FRIENDS OF KOREA How one Peace Corps Volunteer helped deaf Koreans find their voice
Summary
Gloria Mamokhin, a 23-year-old Peace Corps Volunteer, helped a deaf child speak at Severance Hospital in Seoul on a cold winter morning in 1969. After the child called his mother Umma, Mamokhin trained eight women at Severance and Seoul National University hospitals and helped establish a clinic. She served in Korea from 1969 to 1971, and says the work that began then has grown into a field with 4,500 speech pathologists in Korea. She revisited the hospitals in October 2008.
Key Facts
- Mamokhin had arrived in Korea only days before her demonstration for doctors at Severance Hospital.
- The child, who had been deaf since birth, was 6 years old and had never spoken to his mother.
- Mamokhin split her training work between Severance Hospital and Seoul National University Hospital.
- The program also treated Korean veterans of the Vietnam War who had aphasia.
- Shim Yoon-joo, one of the trainees, later studied audiology at the University of Washington.
The first 'Umma' that brought speech therapy to Korea
Gloria Mamokhin, left, attends a dinner with her husband Dmitri at The Plaza Seoul hotel in Seoul, Sept. 16. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
Editor’s note
The Korea Times welcomes Americans who served in the Peace Corps in Korea between 1966 and 1981 to share their stories. This is one of them.
As I trudged across Sinchon Rotary and up the steep walkway to Severance Hospital, I kept repeating to myself a phrase from a childhood story about a train engine: “I think I can, I think I can.” It was a bitter cold winter morning in 1969. Today was the day that I was to come to the hospital and show the doctors in the ear, nose and throat section of the hospital that I could, indeed, get a deaf child to speak.
Only days earlier, I had arrived in Korea to volunteer for the Peace Corps at age 23. Once it got around that I had training as a speech therapist for the deaf, Peace Corps Korea Director Kevin O'Donnell urged me to pursue it. At the time, Korea had no speech pathology center.
George Worth, an American missionary in Korea, introduced me to staff at both Seoul National University (SNU) Hospital and Severance Hospital. Both hospitals were interested in starting a program but wanted to see how it could work, so they told me to come back the next day, when they could bring me a patient. That's how I found myself "auditioning" for a speech and hearing center. I was confident that it could work.
One of the doctors brought me into a large auditorium filled with about 50 doctors seated, watching me, waiting. This was definitely not the casual meeting I had envisioned. Once again, "I think I can" ran through my head.
I was then introduced to a lovely young mother and her 6-year-old child, who would now be 62. He had been deaf since birth and had never spoken to his mother.
So they said, "Teach him to talk, and you can have this clinic."
I was nervous, and didn't know where to begin, but was determined to make this work.
I thought one of the easiest words to make this child understand was the word most children called their mother: "Umma."
The pressure was on. I worked for quite some time with him making my mouth round and having him feel my lips vibrate. I pointed to his mom hoping he'd make the connection. It was nerve-wracking, for both myself and the kid, and there was no progress after about 15 or 20 minutes.
I could see the doubt in the faces of the doctors watching us, thinking "she will never do this."
I asked the doctor if he could ask the mother to leave. It was my hope that if she walks away, the child might respond with what I had been teaching him.
As she was halfway out the door, he not only responded, but he screamed at the top of his lungs, "Umma!" The woman came flying back into the room, picked up her child, kissed him profusely and proceeded to hug all the doctors and me.
Crying, she told me, "This is the first time my child has called my name. Bless you all!"
There was not a dry eye in the house.
So this Peace Corps Volunteer, only days into her assignment in Korea, succeeded in helping a child speak for the first time.
But that was just the beginning of my work. Next, I had to set up a training program. I trained eight women at Severance and SNU, splitting my time between both institutions.
Soon, we were allowed to open a clinic at Severance. People would line up to see us with their kids, and many came from the countryside. We also treated Korean veterans of the Vietnam War, suffering aphasia, to help them speak again.
Shim Yoon-joo, one of the people I trained, later went to the University of Washington, where she studied to become a doctor of audiology.
I was really fortunate to have such a unique job. I learned so much helping special individuals with special needs to become active members of society. It was two wonderful years in Korea.
When I left, someone followed me, and then someone followed them, and now, I understand, there's 4,500 speech pathologists in this country. There are universities that offer communications as a major, and there is the Korean Speech-Language & Hearing Association, affiliated with the worldwide Speech and Hearing Association.
All of us Peace Corps Volunteers, we became better people because we were here. As with most Peace Corps projects in Korea, it all began with "I think I can" and very quickly move to "We knew we could.’’
Gloria Mamokhin, right, examines the Korea Foundation Award gifted to Friends of Korea during a dinner at The Plaza Seoul hotel in Seoul, Sept. 16. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
When I returned to Korea in October 2008 for the first Peace Corps Revisit program offered by the Korea Foundation, I visited the world-class speech and hearing centers at Yonsei Severance Hospital and Seoul National University Hospital. The growth and development that started in the 1960s live on today.
It all began, as most of our lives begin, with a young child crying out for his mother.
Dr. Gloria Mamokhin, née Gloria Levin, served in the Peace Corps in Korea from 1969 to 1971 (K-7).
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