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Summer 2007 Table of Contents
Versión Español de este artículo (Spanish Version)

Your Deaf Child Goes To the Hospital: Number 1006 Student Health Information Sheet

Developed by: Jan Kemper and Brenda Thaxton

Reprinted with permission from the Gallaudet Clerc Center website,<http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/SupportServices/series/1006n.html>

Abstract: Good communication in the hospital is one of the most important things a parent can do to increase their deaf child’s understanding and reduce the isolation and fear. Learn some useful strategies parents can use to prepare a child for a hospital stay.

Keywords: Family, deaf, hospitalization, communication strategies

About one third of all children will need to go to the hospital at least once before they become adults. Although long term or repeated hospitalizations may cause serious long-term problems, even after a short hospital stay parents may notice such effects as difficulty sleeping, fear of medical treatment or people, increased limit testing and changes in activity levels. Usually these reactions will disappear within a month of the hospitalization, but all of these problems can be minimized by proper preparation and good communication throughout and after the hospital stay.

When planning for a child’s hospitalization, or if an emergency hospitalization suddenly occurs, one of the first things every parent should consider is the age of the child. All children are different at each age, and hospitalization will affect each child at each age differently. There is a chart included at the end of this article, which suggests the child’s needs and possible responses at each age. Although the deaf child is, of course, going to go through the same developmental stages as a hearing child, he or she is going to have the additional fear, lack of understanding and loss of contact forced by a new and possibly inadequate communication system. Because your deaf child will have a limited ability to understand or be understood through speech, planning for and assisting with good communication in the hospital is one of the most important things a parent can do to increase the child’s understanding and reduce the isolation and fear. This should start before the child is admitted to the hospital by communicating with your child and finding out what he or she is thinking. Use play, drawings, books, and brief informal times to explore your child’s thoughts and feelings. Give your child correct, honest and simple information. Encourage questions. Contact the hospital and arrange for interpreters for your child while in the hospital. Make hospital sign books (the Kendall School Health Room has Hospital Sign Charts to loan). Be sure to include your child in these arrangements and activities if he or she is old enough. Your child will need to know that he or she will not be alone, that you will be there, and that he or she can take favorite toys, blankets and books.

Your child will need reassurance that he or she did nothing bad to cause this hospitalization, that he or she will come home from the hospital and that you will always love him or her. A pre-admission tour of the hospital is a big help, particularly if you can actually go on the floor where your child will be. Taking polaroid pictures of hospital staff may give your child a chance to know some faces before he or she is actually hospitalized.

Your child’s hospitalization is an ongoing process. Don’t stop communicating. Let your child know that “scary” and “hurt” are not the same, and that sharing is good and it will help. Make sure your information is accurate and that you clear up any misunderstandings. While your child is in the hospital, keep things the “same as at home as much as possible” with games from home, school work, and visits from brothers, sisters and friends. This link with the familiar is especially important to your deaf child because, even though he or she may be very clever in devising ways to play with hearing kids in the hospital, communication will still be difficult. You can help the hospital staff to understand your child better by teaching them a few necessary signs, posting these signs in your child’s room and encouraging them to adapt their communication to his or her needs.

Tips Include:

1. remind them to mark “Deaf” on your child’s intercom button so every staff member will know to come to your child’s room when he or she signals; remind them to always get your child’s attention with a gentle tap and face the child before signing, speaking or demonstrating something; help them to learn how to insert, turn on, change the battery in and troubleshoot the hearing aid; provide paper and crayons or markers and masking tape for pictures or words of explanation; don’t forget that surgical gloves make great signs and finger-spelled alphabets when inflated and taped in place; help them remember that deaf children are very active and communicate through movement which means the least restrictions the better;
2. deaf children’s play may be more here and now than hearing children, and they may have more difficulty expressing this “new” experience to an outside person like a nurse. Parents are familiar with child’s behavior; you will recognize changes first, and you can interpret these changes to the hospital staff while providing support and stability to your child in this strange and frightening place.

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Last Revision: October 4, 2007