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The Family

     As educators become aware of some of the behaviours that may result in a potential hearing loss, the next step is to speak with parents about seeking a doctor/specialists to check the child’s hearing (Allen et al., p. 146). This process is definitely hard for the educator(s) to introduce to the parents, that their child may have or have a disability, as it can intensify the levels of stress. The Five Stage Theory was developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who wrote on how physicians treat dying patients, in which similar feelings can be connected to parents that recently find out that their child has a disability (British Medical Journal, 2004).

The Five Stages of Grief include:

  1. Shock and Denial

  2. Anger

  3. Depression and Detachment

  4. Dialogue and Bargaining

  5. Acceptance

     Unlike death and permanent loss, most parents lose the hope of raising a child who can function in a typical society (Presswalla, 2017). However with time, support and further information, parents will eventually come to terms with accepting their child’s functioning level.  Educators should not discourage hope, but rather promote it. As they work with children to increase their learning, growth, and development, they should encourage parents to have the ambition, and positive mentality that their child will succeed. The child’s inability to process communication from others especially family members, can be frustrating when setting limits and behaviour with the child (Presswalla, 2017). The key ingredient to any child’s success is developing a relationship of “trust and encouragement … to support the child’s development of a positive sense of self” (Presswalla, 2017).

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     Educators, parents and other medical personnel, need to be in unison in communicating different strategies that help support the children. Consistency is essential between all relationships to allow for the development of the child. Parents of children who are deaf make an independent decision to teach their children sign language, creating a discrete culture group. Parents encouraged a greater cognitive development and academic achievement compared to the children who are born deaf immersed in the community, learning sign language from school. “Less than 10 percent of children who are deaf are born with deaf parents, meaning 90 or more percent of children with an hearing impairment, their first exposure to the American Sign Language, will be in the school setting” (Shantie & Hoffmeister, 2000). Thus according to Moeller,  high levels of family involvement correlated with positive language outcomes, limited family involvement, and was associated with significant child language delays at five years of age, especially when intervention was late (2000, p. 8). Along with the many challenges, finding the time to attend sign language classes to work one on one with your children in order to communicate, can take an emotional toll. Educators pursue to enrich these parents to be more involved with increasing their child’s communication skills. This can include frequent calls/ visits with the parents, teachers and audiologists to identify how the child is doing not only in school, but at home as well. Knowing the family is on board with what is best for the child, ensures that the child will have consistency of practicing communication.

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