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Contributed
to DWW by Roger Carver
Eye to Eye series, September/October 1997 issue of DCS newsletter
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
It
Takes a Village to Raise a Deaf Child
By
Roger Carver
A couple of years ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the wife of
U.S. President, Bill Clinton, published a book, titled, It
Takes a Village. She was addressing the concerns over how
American children and youth were being raised and calling
for the need for greater community involvement in their upbringing.
She evoked memories of an earlier era of smaller communities
whose inhabitants looked after each other and worked together
for their children's collective welfare. It was a concept
that was enthusiastically embraced by the American Society
for Deaf Childre
n
which advocated greater community involvement for their deaf
children. They knew that professionals could not or should
not take on the primary role for the development of young
deaf children's overall development. This was a concept which
showed full fruit at last summer's Learning Vacation Experience
(LVE) which was sponsored by the Deaf Children's Society.
It was there that parents realized its true value.
At
the LVE, with its high number of Deaf adults who served as
staff members, parents were able to see how well they related
to their children, both deaf and hearing alike. There were
also Hearing staff members who were highly fluent in ASL.
A number of young deaf children received their "kick-start"
in language and communication as a result of being exposed
to these adults, and their hearing siblings realized that
their deaf siblings can grow up into normal and healthy persons.
Parents were also able to interact and talk with these persons
and learn everything from the proper perspective. This LVE
also was the scene of a water fight between the parents and
the staff members which considerably broke the ice between
groups and among the parents themselves. They found that they
were able to laugh, to relax and to have fun! Hearing parents
were able to dish it out as well as take it from the Deaf
adults; they were able to douse them with a water hose, dump
water buckets on them and hurl water balloons at them without
feeling guilty about "offending the sensibilities"
of Deaf persons. This experience brought these families closer
together. That is how it should be. What is, then a Village?
How should it be set up? As the Deaf are small in numbers
and scattered throughout an entire region, it is not possible
to have a village in the traditional, geographical sense.
What we are talking about is a Global Village interconnected
through certain organizations, events, and technology. The
Deaf community truly functions as a global village, not only
across regions, but nationally and internationally, and parents
of deaf children are beginning to recognize its value as a
priceless resource for themselves. One family who is raising
a deaf child in a small community in a part of B.C. that does
not have ready access to services like that provided by the
Deaf Children's Society is a part of our outreach program
which emphasizes self-reliance and strong networking with
other families and Deaf persons. They have done an outstanding
job in raising this young deaf child, in becoming fluent in
ASL, and in getting her to develop language in the absence
of extensive professional intervention. She commented to us
late last summer: "It is so simple, it makes me sick!"
She touched upon a truth: parents with the right attitude,
equipped with the right tools and supported by the right people,
can do the job well without ever requiring clinical services.
This family even actively encourages Deaf persons to stop
by at their home to visit. That is how it should be; for too
many years countless thousands of Deaf persons have been disabled
by professional intervention. Well-meaning but uninformed
professionals prescribed to their families how they should
raise and train their deaf children, often getting involved
themselves and controlling the agenda. This approach has not
worked well and never will - it only exacerbated the situation.
There was a German movie, Beyond Silence, which recently screened
at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Its plot centred
around the relationships between a Deaf father, his hearing
sister and his hearing daughter. It raised two issues which
are relevant to this discussion about professional intervention.
There was a scene around the family Christmas dinner table,
in which the hearing members were having a conversation without
including the Deaf man and his Deaf wife who were signing
by themselves with their daughter. The Deaf man This discussion
simply points out the fact that in most cases young deaf children
are not "disabled" in the true sense of the word
and that, if raised as nature intended and treated as a child
first, he/she will turn out into a healthy, well-rounded individual.
Proof is in the pudding: deaf children of Deaf parents seldom
require intervention and they do generally better than deaf
children of hearing parents. All the hearing parents need
to do is to take a leaf from this book, and the best way they
can accomplish this is by becoming fluent in sign language,
participating in a Village of Deaf adults, families with deaf
children, and extended family members, and enjoying seeing
their children thrive in a natural social environment. They
have done it with a good deal of success in Sweden and Denmark,
and they can do it here. Barbara Raimondo, the current president
of the American Society for Deaf Children, puts it very well:
"You hear so much about deaf children of Deaf parents
and how much better they are doing than deaf children of hearing
parents, it's easy to become discouraged. Hearing parents
also need other hearing parents who have learned Sign Language
and are managing successfully, as proof that it can be done,
as role models, and to learn from."
Community self-help: That is all it takes.
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