Parenting a Deaf Child – For DeafRead Viewers

Bill Accessibility & Equal Access, , ,

*Caveat: I know nothing about parenting a deaf child. I didn’t personally know any deaf person until I was in my forties.

I started to search the web, as if I had just discovered that my baby/child was deaf.

Start with a search for “Deaf Child” or “Parenting a Deaf Child” – You can get to

http://deafness.about.com/c/ec/1.htm – “Your Deaf Child”
An email series on raising deaf children. I don’t know what it’s about, since it’s a newsletter so I click on some other tabs, and find…

http://deafness.about.com/od/newtodeafness/u/dailylife.htm#s2 – Parenting Deaf or Hard of Hearing Children and Teens
There are some good resources here, but how about something that will help me when I just discovered my baby is deaf?

Search for “Raising a deaf child”, you can get
http://www.raisingdeafkids.org/ Raising Deaf Kids by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Special sections:
http://www.raisingdeafkids.org/growingup/ gives links to dealing with it at different ages.
http://www.raisingdeafkids.org/communicating/choices/ gives the different ways that a deaf/hh child can be taught to communicate.
http://www.raisingdeafkids.org/meet/parents/communicating.php Parents talk about how they decided

This looks like a great resource! If you are deaf, or a deaf parent, please evaluate and comment. It looks like a good presentation of the information that the parent of a deaf child would want to know, presented in a way they might be asking questions.

Other than that, I don’t find many results that answer my questions, and help me research the options. If you have other websites, that are geared toward really helping a parent with the questions they might have, please post them!

Remember when telling your stories of your deaf experiences on the internet, that deaf parents will be watching to understand what their child will be experiencing, so please subtitle those experiences, to help them to understand what it is like to be deaf, to experience being left out of family holidays, or the helpfulness of being around other deaf, and signing, or the experience of going to a deaf/totalcommunication/Auditory-Verbal education. I would like to see those links too, and put together some resources for the deaf and hard of hearing services organization in my town.

3 thoughts on “Parenting a Deaf Child – For DeafRead Viewers”

  3. Thanks Karen! Those do look like good articles.

    If you have any input into them – they , or at least the sections and titles, are not “Search Engine Friendly” to the point of answer the questions a first time parent of deaf might ask or search for.

    The have the look/titles of Doctoral Papers, rather than helpful articles.

    Early Intervention
    * The Eligibility Survival Guide **NEW
    * Services and Supports: A Model Program in Colorado **NEW
    * Natural Environments: A Call for Policy Guidance **NEW
    * Birth to Three Corner – No Time to Be Afraid **NEW

    That is not demeaning the content, or event the titles of the articles – those are great resources.

    Love the homepage, love the goals! Bookmarked it, will use it, thank you very much!
    From the homepage:

    Hands & Voices is a nationwide non-profit organization dedicated to supporting families and their children who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as the professionals who serve them. We are a parent-driven, parent/professional collaborative group that is unbiased towards communication modes and methods. Our diverse membership includes those who are deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing impaired and their families who communicate orally, with signs, cue, and/or combined methods. We exist to help our children reach their highest potential.

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