working together to help children who are deaf 145
Afterwards, you can talk about:
• Was it difficult to explain something without talking?
• How did you feel when someone did not understand?
• What did other children do that helped you communicate with
them? What else could they have done to help?
• How might you communicate with children who cannot speak?
Then you could make up some signs for the ideas you tried. See how
much easier it is to communicate with signs.
This is a good time to tell children about their local sign language
or about how families can make up signs to help each other
communicate (see Chapter 4). To help children learn some home
signs, see pages 40 to 43 in Chapter 4.
Services for deaf children and their families
All people need basic services such as water, electricity, transportation,
education, and health care. It usually takes the resources of a whole
community to provide services like these. The same is true of services
needed by deaf children and their families. People in the community
have knowledge, resources, and skills they can share. By working
together, a group of families or an entire community can organize efforts
toward things like:
• learning how to check
the hearing of young
children.
• helping local health
workers learn to recognize
and treat ear infections,
which can help prevent
deafness.
A safety sign like
this can make a
street safer for
everyone!
• finding a place where
families with deaf children
can meet.
• organizing speech or sign language classes.
• helping hearing people learn to talk so that
children who can hear a little can understand them.
• translating between sign and speech at schools or play groups.
Helping Children Who Are Deaf (2004)