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Deaf middle school athlete faces challenges, strives for independence - News - The Times-Tribune
Kyle Lasher passes a basketball to his teammate, moving his feet quickly toward the hoop, his black and red sneakers squeaking loudly against the wood floor.
The brown-haired, 14-year-old boy quickens when the coach calls over to the Dunmore Middle School's seventh-grade team, shouting loudly for them to pick up the pace and adding another ball to the drill before the game.
He squares up and shoots from outside the arc. An echo of a perfect 3-point swish resounds through the gym amidst a noisy crowd during one of the first exhibition games of the season.
Kyle, however, can't hear any of it.
Deaf since birth
Tony and Rose Lasher realized something was different about their son when he was 9 months old. Mrs. Lasher became concerned when she noticed her son really responded only to visual stimuli, ignoring the banging of pots and pans, not responsive when she called his name as he woke from a nap.
Only when she touched Kyle, gently easing him out of his sleepy daze one day, did his eyes light up and a smile spread across his face.
She walked downstairs and told her husband, "This kid can't hear."
But his hearing impairment didn't stop his natural athleticism. In first grade he started playing basketball, and later, football and baseball, alongside children who could hear.
In class, Kyle depends on a school-provided interpreter, David Posner, but for years he played sports without the aid of an interpreter, getting by on lip-reading and watching intently.
"Kyle never had an interpreter to play sports with; the coaches never had a deaf kid," Mrs. Lasher said.
Speaking through interpreter Mr. Posner, Kyle said he learned the basics by watching lots of basketball, and in his free time, he goes outside and shoots hoops, combining his natural athleticism with fundamentals.
Mr. Lasher used to go to practice with him to make sure Kyle got enough information to participate.
But just like any other teenager, Kyle doesn't want his father "babying" him and going with him to practice.
At the request of the family, the Dunmore School District hired John Hubert, a math teacher at the Scranton School for Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing Children, to be Kyle's sports interpreter at a rate of $25 an hour.
When Kyle has questions, which he rarely does, the interpreter helps him communicate with the coach, who sometimes uses a wipe board to write down critiques and advice for his player.
"Having an interpreter makes it easier. I know what the plays are," Kyle said.
Daily challenges
Occasionally, there's a hint of frustration, a sign Kyle has to work harder to be aware of what's happening on the court.
Kyle can't hear an opponent making a move behind him; instead, he has to feel the vibrations and thumps of foot movement.
He'll sprint back after a quick possession change, unsure which spot to pick up on defense, until a teammate points him in the right direction.
"We have a good time, but it is hard to communicate," Kyle said.
But none of that really seems to matter when he gets the ball behind the arc and drops two 3-pointers during the game, earning high-fives and thumbs-ups from teammates.
But sometimes his parents worry.
"All aspects of life we've seen Kyle decline and go into his shell," Mrs. Lasher said.
She said some days he says he doesn't like being deaf. Sometimes he blames God for making him deaf. On occasion he'll decline invitations with friends because he's worried they'll judge him for being deaf.
"I wish I could hear," he said.
At an age when most kids are struggling with self-discovery, Kyle has the added challenge of communicating with people who aren't fluent in American Sign Language, his first language.
"He realizes now he's different," Mr. Lasher said.
In class he wears a cochlear implant, a small electronic device that can help provide a sense of sound to a profoundly deaf individual.
Mrs. Lasher said she worries sometimes people judge her son, not completely understanding how hard he works to take in everything that's going on around him.
"He's not slow. He's not rude. He's not bad-tempered," Mrs. Lasher said. "He just doesn't get the information everyone else does."
Kyle said communicating in school is his biggest struggle, and his biggest worry is that people won't understand him when he participates in conversations.
Sometimes he feels self-conscious because he talks differently.
"When I meet people, they stare at me sometimes, and it makes me uncomfortable," Kyle said. "When I play sports I fit in there."
Not so different
For the boys on his basketball team, Kyle's inability to hear doesn't define him.
The group has been playing basketball together for years, and the team chemistry is evident - Kyle can read their body language and watch the gaze of their eyes and know what they are going to do.
Hand signals dictate what plays they run, and the boys can finger-spell when they do need to communicate with words.
When they're off the court, they text to communicate.
His mom said sometimes the boys invite him to play basketball at the community center, and he hesitates, worried. They tell him he's not blind and he can walk, so he can surely shoot some hoops, she said.
"His own friends use tough love," Mrs. Lasher said.
Kyle is the first deaf student assistant coach Rick Sember has had on the basketball team, but that's not what the coach thinks about when it comes to Kyle.
"He sees the court. There's a lot of skills there," Mr. Sember said. "He has good court sense. He makes good decisions and is aggressive in those decisions."
His coaches and interpreters admire his natural talent and drive to get it right. With the help of his interpreter, once a mistake on the court is corrected by a coach, it rarely, if ever, happens again. Kyle's a quick learner and adapter.
Other than communication, Mr. Sember didn't expect Kyle to have any other challenges on the court. In fact, Kyle's fluid transition on the team has opened up the coach's mind to what really is important during the game.
"It made me realize how much more the game is about body language and eye contact rather than verbal communication," he said.
In most ways he's like any other teenage boy - stubborn, determined to be independent.
Although sometimes the stubbornness and the will to do things on his own drives Mrs. Lasher crazy, she said it's one of the things she admires most about Kyle. It's what allows him to cope with the challenges of being a deaf teenager in a hearing-friendly world.
He wants to go to college after he graduates high school, and has high expectations for himself.
"I want to get a good education to make my life easier and get a good job," Kyle said.
Kyle Lasher passes a basketball to his teammate, moving his feet quickly toward the hoop, his black and red sneakers squeaking loudly against the wood floor.
The brown-haired, 14-year-old boy quickens when the coach calls over to the Dunmore Middle School's seventh-grade team, shouting loudly for them to pick up the pace and adding another ball to the drill before the game.
He squares up and shoots from outside the arc. An echo of a perfect 3-point swish resounds through the gym amidst a noisy crowd during one of the first exhibition games of the season.
Kyle, however, can't hear any of it.
Deaf since birth
Tony and Rose Lasher realized something was different about their son when he was 9 months old. Mrs. Lasher became concerned when she noticed her son really responded only to visual stimuli, ignoring the banging of pots and pans, not responsive when she called his name as he woke from a nap.
Only when she touched Kyle, gently easing him out of his sleepy daze one day, did his eyes light up and a smile spread across his face.
She walked downstairs and told her husband, "This kid can't hear."
But his hearing impairment didn't stop his natural athleticism. In first grade he started playing basketball, and later, football and baseball, alongside children who could hear.
In class, Kyle depends on a school-provided interpreter, David Posner, but for years he played sports without the aid of an interpreter, getting by on lip-reading and watching intently.
"Kyle never had an interpreter to play sports with; the coaches never had a deaf kid," Mrs. Lasher said.
Speaking through interpreter Mr. Posner, Kyle said he learned the basics by watching lots of basketball, and in his free time, he goes outside and shoots hoops, combining his natural athleticism with fundamentals.
Mr. Lasher used to go to practice with him to make sure Kyle got enough information to participate.
But just like any other teenager, Kyle doesn't want his father "babying" him and going with him to practice.
At the request of the family, the Dunmore School District hired John Hubert, a math teacher at the Scranton School for Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing Children, to be Kyle's sports interpreter at a rate of $25 an hour.
When Kyle has questions, which he rarely does, the interpreter helps him communicate with the coach, who sometimes uses a wipe board to write down critiques and advice for his player.
"Having an interpreter makes it easier. I know what the plays are," Kyle said.
Daily challenges
Occasionally, there's a hint of frustration, a sign Kyle has to work harder to be aware of what's happening on the court.
Kyle can't hear an opponent making a move behind him; instead, he has to feel the vibrations and thumps of foot movement.
He'll sprint back after a quick possession change, unsure which spot to pick up on defense, until a teammate points him in the right direction.
"We have a good time, but it is hard to communicate," Kyle said.
But none of that really seems to matter when he gets the ball behind the arc and drops two 3-pointers during the game, earning high-fives and thumbs-ups from teammates.
But sometimes his parents worry.
"All aspects of life we've seen Kyle decline and go into his shell," Mrs. Lasher said.
She said some days he says he doesn't like being deaf. Sometimes he blames God for making him deaf. On occasion he'll decline invitations with friends because he's worried they'll judge him for being deaf.
"I wish I could hear," he said.
At an age when most kids are struggling with self-discovery, Kyle has the added challenge of communicating with people who aren't fluent in American Sign Language, his first language.
"He realizes now he's different," Mr. Lasher said.
In class he wears a cochlear implant, a small electronic device that can help provide a sense of sound to a profoundly deaf individual.
Mrs. Lasher said she worries sometimes people judge her son, not completely understanding how hard he works to take in everything that's going on around him.
"He's not slow. He's not rude. He's not bad-tempered," Mrs. Lasher said. "He just doesn't get the information everyone else does."
Kyle said communicating in school is his biggest struggle, and his biggest worry is that people won't understand him when he participates in conversations.
Sometimes he feels self-conscious because he talks differently.
"When I meet people, they stare at me sometimes, and it makes me uncomfortable," Kyle said. "When I play sports I fit in there."
Not so different
For the boys on his basketball team, Kyle's inability to hear doesn't define him.
The group has been playing basketball together for years, and the team chemistry is evident - Kyle can read their body language and watch the gaze of their eyes and know what they are going to do.
Hand signals dictate what plays they run, and the boys can finger-spell when they do need to communicate with words.
When they're off the court, they text to communicate.
His mom said sometimes the boys invite him to play basketball at the community center, and he hesitates, worried. They tell him he's not blind and he can walk, so he can surely shoot some hoops, she said.
"His own friends use tough love," Mrs. Lasher said.
Kyle is the first deaf student assistant coach Rick Sember has had on the basketball team, but that's not what the coach thinks about when it comes to Kyle.
"He sees the court. There's a lot of skills there," Mr. Sember said. "He has good court sense. He makes good decisions and is aggressive in those decisions."
His coaches and interpreters admire his natural talent and drive to get it right. With the help of his interpreter, once a mistake on the court is corrected by a coach, it rarely, if ever, happens again. Kyle's a quick learner and adapter.
Other than communication, Mr. Sember didn't expect Kyle to have any other challenges on the court. In fact, Kyle's fluid transition on the team has opened up the coach's mind to what really is important during the game.
"It made me realize how much more the game is about body language and eye contact rather than verbal communication," he said.
In most ways he's like any other teenage boy - stubborn, determined to be independent.
Although sometimes the stubbornness and the will to do things on his own drives Mrs. Lasher crazy, she said it's one of the things she admires most about Kyle. It's what allows him to cope with the challenges of being a deaf teenager in a hearing-friendly world.
He wants to go to college after he graduates high school, and has high expectations for himself.
"I want to get a good education to make my life easier and get a good job," Kyle said.