A BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS: COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PARENTS AND A DEAF CHILD

Abstract

With the birth of a child, parents are also born. Parents and children develop, grow, learn and make mistakes together. There is no manual to indicate whether parents are making mistakes in raising another being, nor is there a reward when they do something well. It is a subjective assessment of how good a parent someone is, mistakes in upbringing are often overlooked or it turns out that situations that seemed wrong and unsuccessful resulted in a positive outcome. Questioning the correctness of raising one's own child is a daily routine for parents. However, what happens when hearing parents have a hearing-impaired child? How do they adapt, with the added pressure of how to deal with the new situation and how to raise a child who will understand them and who they will fully understand? Of course, there are differences in raising a deaf child depending on the fact if parents are hearing or deaf, but both are guided by their natural instincts in order to achieve the best possible communication with their own child. According to one definition, communication is the ability to share values, beliefs and feelings. We can communicate verbally and non-verbally. Verbal communication refers to speech, and non-verbal communication refers to visual interaction. The aim of this research was to examine the hearing parents of hearing-impaired children about the challenges they face the most when it comes to communication with their own children and how they solve the issues. The research results showed that hearing parents of deaf children communicate with the child at an early age. However, with all the efforts they make while their child grows up, there is one significant part of the child’s personality that won’t develop properly due to missing verbal communication. For the same reason, there is a distance in mutual communication that cannot be overcome even with the unconditional love they provide. From all of the above, the conclusion emerges that it is necessary to work on the education of hearing parents of deaf children with adequate forms of communication.