Communication Above All Else

By Donice Kaufman, Tennessee H&V

Childhood afforded me many opportunities to befriend children from different cultures, languages, religions and disabilities, as my father’s employer moved us all over the world. I had friends who were deaf and raised orally. They wore transistor style hearing aids that were worn over the chest with shoulder straps while others used ASL to communicate. I had friends who spoke different languages, ate different foods and observed different rituals. Living in different countries was an education in acceptance and understanding. My sisters and I grew up with three languages: French, Italian and English.

So when my fourth child stopped learning new words at about the age of three, used her fists to solve conflicts and began losing the ability to clearly enunciate the words she did know, I was pretty confident she had some kind of hearing loss. Oddly, I wasn’t alarmed at the possibility of hearing loss, per se; I was more concerned about why she was losing her hearing.

Following all the tests with our audiologist and the suggestions made by audiologists, I sat down with my husband to determine a course of action. My husband, a physician, had difficulty coming to terms with our daughter’s hearing loss. He saw it as a disability that would adversely affect her ability to learn and function normally in a hearing world. I, on the other hand, was more concerned that our daughter have a language–any language–and I had a visceral reaction to the “sit on your hands; only voice” advice we received from some hearing specialists. I held to the belief that deafness doesn’t prevent one from growing up bilingual.

Thus our family began the journey of learning American Sign Language. For English, my daughter met with a speech therapist, and I took classes to become certified in the Lindamood-Bell program for reading, reading comprehension, and math. We became active in the deaf community, and I volunteered in the youth program at the League for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing (now Bridges). For the next few years, I homeschooled my daughter.

Following several years of deafness, my daughter suddenly regained her hearing. It was an incredibly frightening experience for her. We had her tested again with her audiologist, and they discovered that her deafness was due to a congenital disorder known as Pendred Syndrome which causes bilateral hearing loss due to an inner ear abnormality known as an enlarged vestibular aqueduct. Though her hearing comes and goes, she is aware that one day she will be deaf permanently.

I learned that 95% of deaf and hard of hearing children are born to hearing parents. Then I discovered that deaf children born to deaf parents become more proficient in English than their counterparts. And THAT made sense!!! They had a language foundation which allowed them to learn a second language more easily.

We raised our daughter with two languages–English and ASL. They each augmented her ability to spell and to organize her external world. Also diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, we discovered that supporting her passion of horseback riding developed activity in both sides of her brain which caused her reading ability to improve exponentially. Another activity that helps with expressive and receptive language is rock climbing. Rock climbing became our weekly family activity. The kids would communicate with each other while climbing and/or belaying advising on the best way up a path and back down.

As parents we all strive to do what’s best for our children. Specialists in any given field give us advice based on their training not always realizing that they may not know what they don’t know. Yet our children may be hard wired to learn language another way. Though daunting, it’s incumbent upon us as parents to learn as much as we can about the various methods used to learn language, to discover which method is most compelling to the learning preference of our child(ren), to interact with others with various types of hearing loss to trust our instincts about our children, and to have the courage to question the recommendations of “authorities”.

My career path changed from pediatric exercise specialist to health and wellness director at the League for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing – now known as Bridges. Supporting and advocating for deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind persons of all ages, their hearing family members, and people who lose their hearing late in life became my life’s work. It was there that I learned about Tennessee Hands & Voices and sponsored them on several events. Because Tennessee H&V supports the various ways in which we learn language, it is a perfect match for me.

Whether an individual has hearing loss or an expressive language disorder, finding a mode of communication that works is essential. Mankind cannot survive without communication.  ~