Your deaf child needs to SEE every word you say to him because he cannot HEAR you. Let me repeat what I have just said because it is the most important thing you should remember about your deaf child. He needs to SEE every word you say to him because he cannot HEAR you.
How can you help him to see what you say? One way you can do this is to make a clearly recognizable gesture for every word that you say to him. For example, if you do this (sign'saya') every time you say the word 'saya', and you do this (sign 'makan') every time you say 'makan', and this (sign 'nasi') each time you say 'nasi', then it will be possible for your deaf child to SEE(sign 'nampak') you say "Saya makan nasi" (sign these words at the same time) as clearly as anybody else can HEAR (sign'dengar') what you have said.
The special gesture which is used to represent a particular word is called a sign. If there is a special sign for every word in Malaysia Language, then even those who cannot hear or speak will be able to 'talk' to each other with their hands instead of their mouths as I have just done.
As a first step towards making it possible for all deaf children to 'talk' with their parents and teachers in this way, our Ministry of Education has developed a set of 1600 signs which a rte now availabe in the form of a book. This set of signs is called Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan (BMKT).
Although you may think that 1600 signs is already quite a lot of words, it does not in fact include as yet even enough words for use in our primary schools. Howevers, inventing new signs to add to the present list a very slow and difficult process. It has therefore been found necessary, as a temporary measure, to use a very different method for showing words for which we have no signs as yet. This sound method is called fingerspelling.
Fingerspelling is very easy to use if you already know how to read and write. All you will need to learn for this purpose is some hand shapes, one for each letter of the alphabet. For example, this (sign 'a')stands for the letter 'A'; this (sign 'd')stands for the letter 'D'. What do you think this (sign 'ada')stands for? Yes, that stands for word 'ada'. Every word that we speak can be fingerspelt in this way way if we know the complete set of 26 hand alphapets and so on. It will take you less than one hour to learn how to fingerspell any word slowly if you already know how to read and write.
If it is so easy to learn fingerspelling, why do we need to learn thounsands of different signs which are so hard to remember? There is a very simple answer to this question. It is this: Young children find it very difficult to recognise a word when it is made up of a number of changing hand shapes. Let me illustrate this. The word 'makan' is fingerspelt like this (fingerspell M-A-K-A-N). And this is how makan is signed. I will repeat this so that you will be able to compare the two methods easily. You can see how much easier it is for very young children to recognise each word if it is shown as a single sign. Its is of the utmost importance that children should be given the opportunity to learn the use of language as easily and as early as possible. Deaf children who use fingerspelling will find it very easy to learn how to read and write. In fact educators in Russia have already used fingerspelling fairly successfully which with deaf children for more than 30 years. Nevertheless, we believe that BMKT will be much more successful.
However, before any success can be achieved through the use of BMKT there is a serious problem which must be overcome. Let me try to explain what this problem is.
Every child learns his language from what is said to him and from what he hears people say to each other. The less language he hears the less language will be learn. It is the same for the deaf child. The more language he sees, the more language he learns. If he sees very little language at home, his language development will be retarded. He will need to SEE as much language as the normal child HEARS of his language is to develop normally. This is why you and everybody else at home should use signs whatever you speak to your deaf child, as well as whenever you speak to each other. You can do this only if you are fluent in your use of BMKT. This is where we have our serious problem.
However, what is needed most is a lot of devotion, effort and perseverance from you, the parent. This is a factor over which only YOU can have complete control. The succeessful use of BMKT depends much more on you, the parent, than it does on your deaf child's teachers when he gets to school. If the foundation of your child's language has not been solidy laid at home by you, his teachers can have no proper base on which to build his education. Your deaf child's educational future depends almost entirely upon the quality of language that he has BEFORE he goes to school.
I hope that this brief talk has given you a better understanding of your child's main problem as well as what you can do to help him overcome it. He needs language NOW more than anything else you can give him. If does not see BMKT at home, he will not have language even to think with his own head, let alone talk with other people. Try to imagine what it would be ike if you did not know even a single word in any language. You will find this a very hard thing to do because you have always had language from your earliest childhood. Spend at least a few minutes thinking about it. This may make you realise why you need to master the use of BMKT as soon as possible for your deaf child's sake. Without language, your deaf child will grow up to be completely dependent on others. With language, he can receive enough education to qualify him for almost any job or profession. What he will become is your responsiblility. He desperately needs your help NOW.
Kuala Lumpur Society of the Deaf, 9B, Komplek Perniagaan Sri Selangor,
Jalan Sang Peng, 55300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel : 03 - 2230690 /
Fax : 03 - 2226536