Okay, here goes: and on a side note, I agree with deafdyke. Hearing impaired is a term coined by the hearing community and is supposed to be politically correct. I have yet to meet a D/d/hh person that uses it. It is insulting as it places focus on the disability rather than the ability.
I discovered that my son was severe to profoundly deaf when he was 9 months old. The diagnosis was somewhat expected, because I had noticed that his responses to sound were irratic; he only responded in the expected way if the source of the sound was in his visual field.
I do know the etiology of the hearing loss--I was exposed to cytolmegalovirus during the 5th month of my pregnancy.
The biggest challenge of raising a deaf child as a hearing parent is getting all of the people who are responsible for your child's education to understand the specific needs of the deaf child. Mainstream educators tend to lump all deaf children in a generic category of Leaning Disabled. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What worked for me as far as communication was to totally ignore the experts in the area in which I lived. This particular area of the US is very strongly oral in philosophy, and recommended that he be aided (wear hearing aids) and not permitted to use any sign or gesture. This resulted in a very frustrated and agry toddler, as he had a desire to communicate, but was being prevented from doing so. This also caused language delays for my son, as he was not in an environment that allowed him to acquire language in a natural way as hearing children do simply by being exposed to it.
I therefore joined the League for the Hearing Impaired in my area, and began asking the advise of Deaf adults. I decided that I had never been a deaf child, the "experts" I was forced to deal with had never been a deaf child, and the only people who could explain what it was like to be a deaf child and how to address his needs would be someone who had lived it. The Deaf community was a valuable resource for me; not only in providing information and insight, but for emotional support. Support for me as a hearingparent trying to make the best decisions for my son, and for my son as a deaf individual in a majority hearing world.
The one thing that bothered me most about other's reactions to my child was the quick assumptions they made when they discovered that he was deaf. He wasn't seen as a child who happened to be deaf, but as a deaf child. The "deaf" came first.
The second most bothersome theing was the fact that many rude people assumed that it was perfectly all right to butt into a private moment I was spending with my son to ask stupid questions, or to offer unsolicited advise. Hearing people would see me signing with my son, and simply walk up and ask questions like, "oh, is he deaf?" Too many times I wanted to reply, "No, he's blind." Stupid questions deserve stupid answers in my opinion.
Public school systems drove me nuts for many years. Deafness is a low incidence disability, therefore, the majority of school systems have few, if any, deaf students enrolled at any given time. None that I encountered had any staff that were even marginally informed regarding deaf education. In assessments, the deaf child is assessed based on the standards set for hearing children, and as a consequence, the assessment is usually flawed--to the detriment of the deaf child. They have virtually no understnading of the need for the visual in the classroom. They assume that because a child can speechread resonably well in a one-on-one situation, they can also gain all of the information necessary for education using amplification and speech reading. All are reluctant to allocate funds for a terp, particularly in elementary grades. The services are not provided on a consistent basis, the child becomes frustrated and bored because the terp has been absent for a day or two, and then is labeled a behavior problem. The behavior problems are a creation of an ineffective school system.
Services that are quaranteed by federal law must be demanded and very often, fought for through a due process hearing. IEP's are lacking; parental input is disregarded. Parents must become agressive and difficult to deal with in order to achieve the results that are taken for granted by parents of hearing children. School systems continually whine about a lack of funds--this is an unacceptable excuse for not providing services they are legally bound to provide.
Socialization is often difficult for the deaf child of hearing parents, particularly when placed in a mainstream classroom. Small things lead to big misunderstandings. As the child matures, the differences between him and his hearing classmates becomes more noticeable, and is often used as a way to exclude or ostracize. Communication becomes more difficult as the child gets older, and needs and wants to communicate on a more advanced level.
When my son was in the 4th grade, I began the processof forcing the home school district to pay his tuition to a school for the deaf located 20 miles from our home. I based my case on the fact that the Least Restrictive Environment for a deaf child was one in which communication was not restricted, and that his peers were not hearing children his age, but deaf children his age. After 3 hearings, we won, and my son was transferred to a school for the deaf as a day student. That is the one thing I believe is most responsible for the success he has been able to achieve as a young adult.
My immdediate reaction, on the day we went to enroll him was one of utter relief. The only other place that I had felt that he was truly understood was in my dealings with the Deaf community. The battles with the public school system had been long and difficult, and it was an enormous relief to find a place where I wasn't forced to continually explain, defend, and demand.
One of the benefits of transfering my son to a deaf school was that he was expected to live up to high expectations. No longer could he tell a teacher,"I can't do that, I'm deaf." Or, "I didn't understand the homework was due today because you had your back turned." The deaf school conducted all classes in sign, the majority of the teachers were deaf, and they refused to allow him to use excuses the hearing teachers so readily accepted from him.
He was exposed to deaf adults that could mentor him and give him real world examples of the success that deaf individuals can and do achieve. The majority of his teacher's had Master's Degrees. They expected that he could do the same. In contrast, the public school system wanted to shuffle deaf students off to the vocational school based on a belief that they could never have academic success as hearing students could.
He was allowed to develop a strong sense of who he was as a deaf individual. Not as a lesser version of a hearing person, but as a complete and capable deaf person. I could not provide that for him--his comparison to me was as a hearing person despite the fact that I was his mother. He could not have done that in a mainstream classroom. Exposure on a daily basis to others he could relate to in a very real sense is absolutely necessary for a positive self concept. The Deaf community helped to provide for my son what I could not provide--not from a lack of desire, but simply because I was hearing and understand as a hearing person. It was from not knowing, not from not wanting to.
In addition, my son's father died when he was 6 years old. Deaf adults helped to provide adult male role models for my son. They picked up the slack. It has been my experience that Deaf adults within the community have an innate understanding that the success of one deaf child is the success of an enire community. Because of theat they are very willing to do what they can to help insure that success.
Hope all of this answers some of your questions. I'm certain I have left something out in trying to reduce 20 years into a few paragraphs. If there is anything I can clarify for you, please let me know. One piece of advise I have for anyone studying Deaf culture--use the Deaf community as your main resource. The hearing community, no matter how well educated, is still hearing. Their perspective on Deafness is not complete--mine included.
