Insight: I pulled my deaf child out of speech therapy (BSL)

As a hearing parent to a deaf child, I am fully aware of the privilege that I have in this world. I can communicate effortlessly and easily with most people I come across. For my son, however, it’s a different matter.

My son was born with a profound deafness in both ears. Doctors urged us to implant our son as early as possible and as new parents taking on the advice of professionals, we tried to do so. Unfortunately the operation was not a success and the implant deemed useless. It’s apparently a rare occurrence, but it does happen.

After the implant op failed, we were encouraged to try again on another ear, however I decided to seek support from other parents going through similar journeys with their deaf children.

Discovering this support network was a lifesaver and also the reason my husband and I started to learn and use BSL. Our son is now a confident and happy BSL user and although he doesn’t hear any sounds nor can he speak at all, he is bright and funny and full of character.

During primary school, our teacher of the deaf made several visits to our son who was in a “hearing impaired resource base” – terrible name, I know! I always felt these visits had a negative tinge to them, she was always stating what he couldn’t do. He couldn’t hear his name or respond to it without looking. He couldn’t hear sounds in the classroom. He couldn’t use his voice. Couldn’t, couldn’t – constantly.

The next thing that was suggested to us was regular speech therapy to “bring out his voice.” I laughed when I saw the letter about this. Bring out his voice?! He already had one with his hands!

I resisted this for a while but in the end I thought okay, humour me, see what happens. I was shocked to see the speech therapist report labelling my son uncooperative and angry.

I asked him what happened and he told me how he was being made to make sounds which he didn’t understand nor did he see the point of doing. He cannot hear nor make sense of his own voice so how can these sessions benefit him?!

Despite sending a series of emails stating that he would not be going through that again, the speech therapist continued to visit him and his deaf class mates at school. In the end I visited the school on the day I knew it was going to take place and asked to sit in on my sons session.

He wasn’t uncooperative, he just didn’t understand! And he wasn’t angry, he was frustrated. Making sounds with his voice box or mouth means nothing to my son and why is he under pressure to do so?

Chatting about it with other parents I realised that the whole purpose of speech therapy is to enable a deaf child to speak and be understood. But what happens when a deaf child does not have any control of their voice? Why can they not use the language they KNOW to express themselves?

Too often we hearing people want deaf children to be fixed or be like us, I know that when I first had my son I wanted this for him. I grieved the son I thought I was going to get.

But what my son has taught me is that it’s okay to be different, you can still find another way and live your life the way that suits you.

For my son, speech therapy is pointless and cruel. It would be of more benefit for others to meet him half way and either use English notes or learn to sign to him!

Please stop assuming all deaf children are the same and can learn to talk. They’re not hearing children and no matter how hard they try they will still be deaf. Let’s just love and accept them as they are.

This blog has been written anonymously as part of the Insight series – where readers are invited to share their story or news about their interesting job with The Limping Chicken. If you have a story to share please email rebecca@rawithey.com 

Image courtesy of i-stock photos.