Celebrating Mother's Day Through the Lens of Childhood Deafness
- Adèle Vaughan
- Mar 16
- 3 min read
Watching the above video of myself as a toddler with my Mum brought a flood of memories and emotions from lots of different times over my childhood. Here, I was hard of hearing- I am deaf now and went deaf in my teens, but In this clip I am about 1, sitting on her lap as we read an animal book together. This kind of moment holds a lot of meaning, especially when I reflect on my journey growing up being hard of hearing and going deaf over a number of years. Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and it feels like the perfect time to highlight my Mum's efforts to make my world accessible, even without any external support or guidance at the time.
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Her Actions
Growing up with any level of hearing loss presents unique challenges, especially in early childhood when language and communication skills are developing rapidly. I grew up with a hearing family who didn't know any BSL, so it was important to make sure I was able to access as much language as I could. Watching the video back with Mum, we both noticed a few things that she did that made a big difference:
Always speaking into my good ear
She always positioned herself so that she spoke directly into my right ear, which was my better hearing ear at the time. As Mum put it, "You'd only respond when I was on that side, so I just always made sure I was on that side." I could never hear everything, but that adjustment helped make sure I could hear some things.
Tactile cues/vibrations
She repeated words and sentences with her mouth gently pressed against my cheek, neck or ear. This meant I could feel the vibrations of her speech, giving me an additional sensory input to understand what she was saying or what was happening. It was a natural way to bridge the gap between sound and touch, before either of us learned BSL.
Keeping the book/visual in my line of sight
Every page of every book was always carefully held so that I could see the pictures and the written English clearly. Visual context helped me connect the words with things I could easily understand.
Lipreading/lipspeaking
In some of the other videos we watched, where I'm a little bit older, she can be seen getting on the floor so that she's at eye-level with me and speaking very clearly in my field of vision so that I can lipread well from her.
All of this was taking place long before we had any formal support in place, but every part of it was to try and give me better access to a world in which I was already unable to access spoken communication fully. In the early years, I didn’t have hearing aids or specialised support. We were also in a position that, unfortunately, many families of deaf children are still in today which is that learning BSL was expensive, not local, and something we were not in a position to do at the time. This experience highlights a reality for many families- BSL access, widespread awareness and resources for hearing loss are not always readily available, and a lot of families navigating deafness or hearing loss are left in the dark about certain aspects of it.
Even so, my Mum still did everything she could to support my access to language.
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Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day is often about celebrating love and care. For me, it also brings gratitude for all the efforts my Mum has put in over the years. She was my first teacher, my first advocate and, more recently, has even started learning BSL to further help support me being able to access language as an adult.
This reflection hopefully encourages us to think about how we support children with hearing loss today. While technology and services have improved for some, the reality of the situation is that a lot of parents and families of deaf and hard of hearing children are still left just as in the dark as me and my Mum were. Learning BSL, early intervention programs, and assistive technology can all provide valuable tools. Still, the human element remains essential. The love, care, and attention create the environment where these tools can be most effective.
Mother’s Day is a chance to honor those who support us in ways big and small. For anyone raising, living or working with children who are deaf or hard of hearing, please remember that your efforts matter deeply.
And to my lovely mum: 🤟
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Adèle Vaughan
ASV Sign
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