So, here we were with a child, who’d most likely developed his hearing impairment at the age of 3, who was now 7 years old and in 2nd grade.  Because of his other health issues, he was already in a classroom with small group instruction.  I wasn’t prepared to even think about changing schools.  I’d just become comfortable and confident in the teachers and staff at this school!  The audiologist who fit him for hearing aids seemed to think that his high tech hearing aids would be all he needed.  Her advise was to let him learn to use his technology.  So when the school called a re-eval meeting to provide hearing services to this newly diagnosed hearing impaired child, I had very little idea what I was getting myself into.  I was prepared to keep him in the school he was in.  After all, he already had small group instruction, and a new FM which would boot to his new hearing aids was on order.  What more could they offer? 

As I recall, I’d only briefly met the Itinerant who came to my son’s school to provide deaf education services.  There was another boy at this particular school who also had a hearing impairment and she was already coming to the school to provide services to him.  She was of course the person who represented the Deaf/HOH program at the re-eval meeting.  She began explaining modalities to us.  I had no clue what she was talking about.  “Modality?”  “What the heck is a modality?”  I’m sure she could see my eyes glazing over and the walls coming up.  Then she began talking about which school he should go to.  That was it!  I wasn’t interested in talking about changing schools.  She was a deaf education teacher, she should be coming here to teach him! My first assumption was that if he were in a hearing impaired school that he would be taught in ASL.  How was I supposed to start communicating with a 7 year old, whom I’d always spoken to, in a new language which I didn’t even know?  How would I be able to help him with his homework?  I finally began to understand that there were 3 programs available within Fairfax County, (though I didn’t yet understand why there were 3).  Somewhere within the discussion I began to see the need for a change in venue, but to where?  To me, a hearing individual, I saw the benefit to a program which taught my child in English.  I wanted to be able to communicate with my son in English, not something else.  His verbal skills were already delayed, I wanted an educational setting which would be best capable of bringing that delay up to grade level. When they explained how the school that used ASL would often teach classes without speaking the words, I knew that could not be the right choice for my child. He already did understand a certain level of English.  He understood plurals and even had some concept of when to use past tense although he didn’t use it well. This is when the discussion turned to Cued Speech. 

The representative from the Deaf/HOH program really wanted us to visit the school which used Cued Speech.  She had tried to explain Cued Speech to me, but I have to admit, the concept was too foreign to me.  I couldn’t understand how it would work. The administrator of the current school whole heartedly agreed to a visit and basically held my hand in order to make me go.  So, off we went on our own little field trip. I met the lady who was the coordinator for the CLT’s and she was very energetic and seemed to understand what my son needed for the classroom.  We briefly met the audiologist who was quite confident that the transition could be easily made to this school.  But, what “sold” me was watching the children who attended this school.  We stood at the door of the pre-school classroom watching the children interact with the teachers and with one another as well.  I watched as one little girl, who was described to me as nearly profoundly deaf, was called on (and cued to) to describe the color the teacher pointed to.  As she clearly and intelligibly said “GREEN” while cueing it back to the teacher as well, I realized I was in the right place.  Here were children with hearing losses more profound than my son’s; who were responding to questions, understanding, communicating, interacting with one another, and they were doing so in English.  I was amazed.  We stopped to watch in the classroom which contained the children in my son’s own grade level.  The two boys in the classroom especially stood out.  I watched and wondered “would these children be my son’s new friends, his buddies?” 

The next step would be to learn this new “system” of Cued Speech.  I didn’t even really know what a phoneme was.  I’d never been taught phonics in school.  My year in school had been taught to spell and read with the “whole word” method.   I didn’t think of words in terms of sounds or groups of sounds, but rather as letters strung together.  I was going to have to break my habit of thinking of typing letters as opposed to breaking down sounds.  When I thought the word “cat” I would think of the letters: c-a-t.  I’d never learned to think of it as the sounds:  /ka/-/t/.  I was going to have to rethink my own approach to language.