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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/1974/1874
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| Title: | My Deaf Autistic Son and Me |
| Authors: | Morris, Angela |
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| Keywords: | deaf autism
deaf autistic
multi handicaps
special education
parents |
| Issue Date: | 2009 |
| Abstract: | This Self Study, submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Education, is in the form of a series of vignettes and describes the challenges I
experienced as the mother of a deaf autistic child trying to find an education system that
could accommodate my son's needs. It describes my attempts to find support for him and
for myself. The study describes the difficulty I had in obtaining an accurate diagnosis of
my son's disabilities due to the fact that both deafness and autism present similar
language difficulties. My son's deafness was diagnosed well before his autism, which
resulted in his education beginning in a system specifically designed for deaf children, so
that he received no early intervention for his autism. My study describes the stress
entailed in moving our son from one school system to another in an attempt to find a
teacher who had expertise in both deafness and autism. I found gifted and caring teachers
of the deaf and teachers who had experience in teaching children with autism but, at that
time, was not able to find anyone with expertise in both. In later years, we moved our son
back to the School for the Deaf where a program for deaf/plus children had been
developed. My data have been culled from documentation I gathered from the time my
son was an infant and up until the age of 10 years. I have compared my experiences with
the literature.
My study ends with several recommendations for teachers, namely: (a)
recognition of parental stress, (b) culturally Deaf signers for deaf autistic children, (c) an
autism workshop for teachers of the deaf, (d) inclusion of autism in training for teachers
(particularly teachers of the deaf), and (e) research plan of action in deaf autism. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1974/1874 |
| Appears in Collections: | Education Graduate Projects
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