2024 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 17-19, 2024 • Denver, CO
3/19/2024 | 2:15 PM - 2:40 PM | Spoken English or ASL? But Why Not Both? A Lived Experience Family Perspective | Granite A-C
Spoken English or ASL? But Why Not Both? A Lived Experience Family Perspective
Imagine this; you and your partner spent months, perhaps years, trying to become pregnant. Longing for that moment when you would see those two pink lines on the home pregnancy test, crying tears of joy because you are so excited to have a child. Fast forward through the next nine months. You have a healthy pregnancy, you are preparing your child’s arrival as you and your families excitedly await in anticipation. You labor, in my case for 28 hours, to deliver this child that you have waited to meet. A few hours later, a technician comes in, and your child fails the newborn hearing screening test. You don’t really grasp what this means, you are a first-time parent, no one in your family is deaf or hard of hearing. Now what? Anxiety creeps in, fear creeps in. So much unknown. How you imagined this happening is not at all how it is happening. Huh? He’s…deaf?
Instead of blissfully enjoying your maternity leave at home in your cozy home around the holidays, you quickly become known to your audiologist, inundated with services and strangers coming to your home. Your child is not formally diagnosed with hearing loss until after they are 6 months old, but some families forced to wait longer for access to technology and language. What’s missing here? Language. Options. Freedom of parents to choose what is best for their children and their family.
This presentation will dive into the lived experiences of a parent with two children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, both with the same genetic test results, both children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. One of them uses ASL, and the other uses ASL and English. As a parent who is walking this journey, with now a child who is 9-years old and is hard of hearing, and one who is 8-years old and Deaf, I want to share with you all what I wish could change. How parents should be afforded the opportunity to choose ASL, spoken English, or both for their family, for their child. How we cannot eradicate a culture because it’s seemingly easier to make every child hearing.
- Freedom of parents to choose what is best for their children and their family.
- I want to share with you all what I wish could change.
- How we cannot eradicate a culture because it’s seemingly easier to make every child hearing.
Presentation:
3478265_16461KelseyStock.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
3478265_16461KelseyStock.docx
Presenters/Authors
Kelsey Stock
(Primary Presenter,Author), Kansas Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, kelsey.stock@ks.gov;
Communication Access Services Program Manager
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.