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Learning to sign brings family closer - Local - MercedSun-Star.com
Zak Cozine is a bubbly, gurgly, 9-month-old bouncing baby boy.
On the ground level of his family home in Hilmar, Zak rolls around the living room floor, pulling on this toy and that, guided by his big brother, 2-year-old Zane.
And while the shining lights of their toy train steals his gaze every now and then, all Zak hears is white noise and loud rumbles or crashing sounds that others would find jarring, even alarming. Born deaf, Zak's childhood is both typical and extraordinary.
When his mother Patty first learned Zak could possibly never hear her voice, it was unbelievable. The news wouldn't sink in.
The extended Cozine family felt the same reaction: disbelief, hope that prayer and faith could wipe away the diagnosis.
That was then.
Now, the family has rallied around young Zak, with more than a dozen family members enrolled in sign language lessons.
Home help
Zak is a victim of sensorineural hearing loss, which means his cochlea, a hollow bone in the inner ear, is damaged, said Diane Pappas, an infant care provider with the Merced County Office of Education's deaf and hard of hearing program. Zak is clinically deaf, and with two hearing aids in place, might hear the thunder of a lawn mower starting up.
Poking out from underneath Zak's curly, deep brown hair are those two hearing aids: his high-powered auditory last hope.
Zak's immediate family also gets instruction from Pappas, who teaches deaf children in their homes before they reach school age.
The classes will help Zak -- and Pappas' 20 other client families -- build a vocabulary before entering preschool.
"The parent is the first and best teacher for a child," Pappas explained.
Pappas deals with children younger than 3 throughout Merced County. There are children without ears, children who aren't deaf, but need to communicate without speaking. She's worked in Hilmar, Los Banos, Le Grand -- nearly every town from the far Westside to the foothills.
The Merced County Office of Education is notified each time a child in Merced County is born with auditory issues. The family is also referred to MCOE. Pappas provides home help to the families who want it.
"When I get a child, I don't make any decisions for the family," Pappas said. "I just give them information and anything they need."
With the Cozines, Pappas was a crucial ally to Patty during their first few weeks of instruction, when Zak was just 4 months old. Once a week, Pappas visits the Cozine home to answer Patty's questions, check on Zak's development and help Patty turn everyday routines into signing lessons for the family.
"In the beginning, I thought my world was coming to an end," Patty recalled. "Poor Diane -- I cried at all of our first meetings."
One recent week, Pappas came to Patty with information on street signs alerting drivers to Zak's presence and a plan for introducing more signs to Zak.
On that day they learn a few words: cereal, bowl and spoon while Zane looks on (two older brothers and father are at school and work, but will catch up later).
To teach the lessons, Pappas brings along her "auditory learning bag." From it, she pulls out animal figurines and other toys. First, she pounds the toys on the table, the noise and vibration intended to grab Zak's attention. Then she shows him the sign, and sometimes moves his tiny hands to do the sign as well.
"You can do this every morning, right?" Pappas encouraged Patty.
Pappas' help means a lot to the family because caring for Zak is much more difficult than for a hearing child, Patty explained.
"The amount of work involved is a lot different," she said. "you can't just get his attention from across the room to calm him down. He has to see you. He has to touch you."
Night school
The sign language class the Cozines attend are free for family members of deaf children and was started by the county office of education in 1989. This year's class holds some 40 students. They include parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends and bus drivers.
While all families are encouraged to attend, most attendees are there on behalf of young children like Zak.
The preschool classroom next door is set up as a free day care for parents and is full of young kids every evening of class.
Several of the children bounding around building blocks or pounding out Play Doh are outfitted with cochlear implants -- a surgical implant that restores hearing for profoundly deaf individuals. (Zak's family learned a week before Christmas that he's a candidate for a cochlear implant, but the family hasn't made a decision yet on whether to do it.)
Margie Stallings, a preschool instructor for the deaf, leads the evening sign classes.
From 6 to 7 each Tuesday evening that school is held, Stallings teaches Spanish-speaking families of deaf students with the help of another MCOE staff member who does the Spanish interpreting.
The teaching process is long. For example, Stallings will say "water" and sign the same word with her hand in "Signing Exact English," one of many sign languages; then Yolanda Charlton, the interpreter says "agua" and signs agua with her hand.
Finally, Stallings will "finger spell" the name of the next person to demonstrate their signing skills.
"It is a much more difficult learning process," Stallings said. "A lot of the Spanish-speaking families here are learning English as well through this class."
At 7 p.m., the English-speaking families roll in.
The classes use two versions -- English and Spanish -- of the same textbook, "Signing Exact English." The English text is basically a dictionary -- the words appear in alphabetical order. The Spanish book is thematic, with sections shifting from "La Escuela" to "Los Colores."
Each course started the same way: learning the letters.
"Finger spelling is very, very important," Stallings told her classes. "It is also the hardest thing you will do in sign language."
Stallings encouraged each person in the class to establish a "finger-spelling buddy" to practice with at home.
The families have also learned a set of vocabulary words for clothing, body, colors and more. Around holidays, they dedicate time to words like jack-o-lantern and snowflake.
Other lessons focus on deaf issues specifically. One Tuesday was spent learning signs for hearing aid: shape fingers like a hearing aid and move the right hand behind the right ear. You can also sign separately "hear," "ing" and "aid" -- but "why would you?" Stallings asked. During this lesson the families also learned to sign "Use your voice," and "I need a hearing aid." They learned of various reports they might receive from an audiologist.
Still, there are moments of levity.
"It is really a thrill watching a lot of people do the sign for mice," Stallings chuckled one night as she faced 40 people tickling at the sides of their faces.
'The saddest part'
The Cozine family has reacted in the way many families think they would to the news of a family member's deafness.
Yet, the opposite of their reaction is often the case for deaf children in Merced.
"Unfortunately, many of our children go home to families who cannot speak their language," said Pamela Parrott, coordinator for the deaf and hard of hearing program at the MCOE. "We have so many families that have never learned to communicate with their children. That's the saddest part."
Parrott recalled the story of a 17-year-old high school girl whose father couldn't sign.
At a school meeting, an interpreter asked the girl what she wanted to share with her dad. The girl started asking a bunch of questions about her birthday: Would there be a party? Cake?
"The parent had no idea what was in this child's head because he doesn't know even one single word in sign language," Parrott said.
At another child's meeting, it was a father who asked the interpreter to share a message. "Tell my son I love him," Parrott recalled the man telling the interpreter.
Signing forward
While the Cozines faced a tough time accepting Zak's hearing loss at the very start of his life, they have dedicated themselves to learning sign even before his little fingers have the dexterity to sign back.
It's all worth it, though, because Zak has already learned some signs himself.
For instance, when Patty signs "milk" by creating a squeezing motion with one hand, Zak responds.
"If he's crying he calms down," Patty said. "He knows what it means."
Zane, who's just learning to speak himself, knows the signs for "stop" and "no," Patty said.
Each family member who attends the classes knows more than 100 words. Once fluent, they plan to sign all of their conversations at family events.
"It's important that he will be able to join the conversation if he wants to," said Lisa Freitas, Zak's aunt.
Caitlin Freitas, Lisa's 15-year-old daughter, is also learning and practices with her Aunt Patty all the time, she said.
"I was scared at first, and nervous that I wouldn't pick it up," Caitlin said. "But now I know we will stay close as he gets older."
Caitlin added that she was grateful that her aunt nudged the family into the classes.
"I think she's very strong. She is a very strong woman for doing all of this," Caitlin said. "I love her for it."
While the sign class has been on break for the school holidays, the Cozines have set up their own schoolhouse on Tuesdays.
In the days just before Christmas, 14 family members gathered at Patty's home to review their signs from the fall classes.
Several family members took turns standing near the Christmas tree and quizzing the others, including Talena Ducheneaux, Patty's cousin.
Ducheneaux used to work for GC Services, a call relay center in Riverbank for deaf people. She never had to learn sign for that job, but always wanted to. Now she plans to raise her 16-month-old son, Lane, to be bilingual in sign language.
"It's going to be difficult. It's going to take a while to pick up," Ducheneaux said. "But it's going to be good for our whole family."
Learning sign has introduced each of the extended family members to a whole new world, they said.
For Patty, it was a long-time goal realized.
"I've always wanted to learn sign language. I just never thought I'd learn for my own child," she said. "Learning or not learning sign language now is just not really an option."
Zak Cozine is a bubbly, gurgly, 9-month-old bouncing baby boy.
On the ground level of his family home in Hilmar, Zak rolls around the living room floor, pulling on this toy and that, guided by his big brother, 2-year-old Zane.
And while the shining lights of their toy train steals his gaze every now and then, all Zak hears is white noise and loud rumbles or crashing sounds that others would find jarring, even alarming. Born deaf, Zak's childhood is both typical and extraordinary.
When his mother Patty first learned Zak could possibly never hear her voice, it was unbelievable. The news wouldn't sink in.
The extended Cozine family felt the same reaction: disbelief, hope that prayer and faith could wipe away the diagnosis.
That was then.
Now, the family has rallied around young Zak, with more than a dozen family members enrolled in sign language lessons.
Home help
Zak is a victim of sensorineural hearing loss, which means his cochlea, a hollow bone in the inner ear, is damaged, said Diane Pappas, an infant care provider with the Merced County Office of Education's deaf and hard of hearing program. Zak is clinically deaf, and with two hearing aids in place, might hear the thunder of a lawn mower starting up.
Poking out from underneath Zak's curly, deep brown hair are those two hearing aids: his high-powered auditory last hope.
Zak's immediate family also gets instruction from Pappas, who teaches deaf children in their homes before they reach school age.
The classes will help Zak -- and Pappas' 20 other client families -- build a vocabulary before entering preschool.
"The parent is the first and best teacher for a child," Pappas explained.
Pappas deals with children younger than 3 throughout Merced County. There are children without ears, children who aren't deaf, but need to communicate without speaking. She's worked in Hilmar, Los Banos, Le Grand -- nearly every town from the far Westside to the foothills.
The Merced County Office of Education is notified each time a child in Merced County is born with auditory issues. The family is also referred to MCOE. Pappas provides home help to the families who want it.
"When I get a child, I don't make any decisions for the family," Pappas said. "I just give them information and anything they need."
With the Cozines, Pappas was a crucial ally to Patty during their first few weeks of instruction, when Zak was just 4 months old. Once a week, Pappas visits the Cozine home to answer Patty's questions, check on Zak's development and help Patty turn everyday routines into signing lessons for the family.
"In the beginning, I thought my world was coming to an end," Patty recalled. "Poor Diane -- I cried at all of our first meetings."
One recent week, Pappas came to Patty with information on street signs alerting drivers to Zak's presence and a plan for introducing more signs to Zak.
On that day they learn a few words: cereal, bowl and spoon while Zane looks on (two older brothers and father are at school and work, but will catch up later).
To teach the lessons, Pappas brings along her "auditory learning bag." From it, she pulls out animal figurines and other toys. First, she pounds the toys on the table, the noise and vibration intended to grab Zak's attention. Then she shows him the sign, and sometimes moves his tiny hands to do the sign as well.
"You can do this every morning, right?" Pappas encouraged Patty.
Pappas' help means a lot to the family because caring for Zak is much more difficult than for a hearing child, Patty explained.
"The amount of work involved is a lot different," she said. "you can't just get his attention from across the room to calm him down. He has to see you. He has to touch you."
Night school
The sign language class the Cozines attend are free for family members of deaf children and was started by the county office of education in 1989. This year's class holds some 40 students. They include parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends and bus drivers.
While all families are encouraged to attend, most attendees are there on behalf of young children like Zak.
The preschool classroom next door is set up as a free day care for parents and is full of young kids every evening of class.
Several of the children bounding around building blocks or pounding out Play Doh are outfitted with cochlear implants -- a surgical implant that restores hearing for profoundly deaf individuals. (Zak's family learned a week before Christmas that he's a candidate for a cochlear implant, but the family hasn't made a decision yet on whether to do it.)
Margie Stallings, a preschool instructor for the deaf, leads the evening sign classes.
From 6 to 7 each Tuesday evening that school is held, Stallings teaches Spanish-speaking families of deaf students with the help of another MCOE staff member who does the Spanish interpreting.
The teaching process is long. For example, Stallings will say "water" and sign the same word with her hand in "Signing Exact English," one of many sign languages; then Yolanda Charlton, the interpreter says "agua" and signs agua with her hand.
Finally, Stallings will "finger spell" the name of the next person to demonstrate their signing skills.
"It is a much more difficult learning process," Stallings said. "A lot of the Spanish-speaking families here are learning English as well through this class."
At 7 p.m., the English-speaking families roll in.
The classes use two versions -- English and Spanish -- of the same textbook, "Signing Exact English." The English text is basically a dictionary -- the words appear in alphabetical order. The Spanish book is thematic, with sections shifting from "La Escuela" to "Los Colores."
Each course started the same way: learning the letters.
"Finger spelling is very, very important," Stallings told her classes. "It is also the hardest thing you will do in sign language."
Stallings encouraged each person in the class to establish a "finger-spelling buddy" to practice with at home.
The families have also learned a set of vocabulary words for clothing, body, colors and more. Around holidays, they dedicate time to words like jack-o-lantern and snowflake.
Other lessons focus on deaf issues specifically. One Tuesday was spent learning signs for hearing aid: shape fingers like a hearing aid and move the right hand behind the right ear. You can also sign separately "hear," "ing" and "aid" -- but "why would you?" Stallings asked. During this lesson the families also learned to sign "Use your voice," and "I need a hearing aid." They learned of various reports they might receive from an audiologist.
Still, there are moments of levity.
"It is really a thrill watching a lot of people do the sign for mice," Stallings chuckled one night as she faced 40 people tickling at the sides of their faces.
'The saddest part'
The Cozine family has reacted in the way many families think they would to the news of a family member's deafness.
Yet, the opposite of their reaction is often the case for deaf children in Merced.
"Unfortunately, many of our children go home to families who cannot speak their language," said Pamela Parrott, coordinator for the deaf and hard of hearing program at the MCOE. "We have so many families that have never learned to communicate with their children. That's the saddest part."
Parrott recalled the story of a 17-year-old high school girl whose father couldn't sign.
At a school meeting, an interpreter asked the girl what she wanted to share with her dad. The girl started asking a bunch of questions about her birthday: Would there be a party? Cake?
"The parent had no idea what was in this child's head because he doesn't know even one single word in sign language," Parrott said.
At another child's meeting, it was a father who asked the interpreter to share a message. "Tell my son I love him," Parrott recalled the man telling the interpreter.
Signing forward
While the Cozines faced a tough time accepting Zak's hearing loss at the very start of his life, they have dedicated themselves to learning sign even before his little fingers have the dexterity to sign back.
It's all worth it, though, because Zak has already learned some signs himself.
For instance, when Patty signs "milk" by creating a squeezing motion with one hand, Zak responds.
"If he's crying he calms down," Patty said. "He knows what it means."
Zane, who's just learning to speak himself, knows the signs for "stop" and "no," Patty said.
Each family member who attends the classes knows more than 100 words. Once fluent, they plan to sign all of their conversations at family events.
"It's important that he will be able to join the conversation if he wants to," said Lisa Freitas, Zak's aunt.
Caitlin Freitas, Lisa's 15-year-old daughter, is also learning and practices with her Aunt Patty all the time, she said.
"I was scared at first, and nervous that I wouldn't pick it up," Caitlin said. "But now I know we will stay close as he gets older."
Caitlin added that she was grateful that her aunt nudged the family into the classes.
"I think she's very strong. She is a very strong woman for doing all of this," Caitlin said. "I love her for it."
While the sign class has been on break for the school holidays, the Cozines have set up their own schoolhouse on Tuesdays.
In the days just before Christmas, 14 family members gathered at Patty's home to review their signs from the fall classes.
Several family members took turns standing near the Christmas tree and quizzing the others, including Talena Ducheneaux, Patty's cousin.
Ducheneaux used to work for GC Services, a call relay center in Riverbank for deaf people. She never had to learn sign for that job, but always wanted to. Now she plans to raise her 16-month-old son, Lane, to be bilingual in sign language.
"It's going to be difficult. It's going to take a while to pick up," Ducheneaux said. "But it's going to be good for our whole family."
Learning sign has introduced each of the extended family members to a whole new world, they said.
For Patty, it was a long-time goal realized.
"I've always wanted to learn sign language. I just never thought I'd learn for my own child," she said. "Learning or not learning sign language now is just not really an option."
