Coping with the Diagnosis: Parent Views
Coping Strategies

Fear of the unknown is often worse than the reality of the hearing loss. Parents are often given the news that their child has a hearing loss, but are given little in the way of an explanation of what this really means.

~"I needed to understand hearing loss and how the ear was damaged. It took me awhile to find out why it was damaged and where. That was an issue with me because I wanted to understand if someone, including myself, had made a mistake when he was sick with meningitis. I needed to know if something could have prevented his deafness."

~"One of the most valuable things for us was to join a Parent Group. Being able to talk to those who really understood what we were going through helped tremendously. Even more important was being able to see deaf and hard of hearing children older than our own child. We were able to see just how normal they were, and it helped us to realize that she was going to be okay."

~"I had no idea where to begin looking for the information I needed to understand my child's hearing loss. I began checking out every book I could find and presented it to the audiologist with a long list of questions every time I saw him. I wanted to know what she heard, what hearing aids would do to help her, what options we had for communicating with her, etc."

~"We were in the mall and I saw two deaf people signing. I knew no signs and had no idea how I was going to communicate with them. I just knew that I had to connect with someone who understood deafness. Prior to my child's diagnosis I would never have done anything like this, but it is amazing what you will do when you are starved for information and don't know where to find it."

~"Getting involved with other parents was a life saver. Our family and friends were supportive, but they didn't really understand what it was like for us. Being with other families who had a child with a hearing loss helped us relax and find the comfort and understanding that we needed as we struggled to figure out what to do for our child. In this group, hearing loss was normal, not something to be pitied or feared."

Making Sense of the Unfamiliar
For most parents, finding out all we can about our child's hearing loss and what it will mean in terms of language acquisition, communication, family dynamics, education, and social development is the key to coping.

As we take our child from appointment to appointment, we are bombarded with unfamiliar technical and medical terms. We know we need to be asking the right questions, but don't even know what those questions are.

To make sense of it all, many of us turn to libraries, the World Wide Web, or phone books to find agencies that serve the deaf and hard of hearing. Some of us even walk up to complete strangers who are wearing a hearing aid or signing. This quest to educate ourselves, is something all parents with a child who is deaf or hard of hearing have in common.