Abstract
Being deaf is not a bad disease and people should not be treated as if it is. The audio of a session for parents of deaf children was very good to hear. They talked about how deaf people identify themselves. Even if they are hard of hearing, they might still say that they are deaf when they have to fill in papers. Families of deaf children are very nice to learn about.
The person leading the group asked the parents what the challenges were for their kids being in school. One mother said her daughter struggles with math because she does not like it. She does not want her friends to know that s e is hard of hearing. She is in special education and it makes her ashamed. She does not care if the kids think she is odd or funny but she wants them to think she is in regular classes instead of special education classes. Lindsey aspires to become a college student at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. Although she has a disability, she has some of the same struggles that other kids have. Christine said her boys are all doing well in school but they have hard times like any other kid. This is the reason why deaf children should be given all the good treatment in school that other kids have. They should be given special programs if they need it too. One mother said her sons super smart, eager to do something in technology, wanting to go to college, making friends and doing good in school.
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"Group Session for Parents of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children".
When asked what their family support system was like the mothers responded in a way that was not surprising. One mother did not get much support from her family but the other mother received a lot of help. Every family is different and deaf children should not be grouped the same just because they cannot hear the same as everyone else. The mother’s message explains this.
Introduction: The Mothers
This is a group session for parents of children who are deaf and hard of hearing. This essay will talk about the mothers named Patricia and Christine. It will explain the medical issues of their children, the struggles they have, their family support and a reaction to the session.
Patricia is hearing and so is her husband. Her daughter Lindsey is a sophomore in school. She was adopted from birth. Patricia Struthers grew up in southeast side of Indianapolis and met her husband when she was 18. Her husband was born in Milwaukee. She has been married 20 years.
Patricia said that they found out from an audiology report when her child was 3 years old. Lindsey has a 35-60% loss and even though she is hard of hearing, she speaks of herself as being deaf. They noticed that her speech was weak and in her preschool class she had poor hearing. She complained a lot about not understanding what the kids and teacher was saying in class. After doing a lot of research about sign language, she learned that “sign exact English” is not used by the deaf community. She wanted that her daughter would learn ASL (American Sign Language) even though the school said it was not a good idea. She had to get a child advocate to support her in the school. She believes that it is best for her daughter to stay in the special program where she is instead of going back to a “main stream” school.
Another parent in the session is Christine Wood. She is communicating using sign language with the help of an interpreter for the group. She was born deaf. Her parents are hearing like her whole family. She met her husband at the university for the deaf. All of their 3 boys are deaf. Her husband comes from a deaf family. She said that she has a gene that caused her to be deaf. Her 3 boys are in high school, middle school and elementary. Her middle child has autism but the others do not have autism. Christine said finding out that her babies were deaf made her thrilled. I thought it was weird for a parent to be glad about this. She began using sign language right away when the babies were little. So far without hearing much of the session it seems that Christina and Patricia are like every loving mother because they have struggles and problems that most people deal with. The only difference is that they have children who have medical issues. They said that raising a deaf baby is very much like raising a hearing baby. They do struggle with being able to look at a person while signing.
More Reactions:
The fathers were not present or not speaking during this session. It might have been helpful for them to release frustration an ask questions during this group session. I wanted to hear their feelings. The mothers are very supportive and give their kids all that they need to succeed.
Christina said that she was thrilled and wanted a deaf baby and I thought that was bad. What parent would want their child to be born without the ability to hear? A strange part of the audio is when Christine told the story about a doctor offering her son an implant for his ears. She said the doctor told her that “her son would be able to function in the hearing world”. Christine said that she was very insulted by that suggestion. As a person who can hear perfectly, I cannot imagine why Christine would not want to offer her child a chance to hear like normal people. But I think she was insulted because she already accepted the condition of her son and adding an implant to her son would be like rejecting him and not being willing to deal with him just the way he is. She also said that the implant costs very little money to make, but the implant would cost her over $60,000 and the medical people are only interested in charging lots of money. Something new that I learned is that an ear implant will not make the child able to have language if they don’t already have it. That might be the main reason why Christina did not want it for her child.
Finally, the people in the group said that deaf people are treated as if they don’t know what is best for their own children. The medical community needs to become more sensitive to the feelings and needs of deaf people and the silent world they live in. Christine said that the doctor said her son was autistic because he was deaf. She also said that she had to fight a lot of policies in order to get him the therapy he needed. The school only offered therapy for hard of hearing kids but her son was deaf. After hearing this session I realized that schools, doctors and nurses surely need more training for how to help deaf patients and it cannot be based on trying to charge them more money than what is needed.
