Olive Henry joined the Carter Hears! Team in 2020 as a Sign Language Facilitator. Olive was born profoundly deaf without cochleas. She is the first person to be deaf in her family. As soon as her mom learned that she was deaf, at the age of six months, her mother learned sign language. At that time, together, they learned Signing Exact English and Pidgin Signed English. Her mom taught her everything she learned from taking sign language classes. A truly remarkable and inspiring story of connection and language! Due to Olive's mother's diligence, Olive developed her skills and was able to teach sign language at the age of 9. Today, she continues to learn more about American Sign Language (ASL) and communicates primarily through PSE/ASL.
Olive is a graduate of Stratford High School in Goose Creek, South Carolina earning a high school diploma while learning alongside hearing peers in a mainstream setting. She currently lives in Columbia and has a hard-of-hearing husband who, like her, is also first-generation deaf. Together, they have two beautiful boys who are CODAS-one deaf and one hearing. They are thrilled to have a baby girl on the way! Connection and Communication are valued in their home that they share with each other and their children.
Olive takes seriously teaching her own children ASL and enjoys her work for Carter Hears! as an ASL Facilitator to work and support other deaf children's development of ASL. She is an inspiring and engaging model of a true facilitator using her native language to make a difference in language-deprived children who are deaf or hard of hearing because they deserve access to language.