The news of Reuben’s hearing air filters through and delights everyone who hears it. There is so much enthusiasm in their voices. But I started to think that, say, with an alternative sense, such as vision, a baby has to learn to see, their eyes developing from staring at bright lights to tracking. I remember Reuben watching his mobile of safari animals go round and around. The giraffe would approach above his head and there would be a delay between the giraffe coming into view and Reuben tracking it to its new location. With time, the delay lessened, the motion became more fluid until the point when his eyes would follow the giraffe as smoothly as the giraffe itself would move and when the giraffe was out of sight, the crocodile would come into view on his left and attract his attention, the giraffe long since forgotten. People would who ask, It must be wonderful to see him hearing? Is he much more responsive? That’s the final piece to the puzzle and the one you thought you couldn’t fix. I guess you won’t need the sign language materials anymore then”. And so this morning, whilst sitting with Michelle and Gwen and from the Early Start Programme for Deaf Children my thoughts awakened to the prospect that if Reuben had to learn to see, then so too would he have to learn to hear.
I began to question this with the girls and yet at the same time, the answers came flooding into my head. It was a dilemma solved through the passage of sleep. If Reuben has been hearing but for four weeks, then he has a hearing age of a four week old. A similar scenario can be made with a premature baby, having both a real age (from when they were born) to a corrected age, based on how old they would be had they been born to term. Knowing little about the development of auditory communication, my mind raced to implications such as that Reuben would need not only to learn to understand and process that sound is sound, is a sense, is pleasurable, has a purpose, but that it is directional and is generated by different people, things and places. I cannot expect to call “Reuben” from behind and for him to know it’s me calling, let alone that he is has the sense of self to know that he is Reuben. I think it’s probably months before a hearing baby responds to their name. And as for sign language, those materials are as appropriate now as ever. He is still deaf, but uses an aid to hear. He will continue to need sign language for the times when he is not wearing his aid. When in his bath, when being put to bed and I pray one day, likely in years, when he is decannulated from the trach and is able to swim in the Pacific Ocean.
I began to question this with the girls and yet at the same time, the answers came flooding into my head. It was a dilemma solved through the passage of sleep. If Reuben has been hearing but for four weeks, then he has a hearing age of a four week old. A similar scenario can be made with a premature baby, having both a real age (from when they were born) to a corrected age, based on how old they would be had they been born to term. Knowing little about the development of auditory communication, my mind raced to implications such as that Reuben would need not only to learn to understand and process that sound is sound, is a sense, is pleasurable, has a purpose, but that it is directional and is generated by different people, things and places. I cannot expect to call “Reuben” from behind and for him to know it’s me calling, let alone that he is has the sense of self to know that he is Reuben. I think it’s probably months before a hearing baby responds to their name. And as for sign language, those materials are as appropriate now as ever. He is still deaf, but uses an aid to hear. He will continue to need sign language for the times when he is not wearing his aid. When in his bath, when being put to bed and I pray one day, likely in years, when he is decannulated from the trach and is able to swim in the Pacific Ocean.