title: The deaf child--challenges in management: a parent's perspective.
abstract: Diana Glover lives in Buckinghamshire, UK with her husband, Ray, and their three sons, William (21), Robin (19) and Benjamin (10). Robin and Benjamin are profoundly deaf. Ray also has a hearing loss, which is unconnected with the children's deafness. Diana is a trustee of the National Deaf Children's Society. Diana will compare Robin's experiences with those of Benjamin. She will show how difficult it was to obtain a diagnosis of Robin's deafness, in spite of her early anxieties about his hearing, and that this had a marked impact on Robin's speech and language acquisition. She will speak about the struggle she and Ray had to convince their Local Education Authority that Robin should move from mainstream schooling to a boarding school for the deaf at the age of 9. She will also express her current anxieties as Robin, who has only deaf friends, moves from Mary Hare Grammar School for the Deaf to mainstream Higher Education. Robin's experiences will be contrasted with Benjamin's diagnosis at 7 weeks and progress in mainstream education. Diana will also highlight some of the issues that she and Ray had to consider when they agreed that Benjamin should have a cochlear implant at the age of 2. It will be demonstrated that having one hearing and two deaf sons has a profound effect on relationships within the family and with professionals. Diana will show how she and Ray have learned that one can easily overlook the needs of a hearing sibling, and that it is equally important for deaf children to come to terms with their disability. She will summarise the difficult choices they have had to make over implantation, communication methods and schooling and demonstrate that, even within one family, the needs of deaf children are never the same.
authors.affiliation: diana.glover@btinternet.com
authors.forename: Diana M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Glover
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003638:Deafness / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D019988:Children with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D005195:Family Relations; D006801:Humans; D010290:Parents; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D012649:Self Concept; D012801:Sibling Relations