Looking for some insight, on my 9 month old

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LoveMyLife8414

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I have found myself in an interesting predicament, and I want to apologize in advance if I offend anyone with the misuse of terminology, and sharing my truth on emotions.

We realized a few months ago my now 9 month old was not responding to things she previously would have. My fears escalated and I demanded a hearing test at her 9 month well baby check up. At that time we found out most of her hearing was gone in her right ear, and she was below 50% in her left ear. Forgive my ignorance here, I truly thought that meant she could only hear 50% of what was presented to her. Turns out that that percentage is based on different sounds she can hear all together... Turns out my voice is not one she can hear (my heart broke). My first reactions were what did I do wrong during my pregnancy, then turned to 'was God getting me back for something I had done in my past'. I admit with sadness, I was angry, thought her life was going to be one of solitude, she would never learn, etc. I am even more sad to admit I still feel this way late at night when I am processing it alone. I have never met in any form, anyone hard of hearing or deaf, it is again a strong case of ignorance why I feel this way (I pray).

Today we found out (1 month later) that her hearing is deteriorating, and the loss is permanent. Her original audiologist was so hesitant it really gave us hope, her and the ENT pushed it off as a 'stiff ear drum' resulting from a cold/flu we some how missed her having. Today's audiologist made everything crystal clear; as of now we do not know why, all we know is she will never hear me tell her I love her...

I am so sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. I am reaching out for someone who can tell me where to start! I am my childs only advocate, I just need to know where to start the fight! We are enrolled with ECI (early child intervention), but I am looking for first hand experience. Let her know from the beginning she is not alone or disabled. Where I can learn sign language, along with her. And just all around become educated. We live in North Dallas, TX.

If I am missing any important information, please ask. She had one minor ear infection (caught at a check up before she had any symptoms, right ear), born three weeks early and had a blood and lung infection at birth (required 4 antibiotics and a short NICU stay). We are meeting with a neurologist and an oral pathologist, she has a major GI birth defect that is to lengthy to explain unless of course it is again important...

Thank you all for any input you can offer, in advance.
 
Hi.

I am Deaf, ASL user. All I can say is that your kid needs to learn ASL, and if you want to place her in the speech therapy too. It's up to you. The key is to communicate with your kid as much as you can. Also, be sure to find someone else's kids who are deaf/Deaf/ form of hearing losses that they can socialize with your kid. So your kid would know that kid won't be too lonely.

Speaking of school, actually, I do not know much since lot of schools change a lot over years. I am a 70's chick which i loved being in Deaf school. Now I am a mom working in a hearing world.

The bottom line is to communicate with your kid. If you dont want her to be in Deaf school but you can check out with Austin, TX where the strong deaf community is, and deaf school is there for more information, for your own benefit.

I know your kid is going to be FINE. :)
 
LoveMyLife8414 said:
I have found myself in an interesting predicament, and I want to apologize in advance if I offend anyone with the misuse of terminology, and sharing my truth on emotions.

We realized a few months ago my now 9 month old was not responding to things she previously would have. My fears escalated and I demanded a hearing test at her 9 month well baby check up. At that time we found out most of her hearing was gone in her right ear, and she was below 50% in her left ear. Forgive my ignorance here, I truly thought that meant she could only hear 50% of what was presented to her. Turns out that that percentage is based on different sounds she can hear all together... Turns out my voice is not one she can hear (my heart broke). My first reactions were what did I do wrong during my pregnancy, then turned to 'was God getting me back for something I had done in my past'. I admit with sadness, I was angry, thought her life was going to be one of solitude, she would never learn, etc. I am even more sad to admit I still feel this way late at night when I am processing it alone. I have never met in any form, anyone hard of hearing or deaf, it is again a strong case of ignorance why I feel this way (I pray).

Today we found out (1 month later) that her hearing is deteriorating, and the loss is permanent. Her original audiologist was so hesitant it really gave us hope, her and the ENT pushed it off as a 'stiff ear drum' resulting from a cold/flu we some how missed her having. Today's audiologist made everything crystal clear; as of now we do not know why, all we know is she will never hear me tell her I love her...

I am so sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. I am reaching out for someone who can tell me where to start! I am my childs only advocate, I just need to know where to start the fight! We are enrolled with ECI (early child intervention), but I am looking for first hand experience. Let her know from the beginning she is not alone or disabled. Where I can learn sign language, along with her. And just all around become educated. We live in North Dallas, TX.

If I am missing any important information, please ask. She had one minor ear infection (caught at a check up before she had any symptoms, right ear), born three weeks early and had a blood and lung infection at birth (required 4 antibiotics and a short NICU stay). We are meeting with a neurologist and an oral pathologist, she has a major GI birth defect that is to lengthy to explain unless of course it is again important...

Thank you all for any input you can offer, in advance.
Click to expand...

Frisky Feline has good advice. Another route would be to get in touch with your local hearing and speech organization. Dallas being a big city must have something like that, check the yellow pages. There is all kinds of help for deaf children today.

I know this is difficult and frightening for you now, but as you take this journey with your child through the growing up years you will relax and your child will do just fine.

I want to wish you all the best!
 
Frisky Feline said:
Hi.

I am Deaf, ASL user. All I can say is that your kid needs to learn ASL, and if you want to place her in the speech therapy too. It's up to you. The key is to communicate with your kid as much as you can. Also, be sure to find someone else's kids who are deaf/Deaf/ form of hearing losses that they can socialize with your kid. So your kid would know that kid won't be too lonely.

Speaking of school, actually, I do not know much since lot of schools change a lot over years. I am a 70's chick which i loved being in Deaf school. Now I am a mom working in a hearing world.

The bottom line is to communicate with your kid. If you dont want her to be in Deaf school but you can check out with Austin, TX where the strong deaf community is, and deaf school is there for more information, for your own benefit.

I know your kid is going to be FINE. :)
Click to expand...

We have her in speech therapy thanks to the ECI group (we start December 10th), they do not offer ASL through the program though. To be honest, although it is the most amazing collection of specialists, they all seem very intimidated by her. I do not think any of them have faced a child with hearing loss before. I have been google-ing all day trying to find groups, communities, anything in my area. If there are any, they are very well hidden. Not to mention I have no idea what to google :( The yellow pages is a great idea! I just want to thank you for your response, and not judging me for my ignorance. Bless you both for helping point me in the right direction!!!
 
LoveMyLife8414 said:
We have her in speech therapy thanks to the ECI group (we start December 10th), they do not offer ASL through the program though. To be honest, although it is the most amazing collection of specialists, they all seem very intimidated by her. I do not think any of them have faced a child with hearing loss before. I have been google-ing all day trying to find groups, communities, anything in my area. If there are any, they are very well hidden. Not to mention I have no idea what to google :( The yellow pages is a great idea! I just want to thank you for your response, and not judging me for my ignorance. Bless you both for helping point me in the right direction!!!
Click to expand...

If I were you, I'd contact Texas School for the Deaf and see if they can point you towards local Sign resources.....http://www.tsd.state.tx.us/
I did find an elementary school that has a dhh program.....http://www.dallasisd.org/domain/2670 and http://www.utdallas.edu/calliercenter/child-development/deaf-education/
There is an Option Oral preschool but I have a hunch that the speech therapy through ECI will be enough. Some parents feel that HOH style services are lacking/and or freak out about oral speech skills....However, Most kids who Sign also speak/get a really hefty dose of HOH style/auditory access style interventions.......So since you're in a big city, you'll have access to really good quality Deaf ed services, and I doubt that the HOH style stuff will be lacking!
Also join American Society for Deaf Children http://deafchildren.org/
 
Ah, found another resource: http://www.deafacademy.com/information#!__llad
Research and find out about the quality of local deaf ed. I'm hoping that the teaching will be good quality and the curriculum on par and the resources good, so she will get a good education. The good news about deaf ed, is that most Deaf ed does have a strong subpopulation of very academic kids. ...However if Deaf ed isn't the best you might want/need to relocate... I know Texas School for the Deaf has gotten REALLY popular (ie people are relocating for it)
 
:welcome: to AllDeaf Forum.

Now you mentioned that your 9 months old baby is already in Speech Therapy. It may be all right but she will struggle trying to understand you or other hearing people as she does not sign her baby signs to communicate better with you and others. Speech Therapy will make your child learn to speak but would not be able to get across from the Speech Therapist or you. ASL is very important to Deaf children and adults so it would be easier to understand visually. If there is a Deaf program for toddlers and children, then that would be great.

I hate being in the mainstream school (hearing school with or without ASL interpreters) with only Special Education program instead of Deaf program. Mine when I was in both mainstream schools (Elementary and High School), I did not have ASL interpreters back in the 1955 to 1966. Finally, the school board began to allowed to have ASL in hearing classrooms in the early 1970.

So I hope you can learn and pay attention to her action of being a deaf child. Don't deny her if she wish to sign ASL or having problem getting accommodations to adapt to the hearing world or society. She can do anything except she can not hear. Lipreading is not that easy either. So it is important that she need to sign ASL baby signs first.

I hope you can stay and learn about deafness, hearing devices and learning how to cope in the hearing world. Life is not simple when hearing society ignore us. They expect us to do what the hearing people want us to do their ways, not our ways. We tried to tell them what we need as d/Deaf people. They don't get it. So I hope you get it.

Enjoy reading and posting here. See you around here. :wave:
 
Bebonang said:
:welcome: to AllDeaf Forum.

Now you mentioned that your 9 months old baby is already in Speech Therapy. It may be all right but she will struggle trying to understand you or other hearing people as she does not sign her baby signs to communicate better with you and others. Speech Therapy will make your child learn to speak but would not be able to get across from the Speech Therapist or you. ASL is very important to Deaf children and adults so it would be easier to understand visually. If there is a Deaf program for toddlers and children, then that would be great.

I hate being in the mainstream school (hearing school with or without ASL interpreters) with only Special Education program instead of Deaf program. Mine when I was in both mainstream schools (Elementary and High School), I did not have ASL interpreters back in the 1955 to 1966. Finally, the school board began to allowed to have ASL in hearing classrooms in the early 1970.

So I hope you can learn and pay attention to her action of being a deaf child. Don't deny her if she wish to sign ASL or having problem getting accommodations to adapt to the hearing world or society. She can do anything except she can not hear. Lipreading is not that easy either. So it is important that she need to sign ASL baby signs first.

I hope you can stay and learn about deafness, hearing devices and learning how to cope in the hearing world. Life is not simple when hearing society ignore us. They expect us to do what the hearing people want us to do their ways, not our ways. We tried to tell them what we need as d/Deaf people. They don't get it. So I hope you get it.

Enjoy reading and posting here. See you around here. :wave:
Click to expand...

I feel the OP "Get it" ,she came here didn't she ?
 
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