Hi,
I was helping to edit an assignment of my daughter's for English and suggested to her that she post her review of the documentary Sound and Fury (You Tube) , in a forum for hearing parents of deaf children. She is profoundly deaf, 28, and currently in grad school for Rehab Counseling. Then I was curious, and searched for forums myself, thinking , you know back in the day when she was born, there was no internet, there were no forums, and I was hungry for information as well as support.
I'm now 54 myself, a physical therapist, and when we discovered that she was deaf, we were devastated. There was no deafness in our families that we knew of, and we hadn't the slightest idea how to cope. For myself, I had "perfect pitch" with ample musical education in my youth. However, we quickly abandoned our search for the why's and decided to use all of our resources and time to help our daughter, in addition to our 2 hearing children (oldest and youngest) We took her to audiology, endless speech lessons, extra school lessons in summer, homebound programs (and later school) and eventually researched the Cochlear Implant. The CI at the time that we discovered our daughter's profound deafness was rather rudimentary. We integrated the family as best we could, and all 5 of us learned sign language; I think I barely kept pace with my deaf daughter.
Today, that deaf little girl is now a wonderful adult, adept and articulate.
I thought I would offer to share what I could, if asked, with parents of young deaf children, here.
I was helping to edit an assignment of my daughter's for English and suggested to her that she post her review of the documentary Sound and Fury (You Tube) , in a forum for hearing parents of deaf children. She is profoundly deaf, 28, and currently in grad school for Rehab Counseling. Then I was curious, and searched for forums myself, thinking , you know back in the day when she was born, there was no internet, there were no forums, and I was hungry for information as well as support.
I'm now 54 myself, a physical therapist, and when we discovered that she was deaf, we were devastated. There was no deafness in our families that we knew of, and we hadn't the slightest idea how to cope. For myself, I had "perfect pitch" with ample musical education in my youth. However, we quickly abandoned our search for the why's and decided to use all of our resources and time to help our daughter, in addition to our 2 hearing children (oldest and youngest) We took her to audiology, endless speech lessons, extra school lessons in summer, homebound programs (and later school) and eventually researched the Cochlear Implant. The CI at the time that we discovered our daughter's profound deafness was rather rudimentary. We integrated the family as best we could, and all 5 of us learned sign language; I think I barely kept pace with my deaf daughter.
Today, that deaf little girl is now a wonderful adult, adept and articulate.
I thought I would offer to share what I could, if asked, with parents of young deaf children, here.
