Tin made me cry when I read the final draft of her info book, which she submitted as part of the requirements for our final grade in class. It was about a big brother who talked about his hearing-impaired younger brother and how they coped as a family. I’m sure her letter will touch your heart as well.
Dear Maricel,
I’m glad we stayed a bit after class to share our parenting stories almost three months ago. You asked me then to write you; I know this letter has taken me a while to do, but here it is finally. I hope to hear from you soon.
I am a mom of two boys, Nathan, 4 and Elij, 2 years old. They are both very active, happy, smart, and loving boys. However, both of them are hearing-impaired. They were both born with sensorineural hearing loss. Finding out that they were not as healthy or as normal as we had hoped was the most painful and heartbreaking part of the process. I guess the same goes for every parent going through this in varying degrees.
Since we saw a pattern from my firstborn to the next, specialists figured it must have been hereditary. Somehow, someone in my or my husband’s family must be suffering from hearing loss as well. True enough, when we both underwent a hearing test, my husband had moderate to mild hearing loss. We never noticed it. It was only when we realized this that we said, "Oh, so that’s why you had a hard time in school, that’s why you spoke a bit louder," among other things.
My kids weren’t as lucky as their daddy whose hearing loss wasn’t quite as alarming. Nathan and Elij had moderate to severe hearing loss. They have yet to develop speech and to master it in order to be a part of this hearing world. (Actually, my kids are even luckier than others who have profound loss or are totally deaf). My boys look like your normal, regular average kids, but when you speak to them or hear them talk, that’s when you’d notice the difference. Their speech ability is delayed. If I were to compare them with regular kids, my four-year-old sounds like a two-year-old (who is yet developing speech) and my two-year-old sounds like a year-and-a-half-year-old baby. They can’t converse (yet). Raising them has been quite a challenge for me and my husband. They easily get frustrated and we lose our patience. They demand our full attention and we need to work to provide the best for them. It really feels like juggling and putting our act together is still difficult even after four years. We have learned to accept their disability in order to help them succeed in this world. It’s something we felt we needed to do and not exactly something we wanted to do. We will always feel the loss, and we will always say, "If only our kids could hear."
One of the first things we decided as a couple to do was to help my kids communicate. They were fitted with hearing aids immediately after finding out. The next step was teaching them to listen or to use whatever hearing the aids made available to them, so that they may learn to speak. Luckily, we found a speech therapy center that matched my goals for my children. CLASP uses an auditory-verbal approach in teaching deaf and hearing-impaired kids to develop appropriate speech and language skills so that they may be integrated into the regular school system and mainstream life. Knowing this, that my kids had no limits, is something I will forever embrace. Amid our jobs, we have taken an active role in helping our kids acquire language. CLASP empowered parents like me to take on the challenge of teaching my kids to speak. (Believe me, when I say this, but a lot of things that we take for granted such as saying hello and goodbye have taken us a whole year to learn). It can be quite frustrating for us as well. Our journey is slow and painstaking, but we have set our eyes on our goal of allowing our kids the same opportunity and success everyone deserves, hearing or non-hearing. Right now, after almost three years of speech therapy at CLASP, our kids are making good progress. Nathan now shares with me exciting parts of his day using familiar words, and some gestures (to augment his speech), with a lot of gusto! Elij is able to use two to three word phrases to express himself. We are really very happy with their development and are truly proud of them.
I know that there are many other parents who are going through the same thing, and many parents of deaf and hearing-impaired children who need the knowledge and the support to enable their kids to succeed in this world. (I, for one, was at a loss as to what to do when I found out that my kids have hearing loss.) It is in this light that CLASP, along with its parent community, will hold a conference on Hearing Habilitation. This conference shall present options for parents of deaf and hearing-impaired children as well as enlighten them on the specific needs of these children. Best of all, we hope to inspire and give hope to parents, professionals and even students who are involved with the deaf and hearing-impaired.
Sincerely,
Tin Canon