Pilgrimage of Parents of Deaf Children in Mexico City

Over 90% of Deaf children are born to hearing parents, who often have a difficult time coping with this unexpected turn of events. Pfister conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 parents of children attending a school for the Deaf in Mexico City. She describes the typical process that these parents went through, which she describes as a pilgrimage:
  1. In this developing country, there is little common knowledge about deafness
  2. Most parents reported feeling devastated when they received the diagnosis that their child was Deaf, not knowing if they would ever be able to have una plática (chat, bonding) with their child
  3. They then typically went through a period of trying to "cure" their child through medical interventions, usually expending great effort, expenses and time with little to show for it. They often described intense hostility towards their child learning to sign from medical professionals and people in their community.
  4. Finally, they found their way to a school for Deaf children, where they were introduced to the concept of a Deaf culture based around signing
  5. Most parents were grateful for the improvements they saw in their child's relationships with family and peers, although they still struggled to learn more than basic signing themselves




Paywalled
Pfister, A.E. (2018). Predicament and Pilgrimage: Hearing Families of Deaf Children in Mexico City. Medical Anthropology, 10.1080/01459740.2018.1540617.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Literature Review on Healthcare Access for Deaf Seniors

Image
The “intersectionality of identities” is the idea that we all belong to multiple groups at once based on characteristics such as our age, race, gender and the presence of disabilities. Being a senior and being a member of the Deaf community have separately been shown to have an important impact on one's health, but what does the literature say about people who are both? Lesch et al. conducted a review of the literature and found that obstacles to healthcare were common for this group, including: Like younger Deaf, the elderly Deaf experience difficulty in making appointments, with the added burden of an increasing number and severity of healthcare issues Lack of providers who will accept Medicaid and Medicare insurance Lack of validated tests to assess the cognitive function of Deaf patients Lack of healthcare providers with competence in communicating with Deaf patients and understanding Deaf culture Lack of shared understanding around end of life decisions between healthca...
Read more

Difficulties in Assessing Mental Status of Deaf Patients

Image
Previous studies have shown that cultural differences between Deaf patients and hearing healthcare practitioners can lead to the overdiagnosis of psychotic disorders. Gawad & Helminiak present a case report of a Deaf 34-year-old man who was referred to a hospital psychiatric unit from a jail. He had had 3 prior admissions and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia each time. His rapid recovery after therapy was initiated led the authors to conclude that he was not schizophrenic but had experienced either a manic episode or the effects of substance abuse. The authors describe how the presentation of Deaf people in distress, the differences between communication in ASL versus English, and the lack of standardized and validated ASL mental assessment tools can lead to the misdiagnoses of psychotic disorders in this population. They conclude by offering advice for healthcare practitioners on assessing the mental status of Deaf patients. Gawad, N.A. & Helminiak, A. (2018). Lo...
Read more

Deaf Medical Student Successfully Completes Emergency Department Rotation

Image
One strategy to reduce health disparities for the Deaf is to facilitate the training of students from their communities to become healthcare providers and educators. A barrier to this strategy is the unfounded fear by medical schools that accommodating Deaf students in fast-paced, stressful rotations such as Emergency Medicine is either not possible or too difficult and expensive. Meeks et al. describe the case of a Deaf medical student who successfully completed an Emergency Department (ED) rotation, using the following strategies: The student disclosed the disability 2 months prior to the beginning of the rotation, giving the medical school staff time to craft the appropriate accommodations The ED and college disability directors held a training session for ED staff on how to work with deaf students in the clinical setting 2 weeks before the student arrived Designated interpreters with specialized training in healthcare terminology were hired for every experience the student wo...
Read more