for deaf parents about CODA people

sweet4u618

sweet4u618

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Hi, I am deaf parent of my hearing daughter 6 month old. I would like to make friends with CODA. Please email to me. Thanks. For Deaf parents of hearing children, How did you guys do with your hearing kids so far? my daughter 6 mo old is starting to try sign and sometimes like talking but not yet talking.. I read her lip and hear with hearing aids but sound like not talking yt. I might go to YMCA kid activity but need to call and ask them to get interpreter and then daughter and I go socialize with hearing kids for them to learn speech while I watch interpreter what annie and hearing people say.
 
:welcome: to AD!


Both of my kids are hearing.

When my daughter was born, I was a strong "oral-only" deaf person who didnt know ASL so my daughter was never exposed to it until she was around 4 when I finally became fluent in ASL. Now she is 10 years old and her signing is that of a late learner. Since I have good speechreading and speaking skills, she uses her voice rather than signing with me out of habit. I am trying to sign more with her.

However, my 16 month old son has been exposed to sign since birth and he is signing a lot now. See what happens with him. My son hasnt said his first word through spoken English and my in laws are worried that his preference to express himself through signing will impact his speech. I have seen that so many times with my friends' hearing kids but eventually they always start talking. My friend's 3 year old daughter used to sign all the time in her first 2 and half years without saying a word. Now, she is talking a lot and not using signs much. Kids go thru stages when they are signing only and then all of sudden, they stop signing and use spoken languages but I dont know of any cases where a CODA's speech skills become severely delayed due to having deaf parents.

Raising hearing kids is not a big deal...but when I go to her events like sports or whatever, I dont really talk to the other parents cuz they tend to form in groups of 6 or 7 people and chat. I cant participate in groups of hearing people chatting away due to my inability to catch everything being said so I either talk with one parent at a time or just watch the event by myself. It is not a big deal cuz I am not there to make friends with the other parents...I am there to watch my daughter.

When my daughter has her hearing friends over especially when it is more than 4, it becomes a challenge to me to understand all of them so I try my best.


Most of my daughter's friends are CODAs..so it is nice. :)
 
hi shel90

Hi, I understood your message. I want to know if you ever thought about writing notes to hearing parents? Also has you or your friend try speech therapy the same time as your friend or you teach sign language to your hearing daughter or son? I do get it that it is hard to get interpreter for your hearing daughter's sport. I used to play volleyball with interpreter in high school which is different than real world and home. I know your daughter's school and not your school harder to get interpreter for your daughter at her hs sport. I do see that your friend's daughter had a hard time to speech and sign same time. I do believe it is hard to get interpreter to YMCA. It depends on location plus if YMCA understand how to get interpreter too. I will call YMCA and ask about interpreter and let them know when we go there. If not, I'll have to write notes without interpreter with my daughter's YMCA activity youth group.
Cute Issue...My daughter like to hear the music "six little ducks" because she looked at the cd player. Then I looked at the back of Tunes for Toddlers case and I see the track number saying "Six Little Ducks". I said "Oh, you like it. Six Little Ducks". so I kept that track for her to smile as she like.
 
I can chat with hearing people without writing in pen and paper back and forth..I just dont feel like straining my eyes trying to catch everything the groups of parents and it is not worth it for me to take my eyes off from my daughter's games to participate in conversations. No biggie. I would rather watch my daughter then trying to lipread someone.

Nope, my friends and I didnt try to put our kids in speech therapy cuz we knew that their speaking skills will catch up. If they arent speaking by the time they are 4 then maybe there is a problem but other than that, my friends and I dont worry about it.

For my daughter's school events, meetings or whatever, the school district has staff interpreters. I only need to contact the hotline two weeks in advance. For her sport events, I dont need a terp since I can communicate one on one with hearing people well and there are no presentations.
 
Nice meet ya CODA's Deaf Parent. Luckily your daughter has CODA friends that mean sign and speech with your deaf parents' hearing kids at sport or wherever. I grew up with hearing aids since 3 yrs old. I learned ESL and speech therapy in school all the way to H.S. and learned ASL socially at Program of NIU. In college, I learned ASL a bit more. I could not wait to see how my hearing daughter would be like in future. Otherwise, we already met speech therapy home program for my daughter yeah. Any other CODA hearing or deaf parents experience welcome to say anything here.
 
I am a CODA.........

I am the oldest of 3 children.... I learned how to sign before I learned how to speak..... I was speech delayed and required speech therapy services from 4 years old until I was in 5th grade... I sounded very much like a Deaf person... I still revert back to it when i am signing, espcially with my parents...Honestly, the best thing you can do as a parent is BE INVOLVED!!! I really wish that my parents were.... My dad was always working and my mom had such ill will and restiment towards hearing people that she never got involved... It didn't matter if I was a honor student or was flunking out of school.... Now I have a deaf child of my own, and she now wants to be inovled (of course, i won't let her near my son- other issues surround that )... she disagrees with the way how I am raising my son.. just be a part of your child's life.. HTH!!!
 
When u say your mom wasn't involved because of her resentment towards hearing people, do u mean like not coming to your games or events or not becoming a volunteer at your school, being a coach or whatever?

For my daughter, my hubby and I go to all her events and stuff but don't volunteer due to both of us working full time. When I registered my daughter for softball, I put down that I was interested in being a volunteer as an assistant coach like I have done in the past 3 years. They never contacted me about becoming one. :dunno:

U were speech delayed? Weren't u exposed to any spoken language at all during the first years of your life?

Thanks for sharing your experiences and different point of view. U made me think of some things in a different view. :)
 
hi

d.tr. has you seen your deaf parents' deaf friends and socialize with deaf friends or any of your deaf parents' friends' hearing kids? It depends on what kind of illness your mom had that affected the way she is. sometimes person who had manic depressive or parkinson's or lonely could affect that person to become no patient and worry. I know someone in my family like that. I don't know if it affect personality too. I'm sorry that your deaf mom was not helpful to you since your dad work a lot. otherwise does some of your aunt or uncle socialize with you in past with speech?
 
Shel:

To answer your question, my mom simply never got involved because she has bitter resentment towards hearing people and the hearing community. I was speech delayed... I lived next door to my hearing aunt and uncle and my grandparents lived 10 blocks away... but I still was speech delayed...as well as my sister, and younger brother...
 
doubletrouble said:
Shel:

To answer your question, my mom simply never got involved because she has bitter resentment towards hearing people and the hearing community. I was speech delayed... I lived next door to my hearing aunt and uncle and my grandparents lived 10 blocks away... but I still was speech delayed...as well as my sister, and younger brother...
Click to expand...

Ok..iam sorry u had to go thru that. I don't want to do that to my daughter cuz I do have some unresolved issues stemming from my past with the hearing world. I still interact with them but when it comes to large group situations, I tense up and my anxiety level shoots up. I just hope my daughter doesn't feel nor see my tension. Thanks to your story, I will keep an eye on how I react in these kinds of situations when my daughter is around. :)
 
raising a hearing child is hear. You know it is natural for them to speak (As ASL is to deaf), and you want them to speak correctly.
 
To DoubleTrouble: I think speech delay is hard on you isn't it? I understand that your deaf parents may be working no ssi or ssd with no public aid that cannot pay for speech therapy isn't it? My daughter's 6 mo old. I will see how it goes in future even with public aid paying speech therapy. Wish me the luck. What age did you finally speech good 100 percent or about 100 percent about that time??? and same time with ASL?
For anyone... If personal (not in public), please whoever want to send me personal messages to my email inbox which would be fine with me.
 
doubletrouble said:
Shel:

To answer your question, my mom simply never got involved because she has bitter resentment towards hearing people and the hearing community. I was speech delayed... I lived next door to my hearing aunt and uncle and my grandparents lived 10 blocks away... but I still was speech delayed...as well as my sister, and younger brother...
Click to expand...

Sometimes my CODA's wish I was not around. They sometimes are ANNOYED I am around. But I am still there as much as I can. (I have a full time job plus a part time) Hearing people don't talk to me except say HI. I used to ask my kids to interp they are resistent - they will do only if they have to. It is okay.
 
sweet4u618 said:
To DoubleTrouble: I think speech delay is hard on you isn't it? I understand that your deaf parents may be working no ssi or ssd with no public aid that cannot pay for speech therapy isn't it? My daughter's 6 mo old. I will see how it goes in future even with public aid paying speech therapy. Wish me the luck. What age did you finally speech good 100 percent or about 100 percent about that time??? and same time with ASL?
For anyone... If personal (not in public), please whoever want to send me personal messages to my email inbox which would be fine with me.
Click to expand...

You need to expose your child to the hearing environment. Take your child to library for story-telling. Contact the deaf community agency for events - youcould take your child, etc.. Turn TV volumes on for seesame street shows and some popular children shows. My 2 children, now 17 and 12, are doing well and not speech-delayed. YOur child will catch up, but please don't delay by not exposing enough. You have hearing relatives or friends? YOu can try them, too.
 
deafsqrrl said:
You need to expose your child to the hearing environment. Take your child to library for story-telling. Contact the deaf community agency for events - youcould take your child, etc.. Turn TV volumes on for seesame street shows and some popular children shows. My 2 children, now 17 and 12, are doing well and not speech-delayed. YOur child will catch up, but please don't delay by not exposing enough. You have hearing relatives or friends? YOu can try them, too.
Click to expand...

So, if the hearing children of deaf parents are not exposed to hearing people at all, they will be more likely to be speech delayed? I never thought of that. Or u mean delayed in spoken language? Isnt it like a child born to Spanish speaking families not learning English until they enter school even though they live in the US? My ex husband was from Mexico but moved to the US when he was 2 years old but never learned to speak English until he started kindergarden. Within a year, he was fluent in English as well as Spanish so does the same thing happen with CODAs who havent learned English? Just curious...
 
it is easier for a person to speak in another language if he knows how to use his speaking skills from birth or even in the womb. It don't matter what type of language you use or what you sound like as long as you teaching your child how to use his voice box and his tongue.

that's really bad that some deaf would take their frustration against hearing people on their children. But if your mother took well care of you and love you despites that that she has issues, that's all it matters. Because every mothers have issues that affect the child's future (some have depression, some are very pushy, some party too much, etc) . But hey, that's what parents are there for, to mess up their child life and both child and the mother still love each other anyway. That's a true bondage.

Anyway, back to the topic:

To the Original poster, my advice to is go eat out more or shopping because there conversation everywhere that your son can pick up. Also encourage him to use the phone and interpret it for you. I heard alot of hearing children do this for their deaf parents, It helps them with their speaking and listening skills.
 
Or take them to church :) I know, I know this is not very popular solution, but it works. It did with my son.
 
I have spoken to a few adult CODAs that they admit they were pretty screwed educationally and emotionally because they were raised in a signing household, with no access to speech, other than watching TV. From my perspective (hearing paretn of deaf child), I feel it is just as important to expose a hearing child to speech as it is to expose a deaf child to sign. As someone else said above, it is your childs natural language. You surely dont want your children to learn speech from watching TV. If your child learns speech from TV, who knows what they are learning, and from who and what type of show.
I have been told here that it is important to teach kids sign and speech, so I guess the same aplpies from the oopposite side of the coin.
 
Lillys dad said:
I have spoken to a few adult CODAs that they admit they were pretty screwed educationally and emotionally because they were raised in a signing household, with no access to speech, other than watching TV. From my perspective (hearing paretn of deaf child), I feel it is just as important to expose a hearing child to speech as it is to expose a deaf child to sign. As someone else said above, it is your childs natural language. You surely dont want your children to learn speech from watching TV. If your child learns speech from TV, who knows what they are learning, and from who and what type of show.
I have been told here that it is important to teach kids sign and speech, so I guess the same aplpies from the oopposite side of the coin.
Click to expand...

Yea...I never thought about that probably cuz my ex hubby and my current hubby are both hearing. I wonder if I would be aware of that if my hubbies had been deaf. I am glad that was brought up and made me aware. So far, my 10 year old daughter has never been diagnosed with speech delays so I will watch out for my son. He is with his grandma all day so I am sure he will be fine?
 
shel 90

for shel90 yes your son will be fine since your hubby and grandma are both hearing too. I have deaf hubby and I am deaf too. so that's why I have my daughter to have speech therapy. and I do take her out for walk in past 3 days a nice cool temp with blanket around her and went to company who s hearing there are plenty to talk to her for about 1 to 3 hrs since 3 days ago sometimes every other two days hearing ppl talk to her to learn a bit. Otherwise speech therapy noticed that she might need therapy anyway since my speech is declined because I have not socialized with my hearing mom that much so I lost my speeech a bit and wrote more notes with her and other ppl even with my hearing aid sometimes I read lip is failiing too cuz not socliazing with her or enough around hearing world that much. for a long while, so I tried to be back on feet to practicing reading lips and speech just a little bit bettter the same time after spending a lot of time with my deaf hubby before I got preg and the new baby girl hearing girl yeah. Tmw she's 7 mo old.
for other one who asked me... good idea about deaf community or library with storytelling but I would like to have interpreter too same time. or have sister interpret when visiting sister in other town library. yeah you are right and other people too who gave ideas. There are so many things to think of to help keeping up the hearing kids to keep speech between signs. She's sign milk or just open close hands im not sure.. and when I said bye bye one time I caught her saying ba ba trying to speech it once. yeah. I'm enjoying 6 to 7 of her daughter wow. Time flied since I put CODA in this thread about a month ago or so. I have not realized how long ago is that lol. Well Im tired to check about how long ago anyway. I will check later. It's great to read all that news recently smile. Good Nite.
 
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