DEAF not DUMB

A little insight into Miss A 🙂

Well as I mentioned Miss A (3.5 years old) is Deaf and in my opinion has been since she was about 9-12 months old (after an acute illness and 2 hospitalizations) although I will never really know. We didn’t have it confirmed until she was 2. As it stands today she is profoundly Deaf in her right ear and Severely Deaf in her right. Her remaining hearing could go at anytime as she has a condition called LVAS. She wears adorable pink hearing aids with pink and purple moulds. Her first language is Auslan but she is slowly starting to speak more and more as time goes on.

Some parents find the word “DEAF” hard to accept and prefer the term “hard of hearing”. I am not really sure why but sometimes when I listen to them talk or read their stories in forums I begin to think it comes down to the same stigma Deaf people have been living with throughout history and that is the idea that “Deaf = Dumb” and they don’t want people thinking that of their child.
I am sorry but that isn’t the case one little bit. Yes my daughter is Deaf, she is the only Deaf person I am aware of within the family but that doesn’t make her dumb, it does however mean that her speech and language are delayed but that’s her only delay. She is still a regular 3 year old girl who love dolls, makeup, dressup and talking on the phone. She is not in anyway lacking in quality of life and the things she for lack of a better word “misses” due to being unable to hear she makes up for visually. Her world may differ slightly from her hearing peers but I can tell just by looking at her she doesn’t mind one bit.