Child Growth and Development
Since Thanksgiving has just passed you think of all the things you are grateful for or things you have taken for granted. One important thing we take for granted is hearing. We are blessed to be able to hear the beauty of the world’s melodies. Some are not so lucky. Deaf or hearing-impaired have an everyday struggle of communication or interactions. The deaf children who are born deaf and raised deaf have a struggle that the hearing cannot understand. The deaf must learn a language that involves communication through movement of the hands. It is not miming! The children must be able to communicate to each other, but never hearing speech makes everything very difficult for young deaf kids learning their language. The children can communicate through Sign Language, or some deaf even get hearing aids or a cochlear implant, which enables them to hear a little. My question is how do deaf or hearing-impaired children progress through the ages of infancy to adolescence navigating the specific struggles deaf people face?
Hearing aids do not solve hearing loss. They are not a hearing loss tool. Hearing aids are a small electronic devices that you wear in or behind your ear. It makes some sounds louder so that a person with hearing loss can listen, communicate, and participate more fully in daily activities. A hearing aid can help people hear more in both quiet and noisy situations. Another electronic hearing device that can be helpful to the hearing impaired is the cochlear implant. A cochlear implant is an implanted electronic hearing device, designed to produce useful hearing sensations to a person with severe to profound nerve deafness by electrically stimulating nerves inside the inner ear. However, “results are not always predictable, given the early age at which children receive CI— and parents should be aware of this” (Nasralla et al 422). The cochlear implant is only 40% successful. Both hearing aids and cochlear implants are looked down upon in the deaf community. The cochlear implant can cause nerve damage injury that changes your sense of taste, nerve damage that causes weakness or paralysis in your face, dizziness or balance problems, loss of hearing you have left, ringing in your ears called Tinnitus, or leaks of the fluid around the brain.
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Every deaf person, in order to communicate, must learn two languages. The use of sign language has developed over time.
Sign bilingual education which entails complex but equitable use of sign and oral language in which oral language is in the form of writing and reading has demonstrated efficacy as a strategy for inclusion of deaf children in countries where it is well established. It evolved from Scandinavian countries. It then spread to the USA, UK and other European countries, Hong Kong, Brazil, and many other countries around the world (Patrick Sibanda and Lloyd Daniel Nkoli Tlale 1).
The struggle of learning two languages is extremely difficult for kids, depending on when they lost their hearing. If they are born deaf it might be a little bit easier since sign language is their first language, but if you are old enough to have learned how to speak and have heard language it is more difficult to learn sign language as a second language. Learning this new language adds to the isolation that deaf children already feel; since they’re learning a language different than their peers. And even though sign language is spoken globally there are many different forms of sign language in various countries.
Deaf children who are raised by deaf parents are called “Blue Bloods” by the deaf community. The Blue Bloods are the core of the deaf culture. They are looked upon with admiration by the deaf community because they are rare. There are genetic abnormalities that lead to deafness, but most deaf children are not born deaf. Most deafness is caused by injury, sickness, medication taken during pregnancy, or disease that occurs after birth. To be part of the deaf culture you must have hearing loss, Big D deaf which means deaf pride, use sign language, and have shared experiences (how they lost their hearing.) C.O.D.A. which stands for Child Of Deaf Adult is also another name for Blue Bloods. Some hard-of-hearing children do not want to be deaf so they try to become hearing. The deaf community does not support deaf who want to be hearing so they call them a “Heafy,” which are deaf who have a hearing attitude – they seek cochlear implants, the use of hearing aids, and try to communicate without sign language. This brings to light how deaf people socially struggle within the deaf community. The deaf community, like our own, has a hierarchy – where some are valued more than others. Some deaf are looked at with higher admiration, which the children of the deaf community must struggle to find their place not only in their own community but in ours too.
Deaf people not only have to struggle within their own culture, they also must discover ways to cross-culturally connect with the hearing community. This brings our attention to the ways hearing people can come across as rude. When getting a deaf person’s attention, you can wave to them, but make sure to not wave directly in their faces. You can also flicker the lights on and off so that they notice someone is trying to get their attention. Another way to get a deaf person’s attention is to tap the gently on the shoulder or stomp on the ground so they feel the vibration carry out through the floor. In the article titled, “Hard of hearing don’t need you yelling at them,” Katherine Bouton, the author of Shouting Won’t Help, said, “I lied and faked it for years” (qtd. In Painter 1) meaning she couldn’t hear along with fifty million others, who lie about being able to hear. “Now, Bouton, 65, a former editor at the New York Times, routinely informs people she is profoundly deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. Katherine Bouton, with a hearing aid and cochlear implant, struggles to hear conversations” (Painter 1). Sometimes people thought that Katherine Bouton was rude because they thought she was ignoring them, but she could not hear them. Katherine Bouton wrote a book that includes advice for the rest of us who do not understand the deaf community.
Sometimes out in public, the deaf ask for certain things that would help them communicate with each other. This is described in the article, “Using interpreters with deaf-blind clients: what professional service providers should know.” The deaf usually asks for lit tables without centerpieces when they go in restaurants. Removing the centerpieces is important because if the centerpiece is too large the translator or the deaf cannot see each other or what they are signing.
If they have an interpreter, they will typically use one of two methods when working with a deaf-blind consumer. For people with low vision who prefer to use their sight, interpreters will adjust their usual interpreting style to the needs of the deaf-blind person. This may mean signing in a smaller space, adjusting the placement of the interpreter and consumers, or controlling environmental items such as background and lighting. If the consumer is blind or unable to adequately see sign language, the interpreter will use hand-in-hand sign language, known as tactile interpreting. Although deaf-blind people have various other methods of communicating, these two are most commonly used by sign language interpreters (Bourquin 149).
Making sure the setting is helpful to deaf-blind children makes it easier for communication with others. In schools, deaf children are put in the front of the class with an empty table so that there is nothing blocking the space immediately in front of them where they would be signing.
There are negative and positive perspectives of being deaf. Most negative perspectives are from the hearing community, which makes the deaf community feel belittled and frustrated. The hearing community is constantly telling the deaf community they are not enough, or they are broken. This can cause the deaf to believe them, that they cannot measure up and that they need to be fixed, but it isn’t true! Those without hearing disabilities believe the deaf need to be changed; the only way for the deaf to succeed is to become hearing. They also have low expectations for the deaf, thinking they need to conquer the deaf community, and trying to force oral language on the deaf community. As for the deaf community’s perspective, they just want to feel normal and accepted. They believe they can succeed while being deaf and have high expectations for themselves. They want to use sign language first so that they aren’t being forced into something they are not really a part of. The central idea both sides believe in is the “can/cannot” perspective that makes the deaf feel unwanted and excluded. The “can/cannot” perspective, according to the hearing community’s perspective, is the negative idea that the hearing can and the deaf cannot. However, the deaf believe they can no matter what. I feel heartbroken by the thought of this mental abuse of two strong-willed communities being so negative towards one another. Regardless of how they communicate they should be accepted for who they are. I find this to be the greatest struggle of the deaf community. The constant negativity from people who do not know what they are going through, and their personal struggles of being a part of a community with so much backlash throughout their lives. They cannot control how they were born.
As the deaf or hearing-impaired children progress through the ages of infancy to adolescence, there are several struggles they will encounter. The first major struggle for the deaf is hearing loss tools and the possible effects of their use. Not only are they looked down upon by a lot of the deaf community, they also may have unforgiving side effects. Another problem the deaf community faces is having to become bilingual and to learn different ways of communication. Having to learn two languages at the same time or having to spend time learning that language could take time away from learning other important things needed to succeed in life. Finding their place within the deaf community provides other unique challenges. Having the peer pressure of other deaf wanting them to be proud of being deaf and not wanting them to hear. And the hearing community pressuring them to hear. After all, you’re only truly valuable if you can hear and speak like us. Additionally, those in the deaf community face everyday challenges that the hearing community don’t have to face. Simply sitting down and speaking at a restaurant presents many difficulties. Finally, just simply wanting to feel good about yourself, feel included and valued in a group of people who understand your circumstances without judgment. The world is full of struggles. We can either choose to be negative and broken and bring people down, or we can choose to be positive like the deaf and say, “We can do it!”
Work Cited
- Bourquin, Eugene A. “USING INTERPRETERS WITH DEAF-BLIND CLIENTS: WHAT PROFESSIONAL SERVICE PROVIDERS SHOULD KNOW.” Digital Commons@WOU, 1996, https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/dbi_interpreters/61/
- Nasralla, Heloisa, et al. “Benefit of Cochlear Implantation in Children with Multiple-Handicaps: Parents Perspective.” International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology, vol. 22, no. 04, 2018, pp. 415–427., doi:10.1055/s-0038-1642607.
- Painter, Kim. “The Hard of Hearing Don't Need You Yelling at Them.” Usa Today, 11 Mar. 2013.
- Sibanda, Patrick, and Lloyd Daniel Nkoli Tlale. CHALLENGES EXPERIENCED IN THE PRACTICE OF SIGN BILINGUAL 1 Jan. 2019
- http://ejournal.ukm.my/ebangi/article/download/31768/9123.
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