What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know | Page 2

school age to arrive, you
lose that close touch with the soul of your child which may be
established only in these early years, for you have no adequate means
of communication with him--no way to win his confidence. Soon the
child has passed this stage, and no school can ever give him what you
might and would have given had you known how.
"You who are trained teachers of the deaf can hardly realize the need of
advice about matters perfectly obvious to YOU; but the need exists.
May I tell you from my own experience a few of the things about
which you might advise--you, who know!
"In the first place, suggest to parents that they make simple tests of
their children's hearing; and tell them how and why those who are
partially deaf should be helped.
"Then tell them to talk, and talk, and talk, to their little deaf ones--to
say everything and say it naturally. And tell them some things in

particular that should be said--commands, etc., and certainly 'I love
you.' Tell them to speak in whole sentences. Give them an idea of the
possibilities of lip-reading.
"Tell them that by the expression of the face they may convey to the
deaf child the interest, approval, disapproval, etc., that they would
express to a hearing child in the tone of voice.
"Tell them that there is rarely an untrained person who can safely
meddle with articulation.
"Tell them that it is not true that all deaf children are bad; that the deaf
must learn obedience as others do.
"Tell them the many things which you wish your pupils had learned
before they entered school.
"Only this I beg of you--tell them! "LUCILE M. MOORE."
For the sake of presenting the ideas contained in this little book in a
somewhat systematic manner it was best to arrange them on the
supposition that they would come to the notice of the mothers while
their children were yet less than two years of age. In many cases,
however, this will not be the case. When, therefore, the child is three,
four, or five years old when this falls into the hands of the mother, it
would still be well if she carried out the suggestions in the order in
which they are here arranged. With the maturity of mind and body that
comes with the added years, the child can pass through the earlier
stages of the training much more rapidly than can be the case with the
baby. Nevertheless, the preliminary steps should not be omitted. A
child of four can be carried in six months through the exercises that
occupied two years when begun with the child of twelve months, but
the older child should not be started with exercises suggested for the
years after two.
Mothers of deaf children cannot be expected to be trained teachers of
the deaf. It would be useless, and, in fact, often unfortunate, to ask
them to attempt to teach articulation to their children. Even for them to

teach the children to write would usually be undesirable because the
greatest gain from the mother's efforts comes from the early
establishment of the speech-reading habit and entire dependence upon
it. It is a very great help to have this habit fixed before writing is taught.
There is no haste about the child's learning to write. That is easily and
quickly accomplished when the proper time comes. The difficult thing
to do is, very fortunately, the thing the mother is best fitted to
accomplish, namely, to create in the child the ability to interpret speech
by means of the eye, and the habit of expecting to get ideas by
watching the face of a speaker.
With these ideas in mind there has been careful avoidance in this little
book of any suggestion that the mother should be anxious about the
speech development of the child before five years of age. If she has the
patience and the time to follow the directions given, she will have done
her child a very great service; the greatest that lies within her power;
and she will have laid the foundation for a more rapid and better
development of speech than would have been possible without her
preliminary training.
Not every mother will find it possible to carry out all the suggestions
offered in this little book, but no one should feel discouraged on that
account. It seemed best to offer too many suggestions rather than too
few, because these pages may fall into the hands of some mothers
whose situation is such that full advantage can be taken of every idea
here given. Presence of too much matter in the little book will not
destroy its usefulness in cases where only a portion can be applied,
whereas