I had a hearing child of deaf parents ask me, in spoken English, "Are you the library-er?" I thought it was funny, but if you didn't know ASL and understand that librarian is signed ‘library-er’ I guess it wouldn't be that funny.
Sue (four years old) is a big fan of "America's Funniest Home Videos" and she gets to watch it often. One night we were having trouble getting her to go to bed. It was 10:30pm and we were getting pretty frustrated. Finally, she looks at me and asks, "Can you put my hearing aids back in?" I told her no, and then she said, "Please my ears are broken and I want to hear funny videos!" I tried really hard not to laugh as I was telling her that while I sympathized with her about her ears, but that it was way past her bedtime and I was not putting her hearing aids back in.
I work with students who have cognitive and behavioral challenges. One day we were working with a team from the golf therapy program, "Fore Hope." The golf pro asked my students if they could explain the game of golf. One of my students who has a lot of communication challenges said in sign language, “You hit this white ball and it goes really, really far. And then you hit it again and it goes really really, really far. (We were all smiling thinking, wow, he really has this concept!) And then you hit it again and it goes in the hole (again, we're all so happy he understands the game of golf)-- and then "Touchdown!"
One day Lauren came home from kindergarten and stated: “Today all the kids in class got in trouble for not listening to the teacher, but not me and Josh because we had on our FMs.”
During a recent ice/wind storm my son Ray (ten years old and hearing) crawled into our bed. We listened as the ice rained down sounding like glass breaking on our roof and he said “Where’s Lauren? She can’t hear this can she? She’s so lucky!” Since then I have heard “I wish I could turn off my hearing” from him much more than Lauren wishing she didn’t need her implant and hearing aid to hear.
My daughter Faith who is eight and hard of hearing has yet to say the word "seriously" correctly. One day she was talking to her sister and she kept trying to throw the word into their conversation. After trying to teach the correct way of saying it I finally said, "until you can say it correctly, you shouldn't say it" (that is the one statement that pushes her to perfect her speech). I hear her practice the word over and over again and all she could muster up was a confident, "sisily." She knew she hadn't mastered the word just yet so she blurted out, "Dude, are you for real?"
London just turned four years old. He wears a CI and a hearing aid. “When I grow up I will be a man and then I will get coffee!” I remember an earlier quote after I asked him, “London, why aren¹t you wearing pants?” He replied, “I’m not wearing pants because I don¹t want to wear any pants!”
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