Dear Early Intervention Specialist,
I am so excited we met you! After our meeting I felt so relieved that there was a system in place to help us navigate this new territory with our newly identified deaf son. I must admit I was scared but after talking with you I feel so confident. I never imagined that there would be so many things for us to access for help. My husband and I are working on learning sign language and are curious about our options. I can't wait for our meeting next week!
Warmest regards,
Mother of deaf infant
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Dear parent of deaf infant,
It was great meeting you! It is so rare that parents wants to sign. We are really excited to work with you. I can't tell you how frustrated we get. So I am giving you some information to look over. We need to evaluate your son and get him on an IFSP. That just gives us an idea of where he is at so we can better service him.
Early Intervention Specialist
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Dear Early Intervention Specialist,
Thank you again! It is such a relief to have someone to talk with about this. Do we have to wait for the evaluation to get some help? I have been doing some reading and it tells me we have a child who has been without language for almost a year. We are tying our best but feel nervous. Again than you for your help.
Warmest regards,
Mother of deaf infant
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Dear parent of deaf infant,
Don't worry, once we get the IFSP we can help you.
Early Intervention Specialist
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Dear Early Intervention Specialist,
So we had that IFSP meeting, thanks! Can we get an ASL teacher to come to our home now? Our friends feel weird that they can't communicate and they are having a hard time trying to find a class.
Also when do we get to have a deaf adult come and show us the ropes?
Warmest,
Mother of deaf infant
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Mrs. Mother of deaf infant
Well you didn't have that included in your IFSP. We need to have a meeting for that.
Sincerely,
Early Intervention Specialist
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Early Intervention specialist,
Oh, sorry I didn't understand. I am so focused right now I didn't think to research the fine print. Can we schedule another appointment for that please?
Mother of Deaf infant.
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mrs. mother of deaf Infant,
I will be coming to visit you next week. We can discuss it then.
Sincerely,
EARLY INTERVENTION SPECIALIST
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Oh, OK, we need help now.......
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I realize language acquisition is critical for the infant. It's ridiculous that deaf children do not have the support of a language ASAP after Deaf is diagnosed. It should be offered IN THE HOSPITAL. For what it's worth, ASL for the late-deafened is similarly ignored.
ReplyDeleteOK-- yes-- I already have a language. A language I can no longer understand when people speak it. It's hard to learn a new language at 30, 40, and 50 when you're raising a hearing family, working and attending soccer games every weekend.
Thinking that the Dept of Voc Rehab's focus was on rehabilitation, I quite wrongly assumed they would have some resources for those with acquired deafness to learn ASL. Nope. The only option is self-study and possibly taking classes geared towards young hearing college kids--- which I have done.
Thing is, ASL doesn't help me a bit unless the people close to me learn it too. Like my hearing husband who is also 'older', works a full time job and is busy on the weekends with family committments.
So where do we get that support? WHERE? I have taken two years of ASL. I can sign a little. No one signs to me. That's the problem. I don't need to sign. I can speak. I NEED people to sign to me. My dream is to have a Deaf rehab counselor work one-on-one with me and my family, so that I could at least communicate with them without lipreading. You would think this is a no-brainer, wouldn't you? I live in a large city, and NOTHING is available like what I've just described.
Lacking that support, is it any wonder that most late-deafened people opt for cochlear implants as soon as they qualify?
WOW! My friend that is a powerful post.
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