Supporting Family Choice

We are all born into families with different backgrounds, cultures and histories.

When Charlotte failed her newborn hearing test, it just seemed impossible that our baby could have hearing issues. We already had two older kids with great hearing. I didn’t even remember this “so called required hearing test” for my first two, I’d told the nurse.

We asked our parents if they ever remembered hearing about a deaf relative, but no one did. Well, now they had one.

Charlotte went through multiple rounds of OAEs (Otoacoustic Emissions test) and an ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response test) before we really knew what we were dealing with (you can read about that here) . There were months of limbo and wondering if she could really be deaf… I mean she seemed to hear me, I think?

When we finally got to a Pediatric Team of Ear Nose Throat doctors and Audiologists at VCU Medical Center, we got clear results that she was in fact profoundly deaf on the left side with moderate to severe hearing loss on the right side. This devastating news was oddly relieving. At least now we knew for certain and could begin learning how to help Charlotte.

Deaf kids can learn to listen and speak

2019 White Paper about Age-Appropriate Listening and Spoken Language Abilities for Children with Hearing Loss

When a family with two deaf parents has a deaf baby, I think the choices are simpler. These parents are most likely part of Deaf Culture, speak American Sign Language (ASL) and may consider technology for their child, but use it as their secondary communication option.

With 95% of all deaf and hard of hearing babies being born to hearing and speaking parents, many times these people have never even known a deaf person. And they probably relate hearing loss to their grand parents who have a hearing aid, or at least we did.

It’s complicated. All the sudden you’re thrust into a hearing loss experience you’ve had minimal, if any, exposure to. Finding information I could digest and relate to while getting nursing under control, taking care of two other kids, and just surviving with this new baby and family of 5 was hard.

Once we got home, I remember state agency people calling me, but it’s like I couldn’t understand what they were talking about in reference to my precious, perfect new baby “failing” some test I didn’t even see happen.

My pediatrician, whom I’d had a fine relationship with for the prior eight years, was empathetic, but more with me being overwhelmed than the fact my child might be deaf. After getting inconclusive follow-up OAE hearing test results back, I know my pediatrcian meant well by telling me to just enjoy my baby and try again around 6 months, but knowing what I know now…

I wish she’d put a “1-3-6 Hearing Loss Detection Plan” plan down on paper for me to digest and execute upon to understand the importance of communicating with my child and teaching them a language that could best support them throughout their life.

No one wants to tell you that your child has hearing loss or might be deaf. I’m not blaming anyone, I truly think most of the “not talking about what is going on” element comes from people not knowing themselves. That’s why I made this site - so more people will understand how important hearing is to our everyday experience.

While I was a Communication major in college, I’d never studied the differences between “Language” and “Communication” with the filter of deaf communication options. Now my husband and I had a choice to make for our deaf and hard of hearing child.

Initially there was this oddly romantic idea that our family might learn sign language and join some new type of club. But then we thought more about how she’d be dependent on an interpreter in school, as well as the rest of her life, to communicate with non ASL signers, and wondered what her job opportunities might look like as an adult.

After chewing on some questions like, “Would the extended family be willing to learn sign language, too? What would school be like for Charlotte if she communicated and learned through sign language? What type of job options do deaf, signing adults have?”

Our choice to embrace technology and give Charlotte the gift of hearing and speaking, like the rest of her family, centered around “the ability to build connections” with those most important people in her life, as well as be able to have a career in ANY field she could dream of.

We were confident our choice for Charlotte to use technology to hear would be right for her, as we knew we could best support her needs as a human through communicating with her in our native tongue and bringing her into our world, like the rest of our kids.

I didn’t have the brain capacity to do the research then, but since I’ve learned that the deaf population, including individuals who may identify as Deaf; hard of hearing; hearing impaired; late deafened; or deafdisabled, have a VERY high unemployment rate. And with employment being the the most commonly used metric for success, the future of a deaf child could be a hard uphill battle. Technology feels like a chance to help the deaf and hard of hearing community break free of their struggles and thrive. The Deaf culture has been struggling with equality for centuries, and I’ve learned sadly still does.

Curious about Deaf People And Employment In The United States, click below to read a report from the national deaf center in 2016