Ashley defies the odds

WHEN Ashley Hodgkinson attended lectures while studying to be a teacher at the Embury Institute for Teacher Education, she took her mom along.

It wasn’t that she was shy or afraid of going to class on her own, she simply needed access to information and needed her mom's assistance, as she is deaf.

Ashley graduated from Embury with a Bachelor of Education Foundation Phase on 16 March and said she was grateful to her mom, as she would not have been able to obtain a degree without having her as her access to auditory information.

Mary-Anne Hodgkinson, Ashley’s mother, was pregnant with Ashley when she contracted cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common virus that can affect almost anyone. If you are pregnant, however, your child will be affected, and one of the symptoms is hearing loss.

“Ashley was born profoundly deaf. Initially we spent two weeks of every three months in Cape Town on an oral aural programme encouraging speech through the use of residual hearing. However, Ashley did not respond to the programme, and we were advised to follow a different route, which was sign. She was a year-and-a-half when we started signing,” said Mary-Anne.

With no interpreter available during Ashley’s mainstream school career, Mary-Anne reluctantly took on the role which started in Grade 10, and so continued through the four years of Ashley’s degree.

“Ashley was amazing. She understood and accepted that I was her access to auditory information and simply a vessel. This stage was extremely challenging, as the work was difficult, but Ashley knew what was needed to achieve her dream of studying at university and obtaining a degree. She worked very hard and coped extremely well. Socially it was a wonderful move and she was happy, which is important, as the rest then fell into place,” said Mary-Anne.

Mary-Anne said that this was Ashley’s education and degree and that she was simply providing a way for Ashley to access spoken information.

“Throughout her school years and the years at Embury, Ashley did all the research, assignments, tests, studying, and examinations entirely on her own, like the other pupils and students are expected to do. If Ashley needed to present a project orally, then she presented in the front of the lecture hall like any other student, except she presented in sign and I voiced over what she was signing,” said Mary-Anne.

Ashley shares great friendships with friends who don’t sign but make themselves understood through gestures and lip reading. Technology has been a great help, as words can always be shared in text on a cellphone if understanding is a problem.

Ashley didn’t always want to be a teacher when she was growing up, but enjoyed being around children.

“In Grade 11, I had to do work experience for life orientation at school. I knew a woman who worked at an underprivileged school and she used Cued Speech, which was of interest to me,” said Ashley.

Cued Speech is a visual mode of communication that uses handshapes and placements in combination with the mouth movements of speech to make the phonemes of a spoken language look different from each other.

“During my three days of work experience, there was a little deaf girl who had autism, we could only communicate via gestures and I assisted her, I found a way for her to give correct answers back to me, I encouraged her by saying 'yay, yes you've got it right' and giving her a thumbs up and claps and gestures and I saw her face brighten and I fell in love with that feeling. It was rewarding to make a difference,” said Ashley.

During her gap year, Ashley worked as a teacher’s assistant and that clinched it for her.

“I wanted to do something in deaf education. And here I am, a qualified teacher, and hoping to make a difference in my class,” she said.

Ashley has only happy memories of her four years at Embury and is proud of the distinctions she achieved.

“My happiest memory was that not a single person treated me like I was a disabled person, and I do not see myself as a disabled person at all, everyone made me feel that I was normal, except that I can’t hear, that is it.”

Dr Colleen Thatcher, head of Academic Operations at Embury only has praises for Ashley and Mary-Anne, and what they achieved with their partnership.

“It was great to see the mother-and-daughter team at work. We did all we could to make the experience work for them, and in the end they achieved everything they wanted to,” she said.

Ashley and her mother are an inspiration to others. Ashley feels that the best thing for a person with disabilities to do is to see themselves as normal.

“Do not let your disability limit you at all. You may not be able to walk or hear or see or move but nothing can stop you from doing what you set your mind to. The sky is the limit, that means you can achieve whatever you set your sights on and you should never give up. Of course, you will experience a few struggles and I have struggled with a few things but I have come through them. Do not let your disability label you at all. Never give up, go after your dreams which is definitely possible and don’t stop till you have realised your dreams,” she said.

Ashley has started her new job as Grade 1 teacher at St Vincent School for the Deaf in Johannesburg.