Rebecca A Withey: The impact of positive socialisation for deaf children

In a recent episode of See Hear (BBC1) Dr Kate Rowley mentioned that the most critical age for a deaf child’s language development is between 0-5 years.

This can be a worrying fact for parents whose children are diagnosed late, or for those parents – like my own – who aren’t given enough initial support or information about accessing British Sign Language or other ways to promote language development.

Thankfully, more research is currently being carried out in this area and hopefully we will see solid changes to the early education system and the range of support on offer to deaf babies, toddlers and very young children.

As a deaf parent to a deaf child, I am aware that my child is at an advantage given that she lives in a bilingual household and is able to access all of our conversations. Yet, interestingly enough, it has only been the last couple of years – after the age of 5 – that we have seen our daughter develop a positive sense of her deaf identity.

Whilst it is true that the foundation to language development take place before the age of 5, I personally feel that socialisation truly enables not only language – but a positive self identity – to blossom.

When our daughter started primary school aged 4, she began to get a sense of her own deafness and what it meant to the rest of the world. She started to ask us questions; how did I become deaf? Why isn’t everyone else deaf? Why aren’t we all the same? She discovered for herself that outside of her home, the majority of the world are, in fact, hearing.

Although she had language – both English and British Sign Language – she was still forming her own identity. Attending a mainstream school with BSL-using staff, she worked out for herself that she was the minority and she didn’t know at first how to react to that.

Perhaps it’s a type of ‘rite of passage’ that every deaf child goes through – the moment you realise you are different to quite a lot of people. Coming to terms with your deafness and the fact that the world isn’t always a deaf-friendly place can be challenging, to say the least.

Yet one thing that always seems to help is to find others who are like you. It wasn’t until I went to a deaf school at the age of 16 that I finally found the self acceptance I had always sought. So, upon noticing that our daughter had questions about her deafness and how she felt about it, we decided to sign her up to a local youth club that was set up for deaf children and their siblings.

Both of my children have always been around sign language, yet they have become accustomed to more of an SSE (signed supported english) model of communicating due to attending school and making friends with hearing peers. So walking into a youth club with over 30 BSL-using children was a bit of a shock to their system at first!

I remember how my hearing son froze on the spot as he arrived and took in his surroundings; a large room filled with Lego-playing children conversing in fluent BSL, with hardly any noise. Yet he still made friends with a couple of other CODA’s (children of deaf adults) and came home declaring how he loved his new friends who were just like him, ‘hearing but their Mum is deaf!’

What was even more impressive was how our deaf daughter developed socially after just 3 weeks of attending the club. After the first session she brought some art work home that she had done whilst there. I noticed how she had doodled at the top of the paper ‘deaf is cool.’ She had never doodled or drawn about deafness before.

She also told us how a girl a couple of years older had begun teaching her some American Sign Language at the club. She soon started fingerspelling things out to us at home in ASL and now enjoys watching Dare-master on CITV, a children’s programme that is hosted by deaf presenter Danny Murphy.

Although our deaf daughter had access to language and two fully established languages, it is only by mixing with other children – deaf and hearing – that she seems to develop her ability to converse, adapt and make herself understood in different ways.

On top of that, socialising with other deaf children has given our daughter the opportunity to see deafness as ‘cool’ and she has developed her own deaf identity. One of her most recent drawings involved the quote “I am the deaf queen!” which amused me no doubt. Our hearing son is also enjoying getting to know other hearing children who have deaf parents too.

For both of our children, it seems that being able to socialise with peers who are like them has done more for their self esteem and sense of identity than anything myself and my husband could do. Perhaps from the age of 6 upwards, our social circle begins to influence us more than anything else.

Although the very early years are vital in regards to the foundation of language development, I would also say that regular socialisation with other peers not only cements language but develops the deaf child’s ability to converse, adapt and keep learning vocabulary.

As well as the benefit of developing ongoing language, it seems a positive social circle can influence how a child sees the world and how they ultimately see themselves. I know I am very fortunate to live close to a charity that provides this social group for free and given the benefits it is bringing, I truly hope that more of its kind is on offer across the UK.

If you live in the Midlands, feel free to email me if you’d like more information on the youth club I have mentioned. And if you happen to attend one in your local area, why not share details of it in the comments below for other parents of deaf children to see.

Warm wishes,

Rebecca

Rebecca Anne Withey is a freelance writer with a background in Performing Arts & Holistic health. She is also profoundly deaf, a sign language user and pretty great lipreader. She writes on varied topics close to her heart in the hope that they may serve to inspire others