CODAs

CHILDREN OF DEAF ADULTS: “Mother-Father-Deaf”

I love my work, but this week, I had extra fun teaching!  One of my clients came to Baby Fingers with her grandparents. They were so thrilled to be visiting, and to see their young grandchild soak up all the signs so quickly. This little girl is in a language-rich home; her parents both speak English with her, but her mom also uses ASL.  Her babysitter speaks to her in Spanish and provides sign support; she typically attends Baby Fingers classes with my client. You see, this little girl’s mom is a CODA, as her grandparents are both Deaf.

Statistics indicate that approximately 90% of deaf children in the United States are born into homes where the parents are hearing, and 88-92% of the children born to deaf parent(s) in the United States are hearing.  It’s these hearing children with deaf parents who are referred to as CODAs (younger children are KODAs, “kids” of deaf adults), especially if their parents consider themselves Deaf (capital D indicates “culturally Deaf,” including use of ASL).

Deaf parents can enhance the parent/child bond and their children’s self-esteem by passing along their knowledge of ASL, cultural norms, values, rules for behavior, traditions, and Deaf community heritage. These children are then really considered to be bilingual and bicultural.

Most CODAs learn sign language, and some learn enough to act as a communication bridge between the Deaf and the hearing world. This can be both a blessing and a burden – it is definitely a huge responsibility for a child. It’s not always easy for hearing children of Deaf parents to feel as though they have a true childhood, or that they’ve got solid footing in hearing or deaf worlds; people around them don’t always understand that their parents are not disabled – just, perhaps, “differently-abled,” or members of a different culture.

Here are a couple of stories shared by CODAs:

“At one time, I considered a career move and participated in a two-day vocational counseling program. One of the test instruments I completed was the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. The psychologist was familiar with the Deaf community, was aware my parents were deaf and realized that English was my second language. He explained that there were bilingual (ESL) norms for the Stanford-Binet and proceeded to interpret the test results using those ESL norms. It was the first time in my life that any professional or anyone else had considered me a bilingual person. I was 48 years old.”

“Even before I started school, I served as my parents’ guide in the hearing world. I interpreted in sign language for my mother when she went to the doctor. I dealt with the store clerk if anyone in the family needed new shoes. I was the one the mechanic would growl at when we had problems with the car’s transmission. I loved the challenge. But it involved a strange role reversal. Usually people ignore children and talk to adults. In our case, people would bend down and talk to me, while sometimes treating my parents as if they were cigar-store Indians.”

The grandparents I met this week were so delighted to visit their granddaughter in an environment that incorporated ASL. Not only did they feel connected and able to communicate freely, but – because their daughter signs and is providing more opportunities for her own daughter to learn – they felt even more connected with their grandchild.  Each time my client was reminded that Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t hear her words and needed to see them, she approximated the right sign. It was beautiful. They did express to me their disappointment in the fact that their son hardly signs, and has not exposed his children to ASL.

Many hearing parents – with deaf and hearing children – are fearful that using sign language will inhibit speech acquisition and development. Research, however, has demonstrated there is no indication that the use of sign language deters oral language development. Without signs, hearing children can still acquire language that they hear around them. Deaf children, however, need to have language made more accessible – something visual like sign language is what will grab their attention, fostering the learning process. Amplification devices can be extremely useful in helping someone with hearing loss alert to sound, and even differentiate between sounds – but the implant does not restore normal hearing, and many patients describe its sound as mechanical or “tinny”. However, with time and practice, the brain adapts to the new “sounds” (speech and environmental) as they begin to sound more natural.

Gary Morgan, professor of psychology at City University, London, has said that a delay in access to language and communication “can have severe and long lasting effects for a child’s cognitive, social-emotional and academic skills. Many deaf children arrive at school with the task of learning a first language rather than learning about the world through already developed language.” If language is not accessible, it cannot be acquired.

I’ve heard the following from Deaf children of hearing parents who do not sign:

“I don’t look forward to weekends at home (from residential school for the Deaf).  I mean, I guess I love my family, but they don’t talk to me – they don’t know how. Everyone just speaks, no one signs, and they don’t usually take the time to look at me long enough to read their lips…so I feel really lonely when I’m there.”

“At a young age, I used to harbor bitter resentment toward my mother for trying to make me hearing; I felt like I was not good enough for her. The communication barriers were overwhelmingly imposing. I remember avoiding my mother for days just so I didn’t have to talk to her. I felt stupid when I couldn’t understand her or get her to understand me.“

“I grew up as a deaf person in a hearing family. We didn’t sign. I went to public school with hearing aids and had intensive speech therapy. I excelled at lip reading and my speech is quite clear. I feel fortunate to have developed such strong spoken and written English, despite the struggles and challenges. I still felt liberated when I learned ASL in college and became involved in the Deaf community. It’s wonderful to have both worlds now.”
Some families with Deaf children choose Total Communication.  This method involves any means of communication, alone or in combination — sign language, voice, fingerspelling, lipreading, amplification, writing, gestures, pictures. The philosophy of total communication is that the method should be fitted to the child, instead of the other way around, and the communication method of choice is determined by the situation – it may be best to sign without voice, or to speak without signs, or perhaps to write notes back and forth.

Another blogger shared these words of wisdom:

“Advocates everywhere need to be more sensitive to the needs of parents of deaf children. The bottom line – if your child is deaf…carefully review all of the options available to you. And then, step away. Step away from the people trying to sell their philosophy on you. Sooner or later you will be able to make a very well-informed decision.” And that decision needs to work for your entire family – parents and children alike – or it won’t work for anyone.

There is a growing trend for hearing parents with hearing babies to participate in programs like Baby Fingers, learning to sign while the child is still pre-verbal. Research demonstrates that overtime, children who are exposed to sign language will have a higher IQ than their non-signing peers, as well as a larger vocabulary. These children may have a jump-start to literacy attainment and a stronger foundation for learning additional languages. Yes, I’m an advocate of ASL – I developed Baby Fingers, after all. My own two children began actively signing at 6 1/2 months, using two-sign phrases by 10 months, and at the one-year mark we were able to really converse! Well before their 2nd birthdays, they had dropped several signs due to their extensive speech – but they often used words we didn’t expect to hear from kids that young, and were difficult to pronounce, so fortunately they were able to clarify with signs! Will my children become geniuses as a result? Perhaps! But more importantly, they have been able to use a real language since well before they could speak, which was beneficial in the moment.  With ASL, we were able to ease into and out of a variety of challenging situations.

The purpose of this blog, however, is not to recommend one form of communication over another; it’s not to tell you whether a deaf child or adult should get a cochlear implant; it’s not to suggest anything, but rather to provide information. Actually, it was just to tell a story. I really wrote this blog to share my excitement over having my client in class with her grandparents, and her mom happens to be a CODA. The term for CODA in ASL is “Mother-Father-Deaf.”