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By Melody Gibson
Over the summer, we spoke with Maddie Hinkle, a Youth and Family Connections coordinator for the Chicago Hearing Society (CHS).
Maddie has been studying American Sign Language (ASL) since high school, and she became involved with the broader disability community at her college. This led her to pursue a master’s degree in Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University with the goal of shaping her career around literacy and advocacy.
Maddie is someone with a wealth of knowledge about resources for the D/deaf! Read on to discover what she told us about CHS, resources for families, and the importance of reading to young D/deaf children.
Resources for Deaf Children & Families Through CHS
We asked Maddie to tell us about the resources available to young D/deaf people and their families through her organization.
“CHS has been around a little over 100 years,” Maddie said. While CHS was started in Chicago, the organization now goes by its acronym to avoid the idea that its services are exclusive to Chicago only. Maddie noted that her department’s programs serve Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard-of-Hearing kids ages zero through twenty-two throughout the state of Illinois.
CHS, Maddie said, “has three pillars: it has an interpreter services department, it has an audiology clinic in Chicago, and it has what’s called community outreach and support.” Many programs fall under the umbrella of community outreach and support—Maddie mentioned DeafBlind programs, technology distribution, community advocates, domestic violence support, tax assistance, and—Maddie’s department—Youth and Family Connections.
“Our program is providing support in the home, community, and schools,” Maddie said.
Deaf Mentors Through CHS
“We have a Deaf mentor program,” Maddie told us. This program matches Deaf adults with families in need.
“It's meant to be ongoing support where they [the mentors] meet with them [the children] in their homes or online, or sometimes in community spaces like libraries. Or they'll take kids to the to the theater or to the store…and they help the family with designing and then meeting individualized goals. So kind of like an early intervention provider…except a little bit broader.”
We’ve talked elsewhere on this blog about the importance of finding Deaf mentors for a child with hearing loss. A mentor can be a positive example in a kid’s life, as well as a support for the family. Children can also benefit from a fluent sign language partner with whom they can share in the joy of language.
What sort of goals does Maddie typically see mentors and kids working on? “The goals can be pretty much anything that we can help with,” she told us. “So we do a lot of language support, a lot of communication, behavior stuff, Deaf identity, self-advocacy skills, helping the families to kind of know what's going on. The families have a point person they can ask questions to.”
Education Advocacy for Deaf Students
CHS staff and Deaf mentors can also get involved in education advocacy. “We'll attend IEP meetings with families,” Maddie said, “and help them understand the 504 process, that kind of stuff—because it can be really overwhelming, even if you're not, you know, fighting with the district over anything, there's just a lot of people at the table, and it can be a lot to try to understand.”
CHS also offers a program called ARMED, which stands for Adult Role Models in Education of the Deaf. This program brings Deaf adults into classrooms to share their experiences. Many hearing students get exposed to this program as well—Maddie reported that the only requirement is the presence of at least one D/deaf student in the classroom.
Maddie said she’s seen an interesting effect when Deaf role models come into a mixed classroom. “The hearing students get really into it. They're excited to see a Deaf adult and make those connections. They want to ask questions, they want to relate what they know about their [D/deaf] classmates to the Deaf adult, and we find that our D/deaf student in that class is like…puffed up, confident by having that Deaf adult there specifically for them.”
Community Programs for Deaf Children & Families in the Greater Chicago Area
CHS also orchestrates a number of community events in the Chicago area. “We do things like Deaf Family Day at the zoo,” Maddie said. “We do Halloween parties… We have a big breakfast with Signing Santa every year partnered with the Chicago Park District.”
Like the classroom role models program, these community events also benefit the local hearing community and boost awareness for the area’s Deaf population.
Aside from in-person events, parents can also take advantage of CHS’s webinars that focus on pediatric deafness and related topics.
Family Sign Language Classes Online and In Person
Maddie also told us a bit about CHS’s family sign language classes. These classes, she said, are free for families and extended families both in and outside of the state of Illinois.
“Those are online, except for one in-person class in Chicago. They're offered in English and Spanish and in beginner and beyond-beginner level, so there's an opportunity funded by grants to help families better communicate with their Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard-of-Hearing kids,” Maddie said.
Check CHS’s sign language class schedule here! We encourage anyone with a d/Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing family member to take advantage of this resource. Caregivers are welcome, too.
The Importance of Reading with Young Deaf Children
Maddie’s career is all about helping children and their families, and one of the main vehicles for this is through her advocacy for Deaf literacy. In another blog post, Maddie shared about the importance of D/deaf representation in kids’ literature. In our conversation this summer, she shared about a new program that’s helping foster the joy of reading in the community she serves.
Reading Curriculum for Early Intervention Providers
Maddie has designed her own reading curriculum, in conjunction with CHS and the Foundation for Hearing and Speech Resources. This program instructs early intervention providers on how to teach families to read with their D/deaf or Hard-of-Hearing child.
“We found that when we talked to families [of a D/deaf or Hard-of-Hearing child], that was a gap in their knowledge: they got stuck on the idea that it [reading] might be different than when they read with their hearing kids,” Maddie shared. “As we know, that early access to literature—those pre-literacy skills—is really important for your outcomes later on.”
Maddie’s training program has been running for almost a full year. She reported that CHS has trained over twenty early intervention providers in the state of Illinois. The main targets of her curriculum are speech-language pathologists and developmental therapists who work with D/deaf and Hard-of-Hearing children from infancy into early childhood.
We wondered: how effective is the curriculum? While the program is still in the early stages, Maddie says CHS hopes to see some data in the next year or so to gauge the program’s success. “We're hoping once we have that data, we can…present at the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Conference and promote that same style of curriculum for other states,” Maddie said.
Methods for Reading with Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children
Maddie pulled from the research of David Schleper as a source for her framework. A major finding of Schleper’s: repetition was key. The D/deaf children were able to absorb more of the book the more times they read it (or had it read to them).
Maddie emphasized the importance of going over a new story a few times in different ways: “When you start, you're really making sure that the child has the background information they need to understand what they're looking at. So, labeling, identifying what's on the page, talking about things that maybe are implied but not explicit, making sure those things are understood, making sure they have the resources they need to understand the story—and then kind of walking broad strokes through the story without ever actually reading the text.”
After doing this, Maddie said, the adult reader can go on to add more information slowly, add more dialogue, discuss motivations, and eventually get closer to reading the actual text. Parents and caregivers should be prepared for a slower but more holistic approach to storytime.
“I always tell the parents and the providers: the only person getting sick of reading that same book is you,” Maddie said. “Kids love to read the same book over and over. And it helps them a lot to build on that.”
Depending on the family’s needs, this system can be adapted for families who are using either spoken or signed language. It’s all about being sensitive to gaps in knowledge and meeting the child where they’re at.
More information on reading with D/deaf children can be found here: https://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/ndec/early-intervention/15-principles-for-reading-to-deaf-children/
First Steps for Parents of a Newly Identified Deaf Child
We chatted with Maddie about what parents can do when they first discover their child is D/deaf or Hard of Hearing. “For a lot of families,” Maddie said, “the first D/deaf person they ever meet is their child, and that can be very alienating.” Many families in this situation can be overwhelmed and desperate to figure out how to help their child.
Maddie’s advice? “That's one of the reasons that our Deaf mentor program is so effective…that's kind of the first thing I would say is to, you know, find some Deaf adults or the Deaf community somewhere and just expose yourself to that.”
Knowledge is power, according to Maddie’s experience. She told us that many families start out feeling afraid of the unknown—but after connecting with a Deaf mentor, parents realize that being D/deaf isn’t a world-shattering disaster. In fact, it can be a vibrant part of an individual’s life.
We thank Maddie Hinkle for sharing her knowledge with us! To learn more about CHS, visit https://chicagohearingsociety.org/.
Resource Roundup
Don’t forget to check CHS’s class schedule for free online sign language classes: https://chicagohearingsociety.org/family-sign-language-classes/
Maddie also shared some source material that she used for her reading curriculum. Visit the following links to learn more:
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Melody Gibson is a writer and editor based in New York State. She has bachelor’s degrees in both communications and graphic design. Melody became enchanted by picture books when she started reading to her son when he was a baby. She writes about children’s literature, family relationships, special needs advocacy, child development, and more.
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