what I wish I could tell other deaf educators: sincerely, a parent-infant teacher

Disclaimer: All information posted is solely my own thoughts and opinions or those of the teachers I anonymously interviewed. I do not speak on behalf of my employers, educational institutions, or professional organizations past, present, or future*. 

I said in my introductory post that this space would be one free of judgement or guilt for parents and professionals alike, and I meant it. However, I’ve had some questions weighing on me since I started this account a few months back. I’ve had some things brought to my attention and I’ve seen some things that I feel like I can’t ignore. This is a safe place, but we’re still going to talk about difficult things. 

Some upcoming examples:

• Conversations with newly diagnosed families about communication modalities (signed language, spoken language)
• The divide amongst professionals in D/deaf education and the attitude of anti-ASL
• Inequities in early intervention  

I wanted to begin by having a series of candid conversations with others with more experience, candor and wisdom than myself. I figured the best place to start was with the teachers who begin with deaf/hard-of-hearing students quite literally from the very beginning: parent-infant teachers. 

Deaf/hard of hearing parent-infant teacher job description: serves as a member of a transdisciplinary team to assess and identify needs, participates in the development of an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), plans and implements home and community intervention activities for children, birth to 36 months, with developmental and low incidence disabilities, and provides support services to their families.

Translation: parent-infant teachers conduct their teaching through home visits for families of children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing from 0-3 years of age. 

Parent-infant teachers can be synonymously referred to as early intervention teachers, but for the remainder of this post, I will use “parent-infant teachers” for continuity.  

Parent-infant teachers generally have the same training as classroom teachers and itinerant teachers, but need to be especially well-versed in child development, hearing technology and counseling. As a classroom teacher, I think parent-infant teachers have one of the weightiest, most delicate positions in this field. I will be honest, I’d considered parent-infant positions in the past, but hadn’t felt like I was ready professionally to move into that space because of how important I believe it to be. The amount of responsibility and opportunity can seem overwhelming, and I have the utmost respect for educators who face the challenge head-on.  

For this post and the upcoming posts in this series, I interviewed three different parent-infant teachers currently working in the field of deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) education. These three educators work for three different school districts and collectively they have over a decade of experience as parent-infant teachers and that amount of time doubles with how long they’ve worked with DHH students in any capacity. One is a certified AVT, one is in the middle of the certification process, and one is purposefully not pursuing LSLS certification. They will remain anonymous for the delicate nature of these conversations. 

I asked them a series of questions, but in an effort to examine myself and my own teaching practices first, I want to begin with the question that warranted a series of responses that gave me the most pause. 

Here’s what I asked: 

What do you wish that other educators in the field knew about your journey with families that you feel often gets overlooked? 

Here’s what I heard from them: 

1. We are all trying our best, parents and teachers alike. Extend grace all around. 

“Just know we are trying our best to provide the best services for our families. Parents are often in the grieving stages and one of those stages is denial. I have had many families who consistently tell me they think their child is able to hear. I try to provide as much information and explain in many different ways in order to help them understand their child’s hearing loss.”

2. Families have unique experiences and we have limited information.

“There’s only so much I can do in three years and in that amount of time I’m working on the same major topics because families have a lot going on. A lot. I can be there but there are so many things that I need to cover. I may be signing with them, teaching language strategies, child development, physical development, I don’t just do DHH. I do everything. Sometimes I’m also helping them sign up for insurance or I’m helping them through a crisis situation. There’s a lot of trauma happening in real time and the parent might also be carrying prior trauma. I can only do so much when somebody has that much to work through. And yes, I talk about the audiogram, I talk about a lot of things but these are humans they are experiencing life. And the first three years of life, especially when it’s your first child, they are trying to learn how to be a parent. And part of learning to be a parent is learning to accept yourself as a new person and having less control over your own physical body and that can also be very traumatic. Three years isn’t a lot of time to get over that.”

“The school setting is less forgiving than early intervention. We don’t take the parents as humans, we say, “you had one job, do your one job.” But I think the thing I would like for people outside of early intervention to remember is to give parents as much grace as you would like to receive.”

3. The transition from in-home sessions to school can be jarring.

“I start prepping for the IEP as soon as I meet the family. I have goals in my IFSP for the parent, not just the student, because the parents are my students as well. And regardless, when it comes time for the IEP, the parent feels like they are alone. And a lot of times that’s what happens and unfortunately these parents have nothing else to hold onto.”

The individual family service plan (IFSP) is both a process and a document that families go through with a team of specialists based on the child’s needs and the family’s concerns and goals for the child. The plan outlines the early intervention services the child and family will receive and where those services will take place. According to IDEA, the services should occur in the child’s most “natural environment,” which is most often the home. However, as the child approaches their third birthday, a transition from an IFSP to an individualized education plan (IEP) occurs, which outlines the educational services the child will receive, and services in the home are (generally) no longer provided. Many students begin preschool at this time. 

“Something I’ve noticed a lot is that once you hit preschool there’s a lot of change and no matter how much I can prepare a family for this change, it’s hard for them. They go from having someone in their house walking them through everything and then they experience shock that comes from being so involved and then having that taken away.”

“I think it goes back to what families are ready to hear or to take in. I’ve had experiences where I feel like we’re going over strategies and things we’ve discussed and we’ll revisit and  I feel like a lot of it is almost new to them. And I always go back to myself and think, “did I explain that correctly? How did I mess that up so that it didn’t stick?” 

**In Michael Douglas’(Med-El) presentation titled, “Experiences that Ignite Parent and Child Self-Efficacy,” he points to research suggesting that parents can forget between 40% and 80% of information from providers immediately after hearing it, and of this percentage, as much as 50% may be heard incorrectly (Glade et al, 2018, Kressler, 2003).*** Even under the best of circumstances the possibility exists that only 10% of the information from any given session is being retained. While this knowledge benefits providers working at all levels, it puts into perspective the importance of the foundation parent-infant teachers work to build in those first three years. 

“[Like parents] as teachers our humanity gets stripped from us as well, we all have difficult days and we have our own mental health to deal with. Who am I to come into a family’s home or even communicate with a family as if I am disappointed in them for not completing their task? As much grace as you would like as a human to just extend that to families. In school you’re in an unfortunate position because you don’t have time to get to know the parents like I do and sometimes there’s things happening in the house that you don’t even know about. We talk about equity but we have to recognize that it affects the parents as well, not just the children. It affects their ability to provide, it affects their ability to do a lot of things. In early intervention we are there to support through that but after three years it’s gone unless they go somewhere that is privately funded.” 

Distance learning has brought us into families homes without warning or permission, on either end. I fully realize that as an elementary teacher working with students several years after their parent-infant experience, I have limited information and it’s easy to make judgments out of frustration or fear. I think what I’m coming to see now is there is a difference between being equipped with fear and being equipped with knowledge and this is true for educators and for parents. Parent-infant teaching is so delicate because these educators are walking families through the critical window for language learning, whatever the primary language modality. At the same time, as mentioned above, these parents are humans who are experiencing life. Life doesn’t pause for the critical language window*. Trauma, whether past, present or recurring, doesn’t wait for full-time device use or the language modality decision. 

As educators we have the opportunity and privilege to play to our strengths. We like to be remembered for what we’re good at, the areas we excel and the times we communicated clearly and executed well. Families do not have this same opportunity. 

The answers to this question serve as a reminder for me to extend to families the amount of grace I would like to receive if someone walked directly into my largest vulnerabilities without my choice or permission. 

Professionals and parents, what are your thoughts? Early intervention educators, how would you answer this question? 

**The plasticity of the human brain is greatest in the first 3.5 years of life, therefore, no matter the language modality/modalities chosen, it is of utmost importance, or in the words of Cole & Flexer, a “neurodevelopmental emergency,” that identification of hearing loss and brain stimulation occur as early as humanly possible. (Sharma & Nash, 2009, Cole & Flexer, 2007). 

Sources:

Douglas, Michael. “Experiences that Ignite Parent and Child Self-Efficacy,” AG Bell Virtual Symposium, July, 2020 

Flexer, Carole and Cole, Elizabeth. Children with Hearing Loss: Developing Listening and Talking Birth to Six: Second Edition. San Diego, Plural Publishing, 2011.

“What is the difference between an IFSP and an IEP?” PACER.org, Pacer Center. https://www.pacer.org/parent/php/PHP-c59.pdf. October, 2020. 

Stuart, Annie. “IFSP: What it is and how it works.” Understood.org, Understood, https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/treatments-approaches/early-intervention/ifsp-what-it-is-and-how-it-works. October, 2020.

“Jobs.” [Edjoin.org] Teacher, DHH; Infant –Toddler Home Intervention. October, 2020. 

*Thank you to @listenwithlindsay for letting me borrow your disclaimer! 

**Thank you to Sarah Hogan for your notes from AG Bell that were much more thorough than mine. 

***Thank you to Michael Douglas from Med-El for pointing me to the research studies referenced in his AG Bell presentation.