Guess I should have done this last night...

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JadeSkye

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I made my first post last night, but am now thinking that maybe I should have introduced myself first (I apologize- I've not been on many chat boards and it usually isn't necessary, but maybe it is important here?). So, here is my introduction (although I don't really know where to start).

I am a 29 year old mother of two girls, one who is seven and one who is three. I am married to a great man (although he is not their father, but he is a wonderful stepdad) and we live in a small town in Florida, United States. I am hearing but we are currently dealing with my youngest daughter going deaf. At this point I do not know what her hearing loss is (we just realized on December 1 of 2012 that she appeared to not be hearing us, she might have been losing her hearing for a little while or maybe just that week- we don't know but she has been hearing since birth, she had good language skills and was very verbal). We are in the middle of trying to find out what her hearing loss is and how profound/severe it might be (it appears to me to be very profound or severe because it truly seems as if she is not hearing anything, not car horns or trains or anything like that). We had an appointment this past Monday at an Otolaryngologist (ENT) and the audiologist was able to confirm that her ears and ear drums look perfect and the ear drum is working properly. She would not cooperate with the hearing test (she wants nothing to do with headphones any more, even though she enjoyed listening to music in them before this- another clue to us that she is definitely not hearing right), so they were really unable to give us any concrete answers besides her ears looking fine. We are waiting to hear back from them about an appointment for a sedated ABR to find out where her loss is at and how severe it is. I joined this site hoping to find support and begin to learn about deafness and Deaf culture so when I know more about her hearing (or lack of) I will be able to best help her begin learning. I look forward to learning from everyone here and please feel free to tell me what you think I should know about raising a d/Deaf child- I want to give her the best life I can!
 
Welcome JadeSkye. You are very wise and doing exactly what my own daughter did. My granddaughter is not fully Deaf, but we noticed she was not responding to sound either. She is three yrs old, too. The sedated ABR is the way to go with lil ones that are hard to test. Dont worry, if she is, she sure has one great mom in her corner fighting for her. Keep us posted!
 
Welcome and have you contacted Florida School for the Deaf? I am sure they can help and have connections to Deaf services in Florida.
 
shel90- I have not contacted FSDB yet about services for her but I did learn from a friend of mine (who is deaf-blind) that they were offering free ASL classes so I registered for that. It is an online class for parents of dhh kids (I explained to them that I was not sure of our status yet and they were fine with me joining, said if things changed I could always withdraw from the class if need be). I actually start the ASL class tomorrow night :) (it is just beginners and only 9 classes, but they have about 3-4 other levels as well, so once I complete that I can probably enroll in the next level). They are also having an open house in February (I believe) and I planned on calling the contact for that this week to get some information on attending. It is hard to make all these phone calls some days because I also work during the day (FT) but I am trying to do a call a day at least during my lunch breaks.
 
deafgam- Do you know what caused your granddaughter's hearing loss? Had she been that way since birth and it just is becoming noticeable or was it sudden? I am a bit lost as to how this all could have happened (I am thinking it might be nerve damage due to some recent falls she took but not sure, doctor didn't seem too concerned about the falls).
 
Most of the time, I tell parents that the biggest category of loss is unknown. But in this case when it was rather sudden, , maybe they will find a cause.(just b/c it seemed so sudden)...But then again....it's also possible that it was gradually progressive and snuck up on you guys without realizing it.
It's just that you're just NOW realizing it.....and if that's true, don't feel bad. Kids can compensate easily. But the doctors will put your daughter through all the possible dx tests to find out what happened.
 
deafgam said:
Welcome JadeSkye. You are very wise and doing exactly what my own daughter did. My granddaughter is not fully Deaf, but we noticed she was not responding to sound either. She is three yrs old, too. The sedated ABR is the way to go with lil ones that are hard to test. Dont worry, if she is, she sure has one great mom in her corner fighting for her. Keep us posted!
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How fortuitous for her that you live in Austin!!!!! Even HOH kids can strongly strongly benefit from ASL and Deaf ed. They tend to get oral only and highly mainstreamed.....
 
My granddaughter just turn three recently. My daughter notice she wasnt responding well to sound like she should right after second birthday. I kept pushing daughter take her get test. I think my daughter was scared and didnt want accept. My granddaughter signs since i am Deaf. Finally, i made me appt. Daughter took me. While there, we had granddaughter tested. She has mild hearing loss in both ears. Its either heritary or ear infections. We are leaning toward heritary. It came on slowly. We are having her tested again every six to eight months to keep watch. She has 25 dB loss in one ear and only 20dB in other. Her hearing loss is only mild. But we keep watch on her. Not enough loss for hearing aids as of right now.
 
deafgam said:
My granddaughter just turn three recently. My daughter notice she wasnt responding well to sound like she should right after second birthday. I kept pushing daughter take her get test. I think my daughter was scared and didnt want accept. My granddaughter signs since i am Deaf. Finally, i made me appt. Daughter took me. While there, we had granddaughter tested. She has mild hearing loss in both ears. Its either heritary or ear infections. We are leaning toward heritary. It came on slowly. We are having her tested again every six to eight months to keep watch. She has 25 dB loss in one ear and only 20dB in other. Her hearing loss is only mild. But we keep watch on her. Not enough loss for hearing aids as of right now.
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At least she has the beginnings of a full toolbox, should she turn out to have a progressive loss! She'll have sign, speech etc!!!!!
 
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