Norway...
Not familiar with American system and structure... but still..
.. Like Holland, in Norway, socialism "rules"..
Looking at the USA, for some "socialism" seems to be worse than communism.. A little place just before hell..
We are used to society taking care for those that are less fortunate.
When our child was diagnosed "profoundly deaf" the wheels started turning.
HA's were fitted, daycare in a deaf kindergarden was organised.. lot's of info.
But NOT a straight path to CI. We were informed about it, but even though Lotte couldn't hear anything with HA's.. we had to try them for some time...
It didn't help, and only then we were offered CI.
We were encouraged to continue with sign (-language) in order to continue communication.
(The decision for CI is not a financial one. (Socialism..)
The state pays for everything. It doesn't stop at the operation. We had follow-ups in Oslo every 2 months for the fist year. All expenses paid for. Needed new coils.. Send the same day. No charge...
Only the batteries have to be paid for, after the first three years. (We decided to go for rechargeable..))
Back to the process...
The philosophy in Norway is that all people should be allowed to be integrated in society. There are hardly any deaf schools. (
Here's a list of schools, with closing date.. "idag" means "today" ... still open..)
Deaf children will integrate in mainstream schools and all support will be provided. Extra teachers, smaller classrooms. Speech (and other) therapy. Anything to allow integration in society.
With that, Norwegian "society" will offer CI since it allows integration in a hearing society. (In the same way, Norwegian society will pay for anyone that wants to learn signlanguage in order to integrate in a deaf society if needed..)
Here's an article in english..
The the big decision for the parents comes, which decided from what "pot" services will come from.
One direction is to have Norwegian signlanguage as additional/main language for the child. This will open up a big pot with money and services.
The other direction is not to use signlanguage. That way, less services are available, since it seems to indicate that "your kid is doing fine"..
We are in the latter group, and it requires a lot of effort to get the services that Lotte needs. Fortunately, Lotte is doing very well, but other children/parents struggle to get that what they are entitled to because they focus on speech, not sign.
So, in a way, CI is offered to parents that find out they have a deaf child. On the other hand, excellent services are available to go any direction you want.... including sign language.