What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know | Page 4

to prepare for the worst and gratefully accept the
best, than to refuse to acknowledge the possibility of the worst until it
is too late to remedy it, or at least to reduce it to its lowest terms.
When a mother first suspects that her child's hearing is not perfectly
normal, what should she do? Of course, first of all, the best available
ear specialist should be consulted at once in order to determine whether
the cause can be removed and normal hearing restored. Sometimes,
however, the specialists are uncertain of the outcome, and sometimes
their hopes are not realized. In the meantime, precious days and weeks
are passing in which something could be done for the little one
educationally, without in any way interfering with the medical efforts
at relief. The two things can be, and should be, carried on
simultaneously. If normal hearing is restored no harm has been done by
the educational training; in fact, the development of the child has been
advanced. On the other hand, if the hopes that were entertained are
disappointed, then precious and irrecoverable time has not been lost.
The title presupposes that the mother has already accepted the fact that
her child's hearing is not perfect, and, for the sake of the child, it is to
be hoped that this knowledge came to her very promptly after the
occurrence of the deafness.
One would naturally expect a mother, of her own accord, to carefully
test all the senses of her child by many simple and repeated exercises
during the first few months of its life. The many cases, however, in
which deafness on the part of a child has not been recognized, or at
least not acknowledged, by the mother till the third, fourth, or even
fifth year, show a strange neglect of a highly desirable investigation,
and a natural unwillingness to accept a truth, the possibility of which
must certainly have occurred to her long before.
If she could only realize that she need not feel downcast and
heavy-hearted by reason of her little one's imperfect hearing; if she
could only know that she need not look forward to a life for him

different from that of other children; if she could understand that
training and education can enable him to overcome to an extraordinary
degree the disadvantage of deafness, she would set about the task with
cheerfulness and hope, and if she knew that the sooner she began, the
better it would be for the little one, she would not stubbornly refuse for
so long to acknowledge even the possibility of deafness.

II
HOW SHALL THE MOTHER BEGIN HER PART OF THE WORK?
First of all, something like an inventory should be taken of the faculties
possessed by the child which he can use in working out his problem.
Has he good sight, normal smell, taste, muscular sense, and memory?
To what extent is his hearing impaired? Is there any possibility of
restoring it to normal acuteness, or of improving it, or of preventing
any further impairment?
The completeness with which these questions can be answered depends,
to a considerable extent, on his age and his physical condition. We will
suppose that he is about fifteen months old and in good bodily
condition. If he is older, the same tests would be used to begin with,
though we could at once pass on to more complicated and difficult ones
that cannot as yet be used with the fifteen-months-old baby.
First, with regard to sight. We wish to know if he can distinguish
reasonably small objects at reasonable distances; whether he can see
moderately small things at short distances; whether the angle of his
vision is normal. In other words, whether his range and angle of vision
are sufficient for all ordinary purposes.
If he can recognize his father or mother or brothers and sisters at a
distance of a hundred feet he can see far enough for all practical
purposes. If he readily finds a small object like a pin or a small black
bead when dropped on the floor, his sight is sharp enough at short
range to serve his purposes. If his attention can be attracted by waving

a hand or a little flag or a flower fifty or sixty degrees on either side of
the direction in which he is looking, that is, two-thirds of the way to the
side of his head, his angle of vision is sufficiently wide. If he can pick
out from seven balls of worsted of the seven primary colors--red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet--the ball that matches
another of the same color, he is at least not color-blind and has a
sufficient sense of color for the ordinary purposes of life. It may be
necessary to wait till eighteen