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It's very isolating...
In the beginning, you just feel like you're all alone...
When you find out you have a deaf or hard-of-hearing child
that's probably the first deaf person you've ever met
and now it's your child.
We try to do things that bring the hearing families with deaf children and the deaf community together
so that they can interact and, um, learn from one another.
[Voiceover] They came from several counties throughout Southern California...more than 200 people
...to get connected.
At least 90 percent of deaf babies are born to hearing parents...
parents now facing questions about what's best for their children.
DEAF Project helped answer some of those questions with a full-day retreat
called, "Connected: Celebrating Families."
A special workshop, "For Dads Only," about the importance of fathers in the lives
of their deaf and hard-of-hearing children had the men of the family wearing earplugs in one exercise.
Just a small taste of their kids' reality. Most kept them in for the rest of the day.
This workshop this day has given us the opportunity to come together and to know that we are not alone in this journey.
[Rachel Friedman Narr] Sometimes Dads have a harder time, um, finding time and making the effort to connect in the same way that Moms have.
Especially in Latino communities, we find that love is shared through spoken language.
So, for example, we'll say, "Mijo," or "Mija" and in that spoken vocabulary the love is internalized in that vocabulary.
But with deaf children, they don't hear those terms of endearment, so we encourage fathers, particularly, to change their way of thinking
to create a paradigm shift so that they make their feelings more accessible and more visual for our deaf children.
We suggest that they do simple things such as touching... simple things such as learning how to say, "I love you" in sign language...
...simple things such as wrestling with their children because through touch, through visual expressions, children know that they are loved by their fathers.
[Voiceover] Workshops for Moms focused on the importance of education, gave them a chance to network
and share experiences, and touched on the benefits of learning sign language even with a hearing aid or cochlear implant.
[Rachel Friedman Narr] A common misconception is this notion that if you learn American Sign Language,your child will not learn to speak
or will not learn to access spoken language, and that's just not true. That's not supported by the literature at all.
In fact, the opposite is true. We're really acknowledging that multilingualism enhances brain power and it makes people more cognitively flexible
and who wouldn't want that for their child?
I had to teach her a language I didn't know anything about.
[Voiceover] Elizabeth was born deaf. Her family is learning American Sign Language with the help of DEAF Project.
Her sister, Analy, tries to show her music.
[Analy] When music comes on and I'm singing it, she'll be like, 'What are you doing?' and I'll just sign her the lyrics.
Or make up something that looks like the lyrics.
[Voiceover] And there are other families just like Elizabeth's, learning and chatting ... signing together ... connecting.
All in different stages of their journeys.
The mission of Deaf Education And Families Project is really to kind of embody the spirit of what it means
to be deaf or hard of hearing, and not try to *fix* a dis-ability. So, we try to look at what deaf children CAN do
and in that, expose everybody we meet to successful deaf adults, which there are plenty of role models out there.
[Maria Herrera] You know, I don't see it as something that's wrong or that's bad...I mean, I really do think
she's changed our lives for the better.
It's definitely something that I know has, I guess, changed me, because instead of me teaching her something, she's teaching me something.
She's brought me into a different world that I never thought even existed.
If I encourage her and make her feel confident in being a deaf individual and make her identify as a deaf person
and be proud that she's deaf... then that's all I can really ask for.