hearing difficulties and communication 9
Carmen’s story
Some months after I was born, an illness spread quickly through
many children in my village. I got sick too, with a very high fever.
My parents were thankful when I got better, but they realized that
the illness had left me deaf. As I grew older, we all felt frustrated
because it was so hard to communicate even simple ideas or
needs. My family did not know how to communicate with me or
how to teach me.
If I wanted something, I had to show my family
by pointing at it. If it was not there to point at, I
could not make them understand.
After the revolution in Nicaragua, a school for deaf children
opened and my parents took me there. They realized the school
could help me in ways they could not. The teachers at the school
tried to teach us all to read lips and to speak. Even though many of
us could not learn to read lips and speak well, just being together
began to open up the world for us.
I had never known another deaf child. Most of
my new classmates had never met other deaf
children either. When I saw the other children
use signs, I began to use them too. For the first
time, I began to learn.
Many of us started school as older children. We communicated
using ‘home signs’ we had used with our families, and which were
all different. But we taught each other these signs and made up new
signs together. It was easy for us to use signs to communicate. As
we used more and more signs, it grew into a real language. Soon
we were able to communicate many things to each other, about
our families and friends, our plans and dreams, and things that
happened to us.
Helping Children Who Are Deaf (2004)