Abstract
Informed choice and consent are central tenets of Canadian health care, yet what it means to inform parents about intervention options for their disabled children depends on how disability is framed by the institution. This chapter examines how Ontario’s Infant Hearing Program (IHP) presents meanings of language and deafness to parents during their infants’ hearing screening and diagnostic process. It examines the IHP’s understandings of deafness as a “problem” that should be fixed with hearing technologies and shows how such understandings govern parents toward a “right” choice of spoken language over sign language. The author calls for reform within the process toward a more fluid and flexible understanding of language, deafness, and parental choice.
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Edelist, T. (2023). Governing Deaf Children and Their Parents Through (and into) Language. In: Jeffress, M.S., Cypher, J.M., Ferris, J., Scott-Pollock, JA. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Disability and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14447-9_26
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