Hearing Aids and Sign Language Can Wok Together
Many people, especially those who are not deaf, have a hard time relating to the experiences of their hearing impaired children and want to simply get them the hearing aids that will work best and make their experience as normal as possible. Ninety percent of children who are deaf are born to hearing parents. The other ten percent are born into families well versed in the deaf community and may still have a hard time relating to their child’s experience, because of their own history with hearing devices, and seek to not have their children undergo a hearing test and be fit for digital hearing aids. The truth of the matter is that both sets of parents, although they care an incredible amount about their children, could be preventing them from having the best experience and living a life that incorporates both sign language and hearing aid technology.
If your child is deaf and you are hearing, chances are you have been very diligent about finding out about the latest in digital hearing aids and getting your child the routine hearing tests suggested by your hearing instrument specialist. Your goal is most likely, through a combination of speech therapy and hearing aid technology, to make your child experience a childhood as normal as possible. When you are a parent of a deaf child you most likely worry about all the things a life without great hearing devices may be and don’t want your child to miss out. Something that many hearing parents don’t realize is that many times when someone uses a hearing instrument, they may not feel like a full member of the hearing community. Exposing your child to the world of digital hearing aids, as well as sign language, makes it so they can both connect with the hearing and deaf worlds and associate with both parts of their identity. By having a hearing instrument they can connect with their hearing family and peers and by knowing sign language they are able to identify and connect with those like themselves.
If you are the parent of a child who is deaf and you too are deaf, this could be a celebratory time for your family and hearing aids could be viewed as an invasive and unaccepting product created by the ignorant hearing community. Many deaf families see hearing instruments as something that threatens the deaf world and makes it so that their language and culture will become extinct. For those in favor of teaching their deaf child sign, they are sharing with them a language that was developed and carried on by people within their community that do not see their deafness as a disability in need of a hearing device. Sign is a language that should be taught and used in the home and community but children who both learn sign language and use a digital hearing aid are able to connect with both communities and gain from what both have to offer. No one community is excluded when both sign and hearing aids are utilized.
Tags: digital hearing aids, hearing aid technology, hearing loss
