure to language, so it is a much more passive experience.

And did the audiologists ever give you any explanation about your daughter's false positive infant hearing test?

[queenalpo]

@Bert: I'm guessing that was the problem. I had a baby who needed an active language experience and I kept expecting her to learn passively. Not a great strategy.

And no, no explanation, other than that the test they used, the Otoacoustics Emissions test (OAEs) doesn't necessarily catch all kinds of deafness. It did show up on the BAER, though. All irrelevant in the end, though, as I dealt with the consequences of refusing to follow-up on her hearing tests.

[marisa]

Alli, love your blog, as always.

@Bert: Your comment made me think of this article.

These tips can apply whether you sign, cue, and/or speak with your child.

"A Good Start: Suggestions for Visual Conversations with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Babies and Toddlers"

By Patricia Elizabeth Spencer, Ph.D./January 2001

Full article:
http://clerccenter2.gallaudet.edu/KidsWorldDeafNet/e-docs/visual-conversations/index.html

Full article in pdf format: http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/KidsWorldDeafNet/e-docs/visual-conversations/visual-conversations.pdf

ABSTRACT: Researchers have found that children whose hearing loss is identified while they are still babies tend to learn language more easily and more completely than those whose hearing loss is identified later. With some states now testing for hearing soon after birth, many children are discovered to be deaf or hard of hearing during the important first few months of life. This may give their parents a great advantage in seeking and providing the kind of support that enables their children to learn language naturally and on time. Until recently, little information was available to help parents with this task. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, research teams watched deaf and hard of hearing babies grow, measured their achievements, and identified the kinds of interaction with parents and other adults that gave them the best start.

[Keri]

@Bert: What I did with my hearing son as a baby is sign in front of his line of vision. If he looks at a book or a toy, I sign what he's doing near what he's looking at. Eventually, he made the connection from my hands to my face by following up my arm. Now he knows to look at us when communicating.

Even now, he still looks at books without looking at me but I still sign in his line of vision. If he wants to see my facial expressions, he will look at me and I will sign closer to my face. Keep signing and signing and signing. Babies and young children have a VERY good field of vision...they can see and understand signs even if they are not looking directly at the signer.

The hard work and persistence (and patience!) was worth it because my son's ASL is absolutely beautiful. He uses classifiers and facial expressions very skillfully. I'm not worried about my son's English-speaking skills because he is picking it up naturally from hearing people speak (either family members or television/movies). That's the difference between deaf children and hearing children-hearing children have exposure and access to language around them while deaf children don't (unless they have deaf parents who use ASL) so those deaf children NEED intervention.

[Rob]

Great critique.

I also found myself pleasantly surprised and impressed with how the show did its homework by communicating appropriately, i.e. using appropriate vocabulary, speaking directly to the deaf persons, offering video baby cry alarms and ensuring appropriate placement of the sign language interpreter throughout the show.