Advice for Prospective Adoptive Deaf Parents

Maureen shares her Deaf Indian adoption experience and offers two important pieces of advice for prospective adoptive parents.

Communication Access and Medical-Related Issues

Hi, I’m Maureen Behrens. I’d like to share my adoption story, focusing on communication access and medical-related issues. I adopted my daughter about 10 ½ years ago, through the Holt International Adoption Agency based in Oregon. When they told me that I had been matched with my daughter, I was elated and over the moon! My heart was pounding and so full of love at that moment. I was looking forward to it with much anticipation.

Lip-reading Instead of Sign Language

Through the adoption process, I worked closely with my social worker. The Indian agency was required to send me reports every three months, covering any issues related to medical, emotional, behavioral, social, and lipreading. The reports I received would indicate things such as weight gain, height, etc. I noticed that they always mentioned lipreading, so I asked my social worker to let them know that I wanted my daughter to learn to sign because otherwise, she would have no way to communicate with me when we met. She wouldn’t know how to tell me when she needed to go to the bathroom or if she needed a drink of water, for example. Because my speech skills are nonexistent, we’d be at loss for communication.

Foster Family Refused to Teach Sign Language

The foster family, however, refused my request and continued to teach lipreading/speech skills. I argued back and forth with them through my social worker for six months, until finally, with just one week remaining before we were to meet, we got lucky. My daughter was moved to another foster family who lived closer to the building where she could learn ASL. A woman named Ida Thomas – bless her heart – had learned ASL from a Canadian pastor who had gone to India and met her at church. It was our lucky break. Ida taught my daughter for one week, covering signs for colors, plane, chair and so on.

First Encounter Between Deaf Adoptive Parent and Deaf Indian Adopted Child

From the moment when my daughter arrived and we met each other for the very first time, we had an amazingly powerful and instant bond, connecting through our both being Deaf. Interestingly, the same social worker who had advocated on my behalf for my daughter to learn sign, was totally astonished and remarked that she had never before seen such a strong first connection between a parent and adoptive child. To my great appreciation and gratitude, we made a written agreement that from that point on, any Deaf child who was placed through that agency would learn to sign. After we flew home, my daughter continued to learn and pick up more ASL.

Medical Biases Toward Deaf Indian Child/Adoption

Secondly, related to medical issues, in one of the reports I received every three months prior to my daughter’s arrival, I had noticed in one picture that her eye looked a bit out of focus. I asked the social worker to share my concerns about my daughter’s eye, but was told by the Indian agency that everything was fine. In addition to this, the doctor had written that my daughter had “growth retardation”, which meant that she would not grow anymore. Upset, I asked the social worker what that meant, but was told it was nothing. Despite my protests, she continued to say it was nothing. To my relief, right after my daughter arrived, she had a big growth spurt. My instinct about her eye, however, was correct. After seeing a doctor and undergoing a series of tests at the California School for the Blind in Fremont, it was confirmed that she had low vision and a few other diagnoses.

Importance of Asking Questions and Trust Your Instincts

My advice to anyone who may be considering adopting in the future is be sure to ask plenty of questions. Trust your instincts and speak up if you feel something isn’t right or if you notice something. Don’t let the agency do everything without considering your input. When I mentioned my concern about communication access and stood my ground, I was eventually able to get my daughter access to signing, and the same thing was true with my concerns that were related to medical issues. Thank you for watching.

Video description: Maureen is sitting in front of a light-colored all, wearing a black top, and signing her story.

Resources:

https://deafcounseling.com/adoption-a-deaf-adoptive-parent-kyms-story/

https://adoption.org/know-adopting-deaf-child

https://deafcounseling.com/deaf-adoption-unwanted-medical-advice-story/

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How Stress Affects Us: Our bodies, minds, and emotions all experience the impact of stress that occurs in our daily lives. According to the American Institute of Stress, the number one health problem in our country is actually stress, not heart-related conditions, cancer, obesity, or any of the common health issues that typically headline news reports. When stress happens, whether it is caused by traffic jams, relationship problems, work deadlines, lousy interpreters, or audism, our heart rates, blood pressure, and blood sugar all increase. The more this happens, the more risk we face of developing high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and chronic pain. Stress-related headaches, insomnia, and fatigue can also affect mental health in the form of anger, anxiety, and depression. Self-medication of stress with alcohol or drugs is very common and can easily spiral out of control.

Counseling to Deal with Stress: In addition to the tips in the video, meeting regularly with a Deaf counselor or coach is an another productive way of coping with stress. Whether or not you are experiencing serious mental health issues, counseling can help you improve your work-life balance, learn stress reduction techniques, and identify and change unhealthy thought patterns that contribute to stress. If you are dealing with one or more of the stressful life events on the Holems-Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale (click here), consider counseling for support in managing stress in the best way possible.

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Deaf as an Inclusive Term: Far from viewing “Deaf” as a way of excluding people, we see the term as an inclusive one. To us, “Deaf” refers to any people who happen to be Deaf. It has nothing to do with having Deaf or hearing parents, or using ASL, SEE, spoken English, cued speech, or any other communication modality. Neither does it matter if one was mainstreamed, educated at a Deaf school, or homeschooled. Degree of hearing loss, being Deaf from birth or being late-Deafened, using a hearing aid or a cochlear implant – none of these, in our minds, precludes anyone from being Deaf.

Capitalizing Deaf parallels capitalizing African American, Jewish, Hispanic, and so on, with each of these capitalized designations referring to a group of people with their own culture and physical characteristics (i.e., skin color, bloodline, hearing status). All of these terms are inclusive. Some Jewish people may be observant Orthodox Jews, centering their lives around their religion, while others may simply identify as Jewish through their family lineage and never set foot in a temple. Some Jewish people speak Hebrew, while others don’t. Similarly, some Hispanic Americans may be fluent Spanish speakers, while others, perhaps third- or fourth-generation Hispanic Americans, may not be conversant in Spanish at all. Some may have dark brown skin, while others may have light brown skin, and still others might “pass” as Caucasian.

None of these differences function as exclusionary criteria. Jewish people are Jewish, African Americans are African American, and Deaf people are Deaf, no matter what individual differences might exist within these groups.

Deaf as a Practical Term: By using Deaf as an inclusive term, we are able to avoid the cumbersome use of a string of words describing different kinds of Deaf people. Which is easier reading?:

A) It’s important to know that being Deaf, deaf, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, Deaf-blind, or late-deafened itself is not a cause of depression.

Or

B) It’s important to know that being Deaf itself is not a cause of depression.

The practice of switching back and forth between Deaf and deaf, depending on the situation, is awkward and unnecessarily complicated. We don’t see jewish, african american, or latina/o being used to differentiate less-observant Jews, lighter-skinned African Americans, or non-Spanish speaking Latina/o people. It is simpler to reserve the use of “deaf” for when it is not referring specifically to people. For example: “She was deaf to his pleas”.

Of course, when distinctions need to be made between Deaf people (i.e., for research or assessment purposes), we understand the usefulness of terms like those mentioned above (i.e., hard of hearing, late-deafened, etc.). We also respect people’s choices in how they decide to describe themselves.

Deaf Pride: Why not just get rid of the big D and use “deaf” to refer to all people who are Deaf? We did consider doing this, but in the end, we felt it important to acknowledge that Deaf people are a unique group of people. In the same way that the J in Jewish is capitalized, the B in Black, and the L in Latina/o, we choose to capitalize the D in Deaf to reflect our pride in our community and culture.

The post What’s up with the Big-D in Deaf? appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Apples and Oranges: When an achievement “gap” between Deaf and hearing students is identified, panic ensues, fingers point, the ASL-versus-oralism-versus-cued-speech debate is inflamed, and people begin to wonder what is wrong with our Deaf students/teachers/schools/etc. Without a doubt, the Deaf education system, as is true of any education system, especially those serving minority students, has plenty of room for improvement. Comparing Deaf students to hearing students, however, is like comparing apples to oranges.

As Raychelle Harris wrote eloquently on the ongoing tendency to compare Deaf and hearing educational practices:

Why would we want Deaf schools, including Gallaudet University, to be the same as other hearing schools and universities? Our brains are wired differently, we use sign language, our experience is different. Why do we want to be like other universities? What’s wrong with being different? Why do we feel the need to conform to other university practices to validate our own practices at Gallaudet? This way of thinking: If they do this, then it’s ok for us to do this. If they don’t, then we cannot – is evidence of colonialism at its best. Our practices can and should be innovative, we have so much to teach the world. (reprinted with permission)

We agree. Yes, it’s a big hearing world out there, but who made hearing people’s language and culture the gold standard by which Deaf people’s performance must be measured? Why do some Deaf schools insist on following hearing schools’ curricula, relegating ASL and Deaf Studies classes to once-weekly occurrences? This quite clearly sends the message that anything Deaf-related is less important or valued than anything hearing-related. Schools should be meeting Deaf students’ needs, instead of trying to mold Deaf students to meet hearing people’s needs.

Selective Respect: It is acceptable and even considered exotic for a hearing British professional working in America, to speak with a British accent and write using British spellings such as “recognise” or “colour”. Why, then, is it a travesty for a Deaf person to speak with a Deaf accent or write English with second-language accent? Why are British people’s accents are more respected than those of Deaf people? Some people might argue that British people use “proper” English, but if that is the case, who decided that the American versions of “recognize” and “color” are acceptable, and not examples of “bad English”? Deaf people, and even other minorities such as African Americans, are quick to be criticized when our English is accented.

Meaningless Scores: In the same way that a psychological assessment score for a Deaf person can mean something very different than what it means for a hearing person, so do SAT scores and other achievement scores mean different things for Deaf students than they do for hearing students. More and more hearing universities give little weight to SAT scores these days, anyway, recognizing that they are poor predictors of achievement. It is unfair to look at Deaf and hearing scores side by side and come to the conclusion that Deaf students are less intelligent or less educated than hearing students. The types of questions and the cultural biases inherent in many testing instruments mean that they are not even measuring what they are supposedly measuring.

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The Forensic Psychologist and the Deaf Psychologist: Not long ago, a hearing colleague who specializes in forensic psychology, and who does not sign or know much about Deaf culture, said something that struck us. He complained to Candace that another Deaf psychologist confronted him about his work evaluating Deaf people, and told him point blank that he was not qualified to conduct psychological assessments on Deaf people for the aforementioned reasons. His response was tinged with anger and defensiveness. He replied that the Deaf psychologist did not know as much as he did about forensic psychology, even though she had had some forensic mental health training, and that she was therefore not qualified to do a forensic assessment on a Deaf person.

In this case, who is more qualified to do a forensic psychological evaluation on a Deaf person? The hearing psychologist implied that knowledge of forensic psychology was more important. The Deaf psychologist countered that cultural knowledge and ability to communicate with the client, in addition to specialized training in psychological and mental health issues related to Deaf people, was more important. Who was right? Obviously, in this case, since neither psychologist was an expert in both areas, some kind of collaboration between the two experts was called for.

What we would like to point out, though, is the attitude of the hearing psychologist – that knowledge of forensic psychology is a more important factor than understanding anything about Deaf people as a cultural and linguistic minority group. Unfortunately, this type of attitude is widespread among hearing professionals. When they do collaborate with Deaf professionals in this type of situation, it is often the hearing professional who takes most of the credit for the work. This suggests that the hearing professional’s knowledge and expertise is more valued than the Deaf professional’s knowledge and expertise, even though neither could do the forensic psychological evaluation on the Deaf client without the other’s assistance.

In a collaborative effort such as this, the Deaf professional should be in the front, with the hearing professional being available as a consultant, sharing specialized knowledge and allowing the Deaf professional to grow and become an expert in the same area. Many hearing people are privileged in the sense that they have relatively easier access to learning and developing certain professional skills, in a world that can be oppressive to Deaf people. They have far more job opportunities than do Deaf people, making it feasible for them to specialize in areas such as forensic psychology. A Deaf professional, in contrast, might not as easily specialize in such an area simply because there are not as many job opportunities available in that narrow field.

The Tenured Hearing “Helper”: Another common attitude held by hearing (and some Deaf) professionals is that Deaf professionals “need them”. We were once told by a Deaf professor that it was good news that a hearing person got a position as a professor at Gallaudet, because this hearing person could help Deaf people get jobs in that particular department in the future. This is Gallaudet we are talking about, not some anonymous hearing-centered institution that may know nothing about Deaf people and may indeed need hearing allies to educate its people about Deaf professionals. Are Deaf professionals really so pathetic that we can’t get anywhere, even at Gallaudet, without hearing people’s intervention?

This brings to mind two possible definitions of hearing allies “helping” Deaf people. One option is for the hearing person to back off and not apply for a position that could be filled by a Deaf person. Another option is for the hearing person to go ahead and take the job, get tenured, spend 20 years in the position, and then “help” Deaf people by retiring and advocating for a Deaf person as a replacement, never mind the fact that by remaining in the position for 20 years, the hearing person has basically taken away an opportunity from a Deaf person.

To cite: McCullough, C.A., & Duchesneau, S.M. (2006, August 28). Walking on Eggshells: Deaf and Hearing in Consultation. ASC on the Couch. Retrieved (date retrieved), from http://www.ascdeaf.com/blog/?p=136.

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The Politics Behind the DSM: A little bit of background on the DSM. The first edition was published in 1952; the latest version came out in 2000. The first edition had only 50 diagnoses. Today’s DSM lists 374 diagnoses, more than seven times the original book. Does this mean cases of mental illness have grown in leaps and bounds over the past half century? Not exactly. The increase in the number of diagnoses is more reflective of insurance companies’ demands for very detailed and specific diagnoses. It is also related to the increasing availability of medications that can only be prescribed for certain clusters of symptoms, thus making it necessary to invent names for these symptoms.

Diagnoses end up in the DSM as a result of votes by a panel of psychiatrists. Of course, the panel reviews research, listens to recommendations from mental health experts, and spends lots of time discussing each diagnosis. In the end, though, a diagnosis gets into the DSM if it is the panel’s opinion, or value judgment, that it is actually a mental disorder. Consider the diagnosis of Homosexuality. For years, the DSM counted it as a mental disorder, in spite of the fact that there was no research to support this. Thanks to the efforts of gay and lesbian mental health professionals to educate the public about this, the Homosexuality diagnosis was finally voted out of DSM in 1973.

More and more people who work in the mental health field have been writing about how unfair and harmful DSM diagnoses can be. Women, for example, have been labeled with psychiatric disorders just for having normal mood swings because of changes in hormones related to childbirth or their periods. African Americans and other minorities, including Deaf people, have often been labeled as paranoid even though their fears and anger make a lot of sense due to the oppression they experience.

One Deaf Woman’s Misdiagnosis: If you are looking for a book for your summer reading list, here is one worth checking out. I Was #87, by Anne Bolander and Adair Renning is a story that makes us glad that more and more Deaf professionals work in the mental health field today, making it less likely that Deaf people will be misdiagnosed.

The post Who Decides What is Normal and What is Not? appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Diagnostic Labels: In the mental health field, as everywhere, labels, or diagnoses, can be useful generalizations, but they can also be harmful stereotypes. Unlike medical diagnoses, psychiatric diagnoses are not as exact or objective, nor are they based on x-ray results or laboratory findings. Psychiatric diagnoses depend instead on clinicians’ interpretations of behaviors and feelings and quite often involve value judgments about what is “normal” and what is not.

Diagnoses may be helpful when they facilitate communication among clinicians and researchers or when they offer some guidelines about how to proceed with treatment. They can be harmful when they are stigmatizing or when they pathologize behaviors or temperaments that simply don’t fit into a culture’s definition of acceptable roles or behaviors, but are not necessarily mental disorders. Because insurance companies require diagnoses in order to cover therapy, our work as psychotherapists often means we are required to diagnose. Our focus in therapy, however, focuses not upon these diagnoses or labels, but on understanding clients’ issues and the possible impact of ineffective or oppressive societal, cultural, familial, or political systems on clients.

The post Label Jars, Not People appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Check Your Biases: Related to this, you may have heard of the Project Implicit associations tests that are part of an ongoing research study sponsored by the University of Virginia (Sharon’s alma mater), Harvard University, and the University of Washington. These tests are designed to assess our conscious and unconscious preferences for more than 90 different kinds of things, including race, politics, disability, sports teams, etc. You can click here to try out a test. They take about 10-15 minutes and the results may be eye-opening to you, depending on which topic you choose. Many of us walk around thinking we aren’t prejudiced against anyone or any group, but these tests may surprise you and make you think a bit harder about the reasons for your preferences.

How Do You Know If You are Audist?: We need a test for audism (see this videoclip for a definition of audism) to assess people’s attitudes about Deaf people. The disability associations test isn’t appropriate, not just because it measures attitudes about mobility and vision, but also because Deaf people don’t fit into the disability category since we are more of a linguistic and cultural minority. An audism test would be great, for hearing people AND Deaf people. Obviously, there are plenty of hearing people out there who are audist, but there are also a lot more audist Deaf people than we might think. These are Deaf people who have internalized oppressive attitudes about being Deaf, who may worry too much about how Deaf people appear to hearing people, who interpret everything Deaf people do in terms of how hearing people do, or who compare Deaf people to hearing people all time, assuming hearing values are superior to Deaf values. We can go on and on about this, but we’ll save it for another post.

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You’re in for a surprise!

If you’re like most people, your first inclination was to read the words, ‘red, yellow, green…,’ rather than the colors they’re printed in, ‘blue, green, red…’

You’ve just experienced interference.

When you look at one of the words, you see both its color and its meaning. If those two pieces of evidence are in conflict, you have to make a choice. Because experience has taught you that word meaning is more important than ink color, interference occurs when you try to pay attention only to the ink color.

The interference effect suggests you’re not always in complete control of what you pay attention to.

What do you think would happen:

If you tried this experiment with a very small child who had not yet learned to read?
If you tried this experiment with someone who was just learning to speak English?
If you used the same order of ink colors but wrote non-color words?
If you made up an experiment of your own.

Source: APA Online

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