Clare Best from Raising Bilinguals on advocating for her deaf son and informing others of the bilingual approach in Australia (BSL)

My name is Clare Best, I live in Queensland, Australia and I am a Teacher of the deaf and a mother of two beautiful boys.

My journey around deafness is fairly unique I guess you could say! It started 15 years ago while studying at university. I took a job at an outside school hours care that happened to have deaf and hard of hearing kids.

I needed to learn basic Auslan in order to work there and my love for the language really grew from there. I started working as a teacher of the deaf two years later and never looked back.

That should be where my story ends, but fast forward to 2021 – I was pregnant with my second son and had just finished up work as Head of Department for Deaf Education. Two months later I gave birth to my beautiful boy and six weeks after that we were sitting in the audiology clinic being told that he was deaf.

It was a pretty huge curveball to be hit with, but at the same time it didn’t completely shock me as I felt like I’d been preparing for this role for the last decade.

I still went through all the same feelings new parents on the journey go through, but I also had this additional lens of knowing just how brilliant and capable deaf and hard of hearing children were. I have a lot of Deaf friends in the community and we were so lucky to have them band around our family and our little Frank from the moment we found out.

The main motivator for documenting my journey with Frank on social media, came from the confronting experience I had as a parent moving through those early weeks, months and years. Before becoming a mother of a deaf child, I wasn’t aware just how little support families were given in that critical time after discovering their child was deaf.

I also wasn’t aware of the conflicting advice and lack of informed support that parents were faced with when approaching their child’s language development.

I decided to share my story as I wanted to show families that they didn’t have to make a choice between spoken or signed languages or between the Deaf or hearing communities.

I wanted to show that parents  can give their child both and support them holistically so they can  thrive as a little deaf / hard of hearing person. I also wanted to demonstrate just how capable these kids are and that they are only limited by the limitations placed upon them.

I have had an incredibly positive response from the public in both deaf and hearing communities. The overwhelming support I’ve received has truly been humbling and has helped motivate me to continue my work in this space and want to help and support more families support their deaf and hard of hearing children.

Although my target audience is really parents raising deaf and hard of hearing kids, I also have deaf community members, specialists and educators who follow along on our journey, and I am really grateful for their support.

My life’s passion is to shift the narrative for our deaf and hard of hearing kids and to build awareness of the need for access and equitable opportunity.

I think there are a lot of archaic and outdated beliefs still circulating around deafness. The biggest one being that deafness causes cognitive or intellectual delays – which is completely false. Reduced hearing levels do not affect cognitive function, it is the lack of consistent access to a rich, native language, otherwise known as language deprivation.

I think society, in general, also places a lot of emphasis and value on a person’s ability to speak “well”, and if a person cannot do that (whether that be because it’s their second language or they cannot access spoken language) they are suddenly pigeon holed as having a cognitive or intellectual disability.

So, unfortunately for a lot of our deaf and hard of hearing kids where access to auditory input is not a given and their speech acquisition varies, they are instantly placed in this “less able” box with a whole bunch of assumptions thrown in with them.

At the end of the day, when we give deaf and hard of hearing kids rich, accessible language from as early as possible – they can and often do achieve at the same level as their hearing peers (if not higher!)

I think every experience my son and I have encountered whether that be in the office of a specialist or at the playground talking to a stranger, stems from a place of innocent ignorance. People don’t know what they don’t know, and so often we will receive comments and be confronted with conversations that can be quite hurtful and ableist without the person on the other side realising the impact of their words.

We’ve had specialists tell us our son is delayed in language as he can’t speak the way his hearing peers do. Yet via his first language Auslan, he is exceeding expectations and hitting milestones 2 years above his age bracket.

We’ve had the same specialists tell us that if we don’t give him cochlear implants, he will never eventuate to anything. We’ve had strangers on the street tell us they will pray for him to be healed and that it’s obviously something that I did in pregnancy that caused his deafness.

We’ve had people tell us that signed languages are a waste of time and will limit his opportunities in a hearing world. The list goes on and on, however I have tried to make peace with the fact that people simply do not have the awareness yet.

As best as I can, I educate and advocate in a way that hopefully shifts their perspectives so they can see our little guy and every deaf and hard of hearing person through a more informed lens.

The misconception that hearing assistive devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants “cure” deafness is such a saturated belief in society and gives people permission NOT to provide language and general access for deaf and hard of hearing kids.

This is because it is assumed with devices that they can now function and access their environment like a hearing child. This then causes a ripple effect that leaves over half a cohort language deprived, which after the age of 6 – 7 is generally irreversible.

I hope mainstream society will come to understand that deafness isn’t something we need to eradicate or “cure” but embrace. And that deaf and hard of hearing children have the potential to reach the same goals as their hearing peers when given the right environment to thrive in.

I would ask the government here to make Australian Sign Language (Auslan) a nationally recognised language and implement mandates that ensure all mainstream media, news, policies and government initiatives are 100% accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people via the inclusion of Auslan and captions.

Additionally, implementing Auslan as a mandatory LOTE subject in schools across the country (facilitated by Deaf and native Auslan users).

To any parents currently experiencing what I’ve been through, please know that right now it feels like the world is caving in and the emotions are coming hard and fast, but I guarantee you that the journey you are about to embark on with your child will be one of the greatest you have ever experienced.

Deaf and hard of hearing children are so brilliant and capable and bring pure magic into everything they do. Inform yourself and don’t be scared to ask for a second opinion. Surround yourself with a strong village and take advocacy breaks.

Finally, look after yourself – this journey is not a sprint, It’s a marathon.

For more support, tools and tips – follow Clare @raisingbilinguals_ or visit www.raisingbilingualsdhh.com