Book aims to help parents of deaf children

FRENCHVILLE – Tyler Dufour can’t hear, but at 2, he talks more than most children his age. He just does it with his hands.

The inspiration for a new children’s book, “Tyler Talks With His Hands,” written by his mother, Angel Dufour of Frenchville, Tyler Dufour was born with profound hearing loss in both ears. Two years later, Angel, 29, hopes her book will appeal to parents with deaf children because she knows what they’re going through.

“After he was born, Tyler’s pediatrician told me that Tyler had not passed his hearing exam,” Dufour said. “That’s something a mother doesn’t expect to hear.”

Dufour also intended for her book to help people learn more about deaf children. In the book, Tyler is a normal boy with one difference: He can’t hear. So to communicate, he uses American Sign Language.

On each page of the book, illustrated by Fort Kent artist Kelsy Bouchard, Tyler shows the reader how to sign different words while he explains who he is and what he likes to do, such as play with his friends or dream about what he will be when he grows up.

There are also illustrations for the entire alphabet and numbers 1 through 10 in American Sign Language.

Angel Dufour said the book is the culmination of a difficult but rewarding journey. “We’ve been through heck and back,” she said.

After Tyler failed his hearing test, Dufour spent weeks traveling to hospitals in Maine and Massachusetts with her baby. Tyler Dufour saw numerous doctors before they learned he was clinically deaf and would not qualify for corrective surgery.

Determined to teach her child to speak, Angel Dufour did extensive research on deafness and deaf culture. She immersed herself in American Sign Language and began working with Tyler on her own, exploring every avenue she could to help her son. She said at 3 months, Tyler was one of the youngest children ever to receive hearing aids in Aroostook County

At 81/2 months, Tyler signed his first word: “milk.” Now he knows how to sign more than 150 words and can sign in two- or three-word sentences. He has found his voice, and through lip-reading and the help of hearing aides, he has learned to speak three words: “mama,” “up” and “uh-oh.” Still, Angel Dufour said American Sign Language is his first language.

“Tyler was never a frustrated child, he could always tell me what he wanted,” Dufour recalled. She credits his quick grasping of American Sign Language to the hours she spends teaching herself and him. She also said children have an innate inclination to sign.

“Research shows that babies learn to sign long before they begin to talk,” Dufour writes in “Tyler Talks With His Hands.”

Dufour hopes the book will teach people that deaf children can communicate just as effectively as children with normal hearing.

“A lot of people say, ‘Poor thing, how is he ever going to learn how to talk? How is he going to communicate?’ I want people to understand that just because [Tyler] is deaf doesn’t mean he can’t communicate.

“There’s nothing he can’t do,” his mother said.

“Tyler Talks With His Hands” can be purchased at www.booksurge.com under Angel Dufour and is available in both hardcover and paperback. All proceeds will go toward Tyler’s education.