SASL Newsletter - Spring 2019 Issue Issue 13 - Spring 2019 | Page 8

Continued from page 1: Why We Chose ASL For Our Child We knew we had found ASL as the language of communication that our son needed. He was like a sponge soaking up these words/signs, classifiers, and facial expressions. We could not learn fast enough. We needed more. Hayden needed, wanted, and deserved more, too. All of the family continued to learn ASL. The communication between his Deaf world and our hearing world had started to blossom. We had communication, we had language, we had understanding, and we had fun! My husband and I made a promise to each other that we would always try to stay one step ahead in learning his language, ASL; a goal we were successful in. By the time Hayden was two years old, he was the big brother to Meredith. Before he was four years old, he became the big brother to triplet siblings, Madison, Austin, and Logan. Out of the six children, Hayden was our only Deaf child but we never saw or treated him any differently. We enrolled him in two preschools by the age of three so he could have full access to ASL. We, the parents and all six children, were active in family sign classes and silent dinners. I remember every Deaf event we attended I would ask young Deaf adults, “What did you need from your hearing parents? (outside of unconditional love),” and every one of them had said the same thing, “I wish my parents would have learned to sign.” It broke my heart to hear their stories and how their time spent with family became less and less if their parents did not sign. We did not want to be that parent that failed to communicate to their Deaf child. Our dream was to be the house where all the kids could play and interact together. A dream came true when the Gallaudet University’s baseball team came over to our home for a team party (Hayden played for GU during his college years) and everyone could interact freely, there were no barriers between the hearing and the Deaf. (Continue on the next page) Ed and Mary Ann with their six children in 1997; Hayden, 4, in the middle The Power of ASL 8 Spring 2019 – Issue 13