Making sense in sign : a lifeline for a deaf child

Language which develops "against all the odds" is very precious.

Words were not enough for Tom; it was signs that made sense of a world silenced by meningitis.

Confidence came via joyful and positive steps to communication from babyhood; a brush with epilepsy, a cochlear implant in his teens and life as an independent young adult followed.

This work is an account by a woman of how her son contracted meningitis and of the deafness that resulted.

It offers a discussion of the issues surrounding deafness from a parental viewpoint.