At the Deaf Kids Fest on Sunday, kindergartners and preschoolers ran and played, had flowers and balloons painted on their cheeks and made new friends.
All the usual kid stuff–except for the noise. The festival, a first anniversary celebration for the Chicagoland Deaf Parent-to-Parent Project, was unusually quiet.
Of course, there was all kinds of communication going on. Children and parents used American Sign Language, lip reading and simple demonstrations to get their messages across.
To make a new friend, they smiled.
Parents of deaf children from across Chicago and the suburbs came to interact at the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, 2102 W. Ogden Ave.
More than 75 families participated during the past year in the pioneer Parent-to-Parent Project, where hearing parents of deaf children learn from deaf parents of deaf children. The kids just have fun and interact.
“We came to this because I think it’s really important for (my daughters) to see other deaf kids and adults,” said Cassie Hoffman of Deerfield.
She and her husband, Jim, are hearing. Their daughters–5-year-old Estie and 2-year-old Rikki–are deaf.
When the Hoffmans learned their firstborn couldn’t hear, they were shocked and afraid.
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Neither parent had any deaf relatives or friends, they said. They couldn’t converse in sign language, and they didn’t know what to expect.
“When (hearing) parents find out that their child is deaf, it’s like a loss. They go through the whole grieving process,” said Ann Ventola, program coordinator.
Cassie and Jim Hoffman sought help and advice from deaf adults and professionals. When Estie was 6 months old, they began learning American Sign Language.
But for many parents, it’s not that simple.
The deaf population is small and tends to be close-knit.
It can be very difficult for hearing parents to penetrate the deaf community, and vice versa, according to parents and educators on both sides of the fence. Sometimes the most obvious source of information for a hearing parent–deaf parents–seems out of reach.
The Parent-to-Parent Project is about changing all that.
“We try to build a bridge between the deaf community and the hearing community,” said Michael Ostrower, district administrator for Jewish Family & Community Services, which co-sponsors the project. “We’re a unique program, maybe the only one like this in the country.”
The project was designed for hearing parents of deaf children age 6 or younger. Participating families attend four, 2-hour weekly sessions with deaf parents, a social worker and a psychologist.
The program is co-sponsored by the Mt. Sinai Hospital Mental Health Services for Deaf Adults and Children program.
It is the brainchild of Lynda Myers, a parent and deaf social worker with Jewish Family & Community Services.
“Having a deaf kid is very frustrating for hearing parents. It is very frustrating for the child too,” Myers said.
The Parent-to-Parent Project also teaches hearing parents the importance of facial expressions–a sharp look means the same thing as a loud, commanding tone of voice. And hearing parents learn how to tackle teaching a deaf child to read.
Most deaf children aren’t diagnosed until they are between 2 and 3 years old, said Michael Lotke, a pediatrician who works with deaf kids and parents at Mt. Sinai Hospital.
By that age, much of the crucial window for learning language skills has closed–so a program like Parent-to-Parent that deals with preschoolers is very important.
“It’s the child without communication at home, at the doctor’s office, anywhere, that’s the tragedy,” Lotke said.
Juan Bernal, a deaf adult, grew up in a hearing family that never learned sign language.
He was amazed when he met his wife, Anna, who is also deaf and grew up in a non-hearing home in which everyone could communicate and participate in a family gathering with signed conversation.
The couple lives on the South Side, where they are raising two young children–both of whom are deaf–and working to educate hearing parents of deaf kids. They are role models for parents who worry that their non-hearing children will never become functional adults.
“Hearing people feel really embarrassed–`My child is deaf, what do I do?’ But really, we’re all human,” Bernal said through a sign language interpreter. “The No. 1 thing is communication–and to remember that they’re just children, after all.”