Parent Education

Parent education is critical because the interactions and experiences during first few years of a child’s life establish the foundation for later learning and development. Parents who discover that their child is deaf are confronted with a range of possible interventions and advice on how best to raise a deaf child. The advice from professionals and other parents may take into consideration the individual characteristics of the child and family but often is more strongly influenced by their own understanding of and perspectives on what it means to be deaf. For new parents who have no experience with people who are deaf, their child’s hearing status is often viewed as devastating, shattering their dreams and expectations for their child’s future. Adults who are Deaf often have the opposite experience: For them, being deaf may create some barriers from time to time but mostly is a difference that presents unique experiences and opportunities, not a disability.

“Will my child learn to talk?” This question is often among the first asked by worried hearing parents after learning from a doctor or an audiologist that their child is deaf. The question focuses on speech, the form of language most people consider synonymous with underlying linguistic competence and through which most everyday human relationships are created and maintained. As a result of their own cultural and linguistic experiences, beliefs, and expectations as hearing/speaking individuals, most parents understandably seek to find ways to restore their children’s hearing and establish early communication if at all possible through the auditory/vocal modality. Doctors and audiologists, who usually share this worldview, rarely inform parents about another perspective on deaf children, one held by the small percentage of parents who are themselves Deaf. These families communicate using signed language, an equally adequate language option for deaf children.

Regardless of the communication modality chosen, parents of deaf children will need to take an active role in teaching and facilitating their child’s language learning. Families will need support in learning the importance of early communication and language access. Families who choose to communicate through a natural signed language, such as American Sign Language (ASL), are required to learn a new language in a new modality. Research has shown that the quality of language development depends largely on the extent of opportunities a child has for communicating with parents, siblings, peers, and other adults. Deaf children, like all children, need access to parents and peers they can communicate with easily. For parents with deaf children who do not have access to spoken language, this may mean they are learning ASL at the same time as their deaf child. As a result, they may sometimes feel as if they are not skilled communication partners. If parents or children feel frustrated when they try to communicate, their emotions can [Page 730]have an effect on child’s self-esteem. For this reason, parent education programs must provide support and resources through language mentoring and modeling for both parents and children. Parents need to be able to communicate with their child about what is happening around them. Although this early exposure to quality language is essential, it is also essential that children receive constant positive regard from their parents to develop appropriate attachment. Positive and supportive relationships between parents and children can be maintained through developmentally appropriate play and activities, with or without the use of language. A balance among parenting, play, and language teaching and learning must be found in the interactions between parents and their deaf children. Parents will need to be familiar with language milestones and work on specific language targets with their child to be sure the child’s language learning is developing at an appropriate rate. Parents must also make efforts to develop effective communication between the deaf child and the hearing environment. Resources for parents with deaf children are essential to support them in their own language learning and to achieve optimal language development for their children.

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