Products & Gadgets for the Hearing Impaired

Kid Friendly Parenting with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A first-rate, “user friendly” resource
Collaboratively written by child and family therapists Daria Medwid and Denise Chapman Weston, Kid-Friendly Parenting With Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Children: A Treasury Of Fun Activities Toward Better Behavior is a first-rate, “user friendly” resource for parents of hearing-impaired offspring. Individual chapters address a range of key parenting issues including dealing with school problems, overactivity, cultivating social skills, the importance of setting limits, unique difficulties in communicating, and much, much more. Kid-Friendly Parenting With Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Children is very highly recommended reading, for parents and anyone else working with hearing-impaired young people.

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Deaf Like Me

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5 Stars drf321
Very touching story of parents realizing that it is ok to have a deaf daughter and that she is no less of a person than her older brother. Many of the misconceptions are brought out in the story of their wanting nothing but the best for their daughter. Highly recommend this book for anybody that has a hearing impaired child or know of parents who are struggling with this in their family.

5 Stars Deaf Like Me - A Must Read For Parents of Deaf Children
This book, the true-life story of parents who struggle to do the best they can for their deaf child, is one of the most concise and important books ever written on this subject.

The book doesn’t tell hearing parents what decisions they should make for their deaf child, but instead tells this family’s story in an easy to read and engaging first-person narrative, written from the point of view of the child’s father.

Lynn Spradley’s revelation at the dinner table, after her parents teach her the first signs they’ve learned at a night school class, is heart breaking and revealing. ‘Name me?’ she demands to know. What is my name? Without sign language, there was no way to bridge the gap between parent and child, and she was five years old before she knew her own name.

3 Stars Good Book, But May Be Overrated
Many people find this book THE book to read in regards to a deaf child’s experience (of course, that includes her family as well). And this book is very good at showing you what a hearing family goes through when a deaf child is born into it. It tells of the “typical” struggle between raising their child strictly oral or letting them sign, too.

Many doctors and therapists tell hearing parents that to allow their deaf child to sign would be to hinder their ability to speak, lipread, or progress intellectually. All of this is hogwash, but, nevertheless, that is what this book is about. What should we do with our child?

If you’re looking for that kind of informative read, this book is sure to please. For me, it was just another book about the same old issue and I found myself skimming often just to get to something original. As harsh as that may sound, that’s just this deafie’s opinion. :v)

5 Stars Great Read
This book was required reading for my ASL class. I had heard from my classmates that it was an interesting book. As I found out for myself, it was wonderful. The lies that the “mainstream” told to the Spradleys is still evident today where kids are forced to speak, wear cochlear implants and hearing aids and deny their native language. Being able to tell your child that you love them and have them understand is paramount and by denying a deaf child their native language, they can’t “hear” you say that you love them…they have to see it.

5 Stars A universal story told in particulars–strongly recommended
“Deaf Like Me” is one of my favorite books of all time in any genre, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who comes across this page.

The book is a richly detailed autobiography of one family’s struggles to grow up with deafness in mid-1960s America. As such, it provides a terrific introduction into a key moment in the history of deaf education when deaf children were still suffering from a wrong-headed emphasis on lip reading and vocalization, rather than sign language. Members of the deaf community have long heralded the book for this reason.

But “Deaf Like Me” isn’t a book just for deaf people and others interested in deaf culture. To the contrary, I think, it’s a book for anyone who grew up in 1960s America, and possibly for anyone who has struggled to communicate with loved ones ever.

That’s because there are so many parallels between this little family’s struggles to learn how to communicate with one another against a background of changing norms and great uncertainty, and the difficulties that many American families went through in the 1960s to speak with and understand one another on issues ranging from civil rights to the Vietnam war. Such struggles afflict most generations everywhere.

None of this is to suggest that I think the authors of “Deaf Like Me” intended to write a metaphorical treatise on 1960s America much less humanity. To the contrary, I believe the authors’ sole focus was on the Spalding family’s particular struggles. One of the authors was a trained anthropologist, and that comes through in the book’s unerring attention to details as opposed to generalizations. It’s these details in large part that bring the book to life.

Nonetheless, as a hearing person with no deaf family members, I found myself identifying with this book a lot. I suffered as the little girl Lynn and her parents suffered. And I rejoiced in their discovery that everyone in the family can express themselves and be understood if only they learn to “hear” one another in the different ways that each of us has to communicate.

Strongly recommended.

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Literacy and Your Deaf Child What Every Parent Should Know

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Outstanding
A truly outstanding and eye-opening resource for parents of deaf children. Our deaf son is 14 months old and we have been reading numerous publications to try to prepare ourselves for his education. This book is full of important and eye-opening recommendations that I’m sure we will use on a daily basis in the years to come.

5 Stars An excellent informational and guide volume
David A. Stewart and Bryan R. Clarke are two dedicated teachers with years of experience working with deaf children. In Literacy And Your Deaf Child: What Every Parent Should Know, Stewart and Clarke effectively collaborate to create an instructional guide specifically appropriate for parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children who want to do everything they can to ensure their hearing-impaired child learns to read and write with fluency and competence. Also discussed are the practices and issues of hearing aids, cochlear implants, speech reading, and sign communication. Emphasizing the developmental link between American Sign Language and English literacy for children who learn and use it, Literacy And Your Deaf Child is an excellent informational and guide volume and is very highly recommended for anyone who works with hearing-disabled children.

5 Stars A must for all parents of deaf children
This book reminds parents of deaf children how crucial it is that they give their child a language rich environment regardless of whether they decide on signing or not. I am an educational interpreter and see children who are so far behind on their language skills because they don’t get enough language support at home. I really encourage anyone who has a deaf child or works with deaf children to read this book.

5 Stars Literacy and Your Deaf Child: What Every Parent Should know`
WOW! I was worrying if it was old book but it was so neat. WHEW!! I read it and put it away in the shelf. I feel good to read. Thank you!

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Raising and Educating a Deaf Child A Comprehensive Guide to the Choices Controversies and Decisions Faced by Parents and Educators

The second edition of this guide offers a readable, comprehensive summary of everything a parent or teacher would want to know about raising and educating a deaf child. It covers topics ranging from what it means to be deaf to the many ways that the environments of home and school can influence a deaf child’s chances for success in academic and social circles. The new edition provides expanded coverage of cochlear implants, spoken language, mental health, and educational issues relating to deaf children enrolled in integrated and separate settings. Marschark makes sense of the most current educational and scientific literature, and also talks to deaf children, their parents, and deaf adults about what is important to them.
Raising and Educating a Deaf Child is not a “how to” book or one with all the “right” answers for raising a deaf child; rather, it is a guide through the conflicting suggestions and programs for raising deaf children, as well as the likely implications of taking one direction or the other.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Raising and Educating A Deaf child
This is a most practical, sensitive book that is appealing for educators as well as families of deaf children. The author is renowned for his work in cognition and psychology, but demonstrates a wonderful understanding of deaf children through the eyes of an individual who seems to know their needs first hand. Any parent or teacher reading this book will get a sense of the complexities involved in raising a deaf child, but will also get a sense of hope and support for developing appropriate
guidance and nurturing. The author makes sure to speak to his audience as one among them and offers a wealth of advice regarding educational possibilities to audiological support to socio-emotional growth.

This is an unassuming book that provides light at the end of the tunnel. Honest and sincere.

3 Stars Some interesting tidbits
This book gave me some good perspective on working with my deaf students. It did gives many opinions that I disagree with in the course of my own studies.

5 Stars Great book!
This is the book you are looking for if you are the parent of a Deaf child. Tons of good information that is based on fact and not prejudice. The only negative thing I can say is the book was designed for the educated professional type of parent and includes advanced vocabulary and smallish print. You won’t find illustrations, checklists or simplified information. Very excellent material that should help parents make informed decisions rearing their Deaf child. This is the kind of information that helped me to raise my own Deaf son who is now a happy and successful adult.

1 Star Shoud be titled “Why you should use ASL for your child”
This book claims to be a resource on the choises for educating your deaf child. It is not. The entire book focuses on using ASL as the means of communicating with your child. That would not be bad- if it didn’t present itself as an unbiased book. After it says that ASL should be used, it then makes you feel worse by saying that if you are a hearing parent with a deaf child, you probably won’t become that fluent in it anyway. There aren’t references either- so I am not sure where the author gets his information. It may be true, but there should footnotes on many of the claims. If you do choose to read this book, don’t make it the first book you read after you find out your child is deaf. That is what I did and all it did was depress me. In truth, I haven’t finished it and probably will leave it on the shelf to pick up after I finish a few others.

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