I would think there are many more out there who aren't. Since most deaf children are born to hearing parents (who undoubtedly have no signing background) it is not possible for the deaf child to get equal amounts of exposure to both signing and speech right from the get go. It takes time to learn sign, and until a parent is fluent in it, the scale is going to be tilted more towards speech. And vice versa for a child born to deaf parents (and even harder to go this way because a hearing parent can learn sign, but the deaf parent can't learn speech if they don't already have it).
Theoretically, I'll have to concede that your points are valid. However, with the diagnosis coming in at younger and younger ages, the parent can develop fluency along with the child, and studies have shown that even when exposed to less than fluent models, the child will develop fluency greater than his models. And, if a child is diagnosed in infancy, the language models to not have to be grammatically and syntactically correct for the child to acquire the language. Just think how many hearing arents talk to their hearing children in shortened sentences, mispronounced words, and incorrect sytax. "See doggie?" is hardly proper English, but the kids pick up on grammatical rules and syntactical rules anyway. It took me quite a while to achieve what I would call fluency in ASL, but in the interim, I had my son around several ASL native signers and their children to fill in the gaps. That also improved my signing skills much more quickly than had I simply relied on classes. At the same time, my son was wearing bi-naural HAs, and attending AVT 4 times a week, so he was getting the oral side as well. And I know quite a few CODAs who were exposed to ASL via their parents, but had equal exposure to spoken English via other family members, siblings, playmates, etc. and were therefore fluent in both languages at an early age. It's not impossible.
I never said that it wasn't necessary to be exposed to both to develop a preference, only that most people are already going to be biased towards one or the other (for the above reason).
If that is the case, then hearing children of deaf parents who are ASLers would have a lifetime preference for sign.
And to say that a deaf person who learns sign as an adult is going to prefer sign (after oral only exposure as a child) is a pretty bold statement. Are there statistics to back that one up?
There are posters on this board that prefer sign to speech even though they grew up in an oral environment. And the Gallaudet campus is full of oral deaf who didn't learn sign until they arrived at the campus, yet now, once having learned it, have developed a preference for ASL. As most college freshman are 18-19 years old, I would consider them to be adults. I personally know of several students tht my son went to school with, someof them CI users, who were mainstreamed until their high school school years and didn't learn sign until coming to the school for the deaf, that will now use oral communication when they have to, but much prefer signed communication.
Yes, we are doing sign with a CI. But I can tell you, Abby's preference is very much for oral. She has already told me that she doesn't want to sign anymore because she can hear again (mind you, she has very poor discrimination at the moment, but that, apparently, is good enough for her). I plan on keeping with it, because I feel it will help her in the long run, but that is my preference, not hers!
