Toddler with hearing loss

AshJagla said:
I hope so! My friend just bought me a college ASL book from her school and I have been reading it, most of the signs 'make sense' and are easy to remember, my biggest problem is ASL grammar. I have a hard time figuring out why sometimes "you" is at the beginning of a question and other times it has to be at the end of the question. And sometimes the difference between using your and you seems smudged. Like why say 'you name?' instead of 'What's your name?' Oh the woes of trying to learn a whole new language in a short amount of time lol

The EI lady that comes here every week seem really great, our speech therapist doesn't know a ton of signs, but mostly works on cognitive skills with Zoe for now anyway, which is great. I did notice that our service coordinator seems to be brushing off ASL as a 'no-need' thing to do since it seems everyone believes Zoe will be some CI miracle which shouldn't be counted on. I find it annoying to say the least, especially since my mother-in-law acts the same and we don't even know if she can even get the implants yet let alone if she will be successful at using them or if she'll want to.
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Request that you get ASL services. Be insistant that you want your child to be bilingual in both speech and sign. Point out that the world is not a soundbooth, that she'll be able to function both with and without her CI, and have the advantages of both the deaf and hearing world!
 
Also point out that the facial low tone may make it hard for her to learn to speak orally. I know if you're close to St. Louis the EI may be very pro oral. I also think that a lot of the reports of the kids doing well enough that they don't "need" ASL, might be from the private REALLY good oral schools, rather then general Early Intervention.
 
Our EI program is most definitely very oral-oriented, which has been annoying to say the least. Every time I bring up how we want to learn ASL more thoroughly they tell me how she probably won't even "need" it. I let them know that I don't care how much she "needs" it when she has her CIs on, the point is they are not a permanent part of her body and I am sure there will be plenty of time that she will have them off, or maybe broken, and will want to be able to communicate with us without us having to write things down or gesture random things at her. They seem to have backed off some and our speech therapist tries to duplicate signs we show her for Zoe, so I do appreciate that. We also now have a (oooh I forgot the word for it) specialist from ISD who works with Deaf children to both sign and speak, and she's just great. Well, we don't really seem to have personalities that 'click' but what is important is the vast information she holds and the new signs she brings to Zoe every single week.

Right now I am starting to do research on the 3 CI brands that are available. It's a lot of information to process when you've only just heard of the things a few months ago. Trying to figure out which would provide her with the best sound quality without limiting her activities if she wants to wear them and which are most likely to advance even more. I honestly haven't gotten a clue. I like AB for it's looks and it's water proofing, Cochlear for it's foundation and reliability, and Med-El because it's kind of in between. Ugh the decisions. I'm just glad we still have a few more months to think about it. Learning new signs every day and going to appointments every week, we've gone from a somewhat laid back lifestyle to a crazy busy life in no time flat. Zoe gets fitted for her first set of hearing aids this Thursday, I'm really excited because I was told she should at least get some sort of sensation from them, it's going to be something completely new to her :)
 
About the low facial/muscle tone, I agree it could make it harder for her to enunciate clearly. Her specialist from ISD did say to me the other day that she doesn't really believe Zoe was born deaf because of all the different sounds and pitches she uses still. I don't really know what to make of that since I think she's had vestibular/sensory problems since birth, but I suppose if she's right it might be a tiny bit easier for her to use her CIs.
 
We also now have a (oooh I forgot the word for it) specialist from ISD who works with Deaf children to both sign and speak, and she's just great
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So the ISD specialist is better then the EI? That is good!!!!! The emphasis on oral only is ANNOYING I agree. I dare you to ask if they would think it would be a good idea to educate a kid who is strong in English but behind in math, by exclusively focusing on their math defiency.
The EI and oral only education system is VERY ablest.
You could also say that dhh kids can get better and fuller/richer language with ASL. I know the thinking is that "oh they just need oral only." It's very true that "Deaf Like Me" 1960's spoken language delays are pretty rare today....BUT that doesn't mean that dhh kid's oral skills are on a par with hearing kids, at ALL!!!! It's just that they're not as severely delayed as they were in the past. I do think that a lot of the oral successes will end up in educational programs that use Sign, eventually.
 
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