“Aren’t they adorable?” His wife grinned at the little urchins as they passed. The kids were cute, no doubt. He and Annie had talked about having a few children. Now, with Parker and his disability, he wasn’t sure. The pressure he felt from his parents was weighing him down and causing sleepless nights and too many headaches, such as the one starting behind his eyes right now.
“Cute, yeah.”
“Cute,” Blake repeated, scraping his chin with his first two fingers.
“Very good. You remembered.” The smile Carli gave his brother showed her pleasure.
Having Blake here, showing his signing skills was not helping him in the least.
Annie mimicked the action and whispered the word to their son. Did these people not understand they were wasting their time learning sign language? Well, Carli could already use it, but Blake and Annie. He had better things to do with his time. Like help run Wentworth Industries, which is what he should have been doing right now, not visiting a school he had no intention of sending his son to.
“Carli, it’s great to see you again.” A slim, dark-skinned woman appeared from the office and hugged Carli.
“Greta, this is Harrison and Annie Wentworth and their son, Parker. And this is Blake Wentworth. He’s a pediatrician and Harrison’s brother.”
Older, more successful brother, she forgot to add. The one who could get away with wearing goofy Christmas ties and still look cool. Seriously, ifhewore a tie with reindeer on it, Dad would have a fit. Probably why Blake had never even thought about working for the family business. It had all fallen to him.
“This is Greta Carmichael, the principal of the school. She’s arranged for us to get a tour from one of the students.”
One of the students? How the heck would he understand what they were saying? Was he supposed to know sign language before he even came here?
The woman gestured to a young girl who was sitting in the office. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he noticed she had cochlear implant processors behind her ears. Why was she here if she had implants?
“This is Hannah Frost. She’s a sophomore here and will show you the building and take you around to some of the classrooms. Ask her anything you want. If you still have questions after, I’d be happy to help, but Hannah has been here since she was two, so she’s pretty familiar with what goes on and how everything works.”
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I always like to start with the youngest kids. Those classes are lots of fun,” the girl said, clearly. How was it she had such good speech?
“Are those implants?” he asked, wanting to clarify. He was hardly an expert on deaf assistive devices.
Hannah nodded and continued walking down the hallway. The first class they came to had four adults and about a dozen young children playing.
“This is the preschool class. These kids are three, and this is their first time without their parents. We have some play groups that meet several times a week for infants and toddlers that are run by the SLPs.”
“Speech Language Pathologists,” Carli explained to him. Apparently, Annie already knew this, because she only nodded. Maybe he should have been paying attention to what Carli had been saying.
“How often is preschool? I know Parker’s not even a year old, but I can’t imagine dropping him off for that long.” Annie hugged their son tighter.
“When the kids are three, they come four mornings a week. During this time, they get their services as well as social groups and playtime.”
Blake peeked in the door. “The teachers all sign, I assume.”
“They do. Some of the teachers are Deaf and some are hearing, but they all sign and are all trained in Deaf Education and fluent in ASL.”
How would he ever understand Parker if he came here? The boy wouldn’t know how to talk. He needed to go to a regular school. “So they don’t get to learn regular English. Only this ASL, which I understand is different.”
Hannah smiled and straightened. “Our school is what we call Bi -Bi. Bilingual and bicultural. The students learn about Deaf culture and the Deaf Community, and along with that American Sign Language, which has its own grammar rules. But they also learn the rules and speech patterns of standard English. This way they can read any book and communicate with hearing people using written words. Texting, e-mails, that type of stuff.”
As they proceeded down the hall to a higher-grade class, Harrison had to wonder about this girl. He would never have guessed she was deaf. Like Carli.
“You have implants and speak very clearly. Why do you still go to this school if you aren’t deaf anymore?”
Carli took in a deep breath. “CIs don’t fix a deaf person and make them hearing. I’ve mentioned this already. They allow a person to access sound more than they have before. It doesn’t make the deafness go away.”
Hannah nodded and continued the tour. They went past quite a few classes, and at one, Blake stopped and touched Carli’s arm.
“Isn’t that Deanna?”
“Yes, she teaches here. Third and fourth grade combined classroom.”
