On June 29-30th, cuers of all ages gathered at Nazareth College outside of Rochester, NY for the annual Cue Camp, which alternates locations every other year between New York and Maryland.  Cue Camp is a place where people of all ages, hearing levels, languages, and backgrounds can come together to practice Cued Speech, meet other cuers, or learn the system from scratch in a single weekend. Cued Speech is [...]

  In a recent article, “The Distrust Runs Deep on Both Sides?” the author asserts: It’s not like these parents find out their child is deaf, go on the internet, discover a deaf community sharply divided between the oral and ASL-using camps, panic, and somehow decide they’ll embrace the oral camp while never trusting any single living ASL-using deaf person ever again. Doesn’t such a supposition seem ridiculous to you [...]

I was born in a small town.  And I live in a small town.  Oh those small communities.* Okay, so my town may not be Mayberry; we do actually have modern conveniences like electricity and cable TV.  But how do you find the best resources when the nearest deaf “person” is your neighbor’s 15-year-old dog? For my family, living in a rural area is great—lots of grass, plenty of cows, [...]

  If you’re the parent of a deaf child, especially one that manages to avoid early detection from newborn hearing screenings, you might find yourself with a lot of guilt.  Though my son did fail his newborn hearing screening, he later somehow passed an otoacoustic emission test (OAE) and was declared hearing until 15 months old, despite my intuition otherwise.  In hindsight, many people say to us, “How could you [...]

When we first confirmed my son was deaf, I had several communication choices presented to me by his Early Intervention coordinator.  I had never heard of cued speech, and at first I was ready to dismiss it solely because it was not the dominant form of communication among Deaf people.  But when an advocate of cued speech explained to me what websites couldn’t, I was convinced, and we proceeded with [...]

  “The best defense is a good offense.” These are words to live by for parents advocating for their deaf child.  While the professionals—doctors, therapists, teachers, early intervention coordinators, school boards—may truly believe they have the child’s best interests in mind, it is up to the parents to digest all their recommendations and stand up for and make the best decisions for their child.  Learn all you can, and once [...]

  There was a brief time when I could not have cared less if my deaf son ever knew any ASL.  I wanted him only to be oral.  I figured if he got a cochlear implant, he wouldn’t “need” sign language, so why learn it?  As irrational as it sounds, I almost feared him becoming part of an exclusive Deaf community and shunning his family because of it.  That idea [...]

Last week, I received paperwork from the local school district to fill out for my son. “Preschoolers with Disabilities” was written at the top. This caught me off guard for two reasons: first, I can’t believe my baby is ready for preschool already! But more importantly, “Disabilities?!” I’ve spent the last two years trying to explain to family and friends that deafness is not a disability. My husband and I [...]

Aaron has only been hearing for a year.  He’s three.  He was born completely deaf in both ears.  After a near-death experience at birth, my husband and I knew we were very blessed to have this little boy, and were thankful his lack of hearing was the only side effect from his emergency delivery.  We found, however, that much of the hearing world saw Aaron differently than we did.  When [...]

I once asked my toddler’s teacher for help: “how do you discipline a deaf child?”  Her answer?  “The same as any other child.”  The simplicity of this answer shows just how little some people know of the hardships of being a hearing parent of a deaf child.  Certainly I understand her point that you treat a deaf child just like any other child; you love him just the same, and [...]