Hearing children of deaf parents – a new social work client group?

ABSTRACT

This article presents the initial results from empirical research targeting the life experience of healthy children living with their deaf parents in the period of their dependency. A healthy child of parents with hearing difficulties grows up naturally bilingual and this is what places the child into the position of a native interpreter for the parents. This special situation is primarily determined by the culture and language of people with hearing difficulties and by the information barriers which stand between the deaf people and their social milieu. The qualitative design with a semi-structured interview was chosen for the empirical research. The goal was to determine the personal experience of the respondents with the attributed social role of the native interpreters into sign language during their childhood. The empirical research resulted in some extremely interesting issues, for example, how an inappropriate form of burden which is placed on a child’s shoulders by the parents and formal institutions can be connected with the form of the parents’ education. This article also formulates issues of possible ways of supporting families with deaf parents and healthy children in the process of solving the problems named above.

SHRNUTÍ

Příspěvek přináší první výstupy empirického šetření zaměřeného na životní zkušenosti slyšících dětí neslyšících rodičů v době jejich závislého dětství. Slyšící dítě neslyšících rodičů vyrůstá přirozeně jako bilingvní, a to ho dostává do pozice rodilého tlumočníka svých rodičů. Tuto specifickou situaci výrazně determinuje kultura a jazyk neslyšících a informační bariery, které oddělují neslyšící od jejich sociálního okolí. Pro empirické šetření byl zvolen kvalitativní design za využití techniky polostrukturovaného rozhovoru. Cílem bylo zjistit osobní zkušenosti oslovených respondentů s jejich připsanou sociální rolí rodilých tlumočníků do znakového jazyka v dětském věku. Z prvních výstupů empirického šetření vyplývá zejména, že pro slyšící děti neslyšících rodičů může být tlumočení rodičům zejména v úředních záležitostech zátěží nepřiměřenou jejich věku a sociální zralosti. Empirické šetření dále otevírá některé zajímavé otázky, například jak může být nepřiměřená míra zátěže kladená na slyšící děti neslyšícími rodiči ovlivněná formou vzdělávání rodičů. Zde proti sobě, jak se prozatím rýsuje, stojí skupina rodičů, kteří do vzdělávací instituce docházeli z domova, a skupina rodičů, kteří od útlého věku pobývali během studia základní školy na týdenních internátech, což bylo specifické pro vzdělávací politiku České republiky v době totalitního režimu ve vztahu k osobám se zdravotním postižením. Současně se příspěvek táže na možné strategie podpory rodin neslyšících rodičů se slyšícími dětmi k řešení nastíněných problémů.

KEYWORDS:

• Parents with hearing impairment
• healthy children
• native interpreter
• personal experience with a specific social role

KLÍČOVÁ SLOVA:

• neslyšící rodiče
• slyšící (zdravé) děti
• rodilý tlumočník
• osobní zkušenost se specifickou sociální rolí

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Eva Klimentová is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, Andragogy and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts at Palacky University Olomouc. Her dominant activities belong to the area of educating existing and future social workers. Her research and scientific activities have their basis in the area of people endangered by social exclusion and people socially excluded, in the last few years especially homeless people, hearing children of deaf parents, Romani people (Sinti), victims and witnesses of domestic violence. She is also engaged in the charity activities to support homeless people.

Vít Dočekal is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, Andragogy and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts at Palacky University Olomouc. Vít was involved in research on homelessness in the Czech Republic and is also interested in adult education, experiential learning and critical theories in education.

Kristina Hynková graduated in social work at the Department of Sociology, Andragogy and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts at Palacky University Olomouc. Her personal and research interest lies in the topic of hearing children of deaf parents.

Notes

1. In the majority of cases, the parents of the respondents are pre-lingual deaf and the state of permanent damage to their hearing is in the stage of practical or complete deafness. Pre-lingual deaf is the loss of hearing congenital or acquired during the period before fixation of speech, which is approximately before the age of six. (Lejska, 2003). The time of the loss of hearing is significant for the development of expressions and vocabulary, which affects subsequently the ability of an individual to communication orally – through spoken language (Potměšil, 1999). Hrubý (1998) states that there are approximately 7600 virtually deaf persons (over 70 dB) in the Czech Republic; about 0.76 thousandth of the population. Overall, it is estimated that there are about 0.5 million people with hearing impairments in the Czech Republic. Most of them are elderly people whose hearing is impaired with age.

2. Which means that most of our respondents grew up in 1980s and 1990s, which is important for other parts of our paper.

3. Interpretation service is in the Czech Republic available for the deaf people and people with hearing impairment by the law (§ 56 of Act no. 108/2006 Coll., Social Services, as amended). The service is free and there is no time/sessions limit set by the law. It helps with official acts, medical checkups, etc. The service is limited by the number of professional interpreters and it is necessary to book the service days or even weeks (depends on specific region) ahead. Therefore, for many deaf people is using the family members as interpreters the more comfortable and flexible way to communicate with these institutions.

4. The terms ‘deaf’ and ‘Deaf’ serve as a terminological distinction between two psychologically and culturally distinct social groups. As ‘deaf’ is commonly referred to those who perceive their loss of hearing (hearing impairment) as a health or communication specific. The term ‘Deaf’ then describes those who perceive themselves more as an ethnic group because of the cultural traditions of the Deaf community and their language, which is different from the language used by the hearing majority. The groups of ‘deaf’ and ‘Deaf’ are separated mainly by self-identification of the individual; but rather with respect to concrete context, the individual places himself or herself into one of these two groups (Baker & Cokely as cited in Kosinová, 2008).

5. The topic of disabilities in communist and post-communist countries is discussed in other publications (e.g. Titzl, 2001; Zaviršek, 2014).

6. The sign language was forbidden for the formal education in these institutions, but in the common life situations it was used by the children as the main communication instrument.

7. Recently, integrated education in the Czech Republic is promoted for the majority of children with disabilities and special boarding schools are more focused on children with multiple disabilities.

8. Interpretation by online interpreters has been available in the Czech Republic since December 2010. It is provided nonstop without the need to book it in advance. The advantage of this service is that the interpreter is contacted online, and the interoperating can take place via a video call. An interpreter is always directly involved in the meeting, although not physically. This service is also convenient due to the impartiality of the involved interpreter, who at that moment becomes only a mechanical intermediary and needs to therefore maintain a clear sense of the message for mutual understanding and is not emotionally drawn into the issue (http://www.tichysvet.cz/tlumoceni-online).