Through the eyes of a Deaf Parent


We'd like to tell you a bit about us. We are a family of three, two hearing-impaired parents with a 5 year old hearing daughter ( June 1999 ). We are from Metropolitan Detroit, Michigan.

On Mike's side of the family, there are four siblings whom all are hearing-impaired since birth. The type of deafness he has is genetic. On Nancy's side of the family, there are five siblings whom all are hearing except for her who is the youngest in the family. The cause of her deafness is unknown.

When we found out that we were expecting a baby, we were thrilled. Nancy went through all the pre-natal testings like any first time expectant mothers would go through. Since there were some history of deafness in the family, her doctor requested genetic counseling to prepare us ahead of time. We were told of the chances of having a deaf child was 5 percent. Savannah was born a normal healthy infant. An ABR ( Auditory Brain Stem Response) was done 12 hours after birth that proved she had hearing.

How do we know that she's crying?
We have a device called "baby cry signaler". It's a device that is plugged into our AC outlet closest to where she is sleeping. You can plug the remote receivers any place throughout the house or wherever you wanted to be alerted. When she cries, the remote receiver is activated which makes the lamp light flash a few times to alert us. That gets our attention.
How do we talk to her?
We talk to her verbally and have taught her some very basic sign language. We are fluent in sign language but speak and lipread english as the primary language. She is also taught to get our full attention first before she speaks to us.
What do we do about talking in the car?
Some parents have talktive kids and some don't. We happen to have a talktive child. While driving in a car, we tell her that we can't talk and drive at the same time and we will answer her questions at a stop light when the car is idling or in the parking lot. We still have to keep reminding her not to talk to the driver while driving.
Why we send her to preschool at the age of 2 1/2?
We felt that she would pick up on her speech by socializing with other kids her age. We have been told several times that her speech sounds very normal.
What we have taught her about what to do when she sees a car in the street?
We taught her to sit on the grass or the sidewalk when a car drives by to give us a piece of mind. We are still working on street safety with her.
What other things we rely on?
We have a small tv monitor to watch what she is doing in another room. Fisher Price makes the tv monitors and they can be found at Toys R Us. Our TV is also closed captioned for the Deaf. All newer TV models (1994 to now) have built in closed captioned for the Deaf. It's on at all times for Savannah to learn how to read.
How do we talk on the phone?
We rely heavily on the TDD ( Telecommunication Device for the Deaf). The TDD is a typewriter that transmits various frequency sounds. The other party has to have one in order to communicate. We also rely on the MRC (Michigan Relay Center). The MRC does the interpreting for us. It is a three way call using the telephone representive as the middle person. The Representive also uses the TDD and the voice phone. The Relay Service is available in each state. We also have a telephone ring signaler which allows us to be alerted by the flashing of the remote receiver whenever the phone rings. Sometimes Savannah will tell us.
Do we have a hearing dog?
No we don't have a hearing dog but we have two cats. This may sound silly to you but we do rely on our two black cats' behaviors. For an example, one cat may be sleeping soundly and suddenly wakes up from his sleep and looks upstairs because a loud noise was made and heard. We usually go and investigate the source of noise. We've known the cats for a long time to know what the common behaviors are. We pretty much call the cats our "hearing cats". If you are considering getting a pet, PLEASE adopt cats and dogs from any animal shelter and PLEASE neuter or spay all pets.

  • DEAF LINKS

  • Guidelines on Comunications
  • Guidelines for Communcating
  • Deaf World Web
  • Animated American Sign Language Dictionary
  • Telecommunications Relay Services Directory
  • Deaf WWW Sites in the Internet
  • National Association for the Deaf
  • Deaf Arts abd Entertainment
  • NotePage,Inc.
  • Deafness
  • Deaf Clubs
  • Deaf Chat
  • Deaf Life
  • NTID

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