In September last year a five-year-old boy arrived at preschool in Sydney with no language. Owen is deaf and for five years medical professionals instructed his parents not to sign. The boy had been fitted with cochlear implants and told these devices would eventually give him access to speech. They didn't.
Owen is now enrolled in the only bilingual preschool for deaf children in Sydney, eagerly learning Auslan (Australian Sign Language). His face lights up each time he learns a new sign; Owen loves preschool and is thrilled to finally communicate.
But he's lost the most vital five years of language acquisition; studies show this will impact his linguistic and cognitive abilities for the rest of his life. He will never catch up to his hearing peers.
Last year, the bilingual preschool, was cut to three days a week; when it reopens after the holidays, it will only be open two days a week. In 2017 it will probably close.
This centre is the only place in Sydney where deaf children can learn Auslan.
Owen's story is not unique.
Every year children arrive at deaf schools across Australia well behind their hearing peers with little or no language, because parents and professionals have refused to sign. The reasons for this are many, but an underlying theme is that parents and professionals want the children to be 'normal'.
This is surprising, considering we live in a time when difference is more accepted than ever. Gone are the days of Leave it to Beaver when the norm was straight, white, able-bodied middle class families. Here, in the 21st century, Mardi Gras is mainstream and Adam Goodes is a brand ambassador for David Jones. Racism and prejudice still exist, but in the media we are seeing more diversity than ever before.
Yet when it comes to parenting a deaf child, the tendency is to reject difference. Parents and professionals try to force that child to be something they're not: hearing.
In 2013 I presented a paper at the International Conference of the World Federation for the Deaf in Sydney, where I gave the results of a survey of 72 hearing parents of deaf children in Australia. The majority said they had been told not to sign by speech therapists or medical professionals.
Six years ago my daughter, Kaitlyn, was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss. Initially, I was devastated.
I, too, was told by an early intervention centre not to sign with my deaf child. 'It may interfere with her spoken language development,' they said, though there's no research to support this claim.
When she was three, I went against that advice and began studying Auslan. I enrolled my daughter in the bilingual preschool and she learned to sign better than me.
She's now in a signing choir. One day a week she goes to the deaf school, where she learns Auslan, is able to socialise with children like herself, and doesn't miss the jokes. Some of her friends at her mainstream school have started to sign as well. They use a mixture of speech and sign on the playground. When people sign, Kaitlyn doesn't miss out. 'I hear with my eyes,' she says.
No two deaf children are alike and Kaitlyn's in a very different position to the five year-old boy who's just started to learn Auslan. She speaks clearly. Her hearing aids work (much of the time) but she hears when it's quiet and her aids are in and on and working and she's looking at you.
We don't live in a quiet world. People don't always look at you when they talk. Hearing aids often break. Mainstream school is noisy and I'd estimate she misses about half of what her hearing peers hear.
Sign language has been controversial for a long time. In 1880, at the second International Conference on the Education of the Deaf in Milan, experts voted on a resolution that banned using sign language to teach deaf children worldwide. Some older members of the Deaf community in Sydney report that they were made to sit on their hands in school.
Even now, sign language is seen as a last resort in Australia, as evidenced by Owen and the other deaf children who arrive at preschool and school without a language.
I'm so grateful for what that bilingual preschool gave Kaitlyn. She's confident, happy, bright, and proud of her deaf identity. But she may well be part of the last generation of deaf children to sign in Australia.
This will be a loss for Australian cultural and linguistic diversity. It will be an even bigger loss for individuals like Kaitlyn. And for children such as Owen, it will be a devastating loss.
Sarah Klenbort is a US-born writer of fiction and non-fiction who also teaches literature at the University of Western Sydney.