Hey.....I actually think that is a good option. The debate seems to be over which language should be a dhh kid's first language. Most hoh kids can aquire speech very easily, but may need "fine tuning" (just like I did as a preschooler, although I was in a general early intervention, as opposed to Deaf Ed. ) There is NOTHING wrong with putting a hoh kid in an oral program, to get that fine tuning, and then introduce ASL academicly. (as long as things are carefully monitored for severe language issues) But I do think there is something wrong with our system that we see mainstreaming as the be all and end all for oral kids. Like the mentality is " get them up to par, with their speech and that's all they need to be mainstreamed?" I'm not commenting on you...just commenting on oral education in general. Did you know that until really recently, it was beyond common for mainstreamed oral kids, to hit the fourth grade ceiling, and then go off to Clarke or CID or St. Joseph's? The thing is...I think the experts who advocate mainstreaming oral kids are pretty much clueless about what a typical dhh kid goes through in the mainstream.
Especially around jr high and high school....Oh dude....jr high and high school are horrendous.
Anyway.....now you can work on ASL and Deaf stuff. It's a good tool, to have. A lot of kids do well and then start having issues around fourth grade.
ASL is also a lot more fun then speech therapy. A while back someone posted " I wish I'd gotten ASL. Instead all I got was speech therapy"...I think you should visit ASL/Sign using classrooms and see if there's anything good out there. It's not actually that unheard of for a kid to switch educational methodolgies. There are some parents who are 100% OK with ASL/Sign, but are afraid that ASL programs don't concentrate enough on speech. (and that can be true) who transfer their kids into ASL using programs later on. And I mean, I really do think a large part of the reason why Clarke is dwindling in enrollment(Only seven boarding students!) is b/c a lot of the parents who would have sent their kids to Clarke, have found their state deaf school to be hoh friendly. Matter of fact there is a state deaf school that is very oral, but also uses sign.
