Diagnosis

Richard, the middle of our three children, (Jennifer 18, Richard 16, Louise 12) was probably born hearing impaired although we actually didn't suspect anything was wrong with him at first. He failed the hearing test performed when he was 8 months old, and we were told not to worry, however, he then continued to fail each test they did after this. Richard was finally diagnosed at 13 months as profoundly deaf.

We were fortunate that our audiologist was an educational audiologist who was very aware of the difficulties surrounding the issue of hearing loss. She was also very keen on the Natural Aural approach and that fact that if you get powerful hearing aids on the children then they can develop naturally.

She was very supportive. We fell into the system straight away and Richard got his hearing aids very quickly. When you think about what could have been, it's frightening. We were very reliant on the advice we were given at the time from the professionals, and that is why we were so lucky with our audiologist. If it hadn't of been for her we wouldn't have followed the Natural Aural approach, neither of the two ENT consultants believed in it. Our ENT consultant never believed that Richard was ever going to talk, he knew about the approach, but just didn't believe in it. He didn't think it was possible for Richard, who was profoundly deaf, to learn to listen and talk. I'd love to take Richard back now and re-introduce him, so that he can see that the approach really does work.

We had no experience of hearing loss or deafness, I'd never come across any one who was deaf. It was a big shock, and all I kept thinking was he'll never speak and he'll never get married, he'll never go to university. It is like a bereavement, you've lost the child that you thought you had, he's been taken away from you by those test results, and suddenly you're left facing all the things you think won't happen in your child's future, all your dreams collapse. Then after a while, after the shock has worn off, and once you get some useful information, you come to your senses again, and you begin to realise there are lots of possibilities for your child and he will and can do whatever he wants.

It took me long while to stop thinking this is Richard, and then I'd tag on, who is deaf, my husband didn't do that. It took me a long time to think of Richard as simply Richard. Initially you focus on what the child can't do and then you start to think of things they can do.

Family Life

When Richard was born our other daughter, Jennifer, was two years old, and we treated them much the same, although there was more focus on play and reading to him. Jennifer was involved as much as she could be at that age and the two children played together. Jennifer very quickly learned how to communicate with Richard, just like brothers and sisters do.

Once we knew what the Natural Aural Approach was all about, which isn't anything difficult, it's just talking all the time about different things, then we just got on with it.

There was obviously much more focus on Richard, but once we got on to the treadmill of the Natural Aural Approach we just made progress. We would gradually make our sentences harder so that it expanded the language and vocabulary, just like you do with any hearing child learning to talk.

We automatically adjusted to it. I did feel that Jennifer lost out, I did spend more time with Richard, although I tried for that not to happen. However, when Louise came along, she didn't miss out, because Richard was older and more independent by that stage.

I always felt that my mom and dad (Richard's grandparents), never realised how difficult it was sometimes, which was good in a way, because they were able to see Richard as just their grandson. Francis' mother and stepfather accepted that Richard was deaf and that it wasn't going to get better, much sooner than perhaps my parents. I think my parents thought there might be a "cure" somewhere along the line with technology.

There were never any problems with having babysitters for the children, Richard was just another baby. Certainly, his grandparents never had any worries about having Richard to stay, they never worried about communicating with him, or losing his aids. Richard is just another grandson, nephew and cousin, and one of three siblings.

One of the things that I felt was really important was that Richard was treated the same as our other two children and was treated the same at school. We do bear in mind the fact that he does have a hearing loss, and make allowances for that where it was appropriate to do so. However, he's expected to do what the others are expected to do and he's very good at making himself scarce when jobs are due to be done, but otherwise there have been and are still no real allowances behaviour wise.

I believe that if you want a socially acceptable child they've got to be brought up in society, to know what levels of behaviour are acceptable. I also thought it was important that he was aware of the children's fads and interests as he was growing up. I wanted him to have access to the playground fashions, to know what was "in" and what was "out", which is why I thought it was important that he was in the local school, so for example when pogs were in favour, he was aware of it.

I think I have had more to do with Richard's life to date than I have with the other two, although if you ask, they'll say, I'm always butting my nose into their lives as well, I'm just that sort of mother.

I have had more involvement in his life than the other two and I've found it difficult as he's got older to pull away and let go.

One big thing is that now he's 16, I've let him ride his bike out on the roads to places. I was always worried that he might not hear the traffic, and because he was so confident on his bike, I always thought he would not pay enough attention to the traffic. That's me as a mother stopping Richard, not Richard being afraid, he wanted to go off on his bike. I know I should have let him do these things earlier on, because he is quite capable and in a lot of respects he is more up front that I ever was. He has so much confidence for a 16-year-old.

I've never let any of my children go off as we used for hours down the fields, because of today's society. I've always known where they've been, and I think children today have missed out on a lot.

When I hear Richard talking about what music he likes, I know this was the right route to go, because he can say he likes this or that, he can be aware of the current fads going on, the music, the fashion etc.

Richard swims and trains hard, he's just returned from swimming in the English team at the 2001 Deaf Olympics in Rome, where he did exceptionally well, winning a medal and achieving several personal best times. Over the years he's been to cubs, but he preferred to play games than studying for the badges. Then he moved on to scouts, but didn't enjoy it, the environment was not really conducive to hearing with aids.

There's no difference between three children than any other siblings. I think they get on well, they do have some tremendous arguments, but they do get on really well.

Schools

Richard went to the local nursery. My husband and I wanted was Richard to be able to go down to the local sweet shop and buy some sweets for himself, by himself, no need for an interpreter or anyone else, and so we set out on that road.

One of the things education wise, is to try and find a school where the staff are prepared to look at what the child can do, as opposed to focusing on what they can't do. If the teachers look at the positives, they are more likely to say he can do this that and the other and find ways around any problems that occur along the way.

I found this the key to finding schools for Richard, we looked for teachers who were prepared to be positive about what Richard could do and who wouldn't try and simply fit him into the existing mould of the classroom. We always looked for an ability to be a bit flexible.

We were fortunate that where we lived they ran a scheme where if your child had special needs they could join the local nursery a year earlier, so Richard went to preschool, just like Jennifer and then at 3 he went to the local nursery school with Jennifer. I was always very keen that Richard went locally to school and that he did everything that Jennifer did.

After nursery, he went to the local catholic infant school. That was quite fortunate, because I'd fought for Richard to go to his local primary school I really believed that I didn't want Richard to be different from the others. I just felt that if you were at the local school then you'd learn the things that are important in the playground as well as in the classroom and have local friends. He was only there for a term and then we moved to Canada.

For two years we lived in Canada, where Richard was too young to officially go to school, but he went in the mornings to a special needs school and then in the afternoons, he went to the same school as Jennifer, which was really good for him. It worked out really well, and he was treated just like any other pupil. Then when Richard was six he went full time to the most local school. Canada was much further ahead of integrating children with special needs.

When we came back, Richard went back into the school he'd left, before we had to move again with my husband's job. We had to find a county where we could get the education we wanted for Richard.

Finally, after moving, Richard went to the local primary school where the head teacher and staff were flexible and had never had a hearing impaired child before. We also had a teacher of the deaf, who came into the school to support him. He didn't actually get very much support but he did have an ancillary who was with him during the day. They did class activities so that Richard was never singled out.

We just dealt with everything as it came. When Richard was at primary school, his deafness wasn't really an issue. We were just getting on with it. I was involved in all the children's schools, but I was more involved with Richard's education because there were times when I needed to talk to the teacher and make sure everything was going ok.

I wanted to make sure that Richard was given an equal chance and if things weren't working out to be able to go in and try to work it out. Whereas the other two girls would come home and tell me what was going on. Richard might come home and eventually tell me there was a problem. Usually, I'd have to find out from his behaviour if he was upset or had a problem. We discovered that if Richard was playing up, it usually meant that he had a problem at school or had fallen out with someone. He wouldn't come straight out and tell me.

Unfortunately it didn't always work. He did have problems, like being bullied, although now Richard feels that he and his friends possibly misunderstood each other. For example, during football Richard would get into scrapes when he kicked children not deliberately, but in going for the ball, and then he caused a fuss over being sent off. However, it turned out that Richard didn't really understand the rules of football and didn't instinctively understand what a foul was.

Making friends was dependent on what type of person they were. The social side has been a difficult for Richard, it took long time for him to make friends and then he would move on, so it was constantly having to make new friends. Where we live in Leicester, the education system has them changing schools quite often and they don't necessarily move together.

Because we live in a small village, there aren't very many children in the village, and all the children have found it difficult to have friends around in the area.

Richard has quite a strong personality and can be quite strong headed so that probably added to his difficulty making friends. He wasn't quite so prepared to step back and give others the benefit of the doubt. He thought he was always right and wasn't very flexible. Part of this is Richard's personality, which has helped him be determined. But the finer points of social interaction have taken longer to come round to. I'm hoping that the cochlear implant will help him understand how group interactions work more easily.

Technology

The hearing aid technology didn't really cause us any problems, except for the difficulties of having needing a quick turn around service when the hearing aids broke down as they frequently did with a younger child.

Richard didn't have a great revelation when he first had the aids. Our audiologist pointed out to us that just because we put the hearing aids on it didn't mean that Richard knew he could hear. We had to introduce him to sound, make him aware of sound and that it was important in his world, because he hadn't experienced it before it didn't mean anything. We worked at introducing new sounds and he gradually responded and for example, he'd be interested when the door knocked, wanting to know who it was.

Richard's comments

On being deaf

My grandparents just see me as a normal person. I think I'm not that different to anyone else, apart from my hearing. I don't like being treated differently from another person, and I also don't like it if I'm treated like I'm special. I'm just ordinary.

I've learned to move people subtly into the positions that I want them, so that I can get them in the best position to listen and lip read. It's hard when there's someone trying to have a conversation with me if they're in a dark place, that's when I move them gently around so the light is on them.

I remember Dad telling me a story about going to see a band, and I went to feel the vibration and noise of the trombone player and I worked out that the when the man's cheeks puffed up, I knew the sound was being made, and it apparently really made the trombone player's day.

It can be difficult to distinguish between hearing and feeling loud noises.

When you say you've lost your hearing after illness then people's reaction is very different than if you say that you were born like it. It's like "well you've not missed it, cos you never had it."

When the disability is not obvious people react differently to other people. Some people don't realise I'm disabled. When I swim, I take my aids out, people think that I'm normal because they don't realise I can't hear. I can't hear the gun, I need a manual signal, apart from not being able to hear the crowd or the coach, I'm pretty much on a level playing field.

Even without my hearing aids, I talk normally. I get by mostly in the pool. My coach is great he makes an effort to tell me directly first, looking at me so that I can lipread. He's aware of the extra need in the swimming pool with the very poor acoustics, I like to be able to lipread.

If someone is mumbling, I ask them to repeat it, or if they have an accent, Irish is very hard, Scottish is the hardest, because they talk so quickly, and have an unusual sounds. You can get used to it, if you hold a long enough conversation with them.

On the choice of A levels and a career

I am thinking about doing something like sports physiotherapy or psychology. By doing sports psychology, I would be able to put something back into the sport. I'm trying to keep my options wide open. I wouldn't like to be stuck into a 9-5 environment. I did work experience, it was 9-5, I didn't really like it, I was too tired, when I got home, I was just too tired to do anything else. I am doing a part-time job at the moment.

I'm quite lucky at the moment, with my A levels, because they've been quite widely based. I haven't restricted myself. This is good, because it can open my avenues but I'm aware it can also close avenues.

On being 17

I'm hoping to learn to drive when I turn 17.

On music

I quite like classical music, I like it for studying to.

When we were in Rome for the deaf games, we were driving around in one of the boys cars, playing loud music, (boom boom boom), it was quite nice at times.

On sisters

Louise borrows my clothes, mainly my shorts and it can be very annoying. There have been enormous arguments, and we've thought about keeping our clothes under lock and key.