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It
Takes a Village to Raise a Deaf Child
By Roger Carver
Contributed to DWW by Roger Carver
Eye to Eye series, September/October 1997 issue of DCS newsletter
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
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 Children 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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