Michael May will be three next month, already he has skills, and problems that most of us don’t even know about.
Michael’s mother Fiona had Rubella when she was 13 weeks pregnant.
She was told her baby would have a 30 percent chance of being born deaf, even so he was eight months old before his parents realised he was definitely deaf.
“We were really didn’t know what to look for,” said Fiona. “If he had been the second child we would have known within two weeks.”
They were living in Auckland at the time and Michael was taken for tests to the National Acoustics Centre, who took a mould of Michael’s ear, and advised a Wellington doctor and a Wellington deaf advisor about him.
He was not able to be fitted with a hearing aid until an ear nose and throat specialist had seen him, but before that he needed a doctor in Wellington. So he was 12 months old before he finally got his first hearing aid.
Eventually he was fitted with an aid for his other ear, “It took six weeks before he would wear it though,” said Fiona. “He kept pulling it out.”
Michael and his mother talk through what is known as total communication. Which means they use speech and lip reading, listening and signing.
These break down into other areas, such as finger spelling, and written, and face and body language. The idea being to communicate.
Fiona said their first real help came from the Puketiro Centre who organised a six week course for parents of severe to profoundly deaf children.
“It was marvellous,” said Fiona, “There was a series of lectures, and the other good thing is most of us have stayed together as a support group and formed the Wellington Association for Deaf Children.”
Michael will probably be going to play centre or kindergarten this year. Already he has a full week. Speech and music therapists once a week, an itinerant teacher of the deaf twice a week, and visits from the deaf advisor from the Education Department.
UNDERSTANDING
Fiona started using signs with Michael when he was about 16 months old. “He picked up six signs in a week,” she said. “Bird was the first sign he learnt and it was also the first word he had a sound for.
“Every sign he learns, that is the next word he learns too.
“Perhaps the biggest advantage is that not only can the child understand you, but you can understand them.”
“I know of one deaf boy who stopped having tantrums when he was able to say he was angry,” she said.
One problem Fiona has encountered is that deaf children can be very noisy, this is when signing comes in useful in public; people quickly become aware the child is deaf.
Michael has a brother, Stephen, seven months old. “The next child tends to miss out a bit, because I am always involved in doing things for Michael,” said Fiona.
Any parent interested in the Wellington Association for Deaf Children should contact Norma Taylor, — 848-924, or Fiona May, 877-666.
Deaf Week
Deaf Awareness Week, aimed at promoting awareness of the problems and solutions for deaf people, runs from April 8 until April 14.
Displays have been arranged in libraries, and James Smith store and Porirua, and a mobile aid van will be travelling around the greater Wellington area with its displays.
Organisations involved are The Field Office for the Deaf, who are part of the New Zealand Association of the Deaf, The Wellington Deaf Society, the Wellington Association for Deaf Children, the Hearing Association and The Friends of the Deaf.
