Deaf child

[I.d]

Hello. I am the mother of 2 year old deaf child. He has a cohlear implant in only one side . we live in a foreign country before his birth. I dont know what to do. We should learn sign language but we dont know yet so good the spoken language and at home w.e speak differnt language .i would like that he would know my maternal language but then we stay here and if we remain here he should know the language from here
I am afraid of not doing whats best for him..

 

[deafdyke]

Get hooked up with any schools for the Deaf. They can help you!

 

[Old Analog]

Children are great at learning multiple llangues, but without sound his first language should be sign, he will pick up your mother toung as well he should, English will be hard but with different references it will make more sense and be easier,be blessed and enjoy the adventure

 

[Old Analog]

What part of country you in? NE, Florida, Texas, Decodas, West coast all have great schools, what is your mother toung? ASL is based on French structure, tell us more

 

[I.d]

Well .i dont live in U.S. i live in GErmany and my mother language is romanian .but with therapist and doctors i speak english and they dont like this .they keep telling me to learn german ..but its so difficult this language.

 

[Old Analog]

Yes it's said easy to pick up hard to learn, because it is based on Laton, Greek,French,Gaelic,German(bouth Saxon and anglo), and Danish, and some others, German sign language I know not, I have a friend who knows Hungarian signthe journey is long setting mile stones make it easier, friend of mine facing months long recovery said I can't do this for months, Dr. told him you don't have to you only have to do it for 24 hours today

 

[DjJonses]

My mother used a book, taught me what she learned, sent me to the deaf education program, and grew advanced with me as we grew together. At age 3, she went from knowing 0 sign language to knowing almost every word in the sign dictionary. She started when I was only 9 months. I hope that will help you feel more relieved about this journey! She didn't consider the implants, because she never saw my deafness as something that needed fixing. She tried hearing aids to see if I would like music, and I used it for a few years until I strongly identified with the deaf culture.

 

[VisualistGang]

I think you should send your child to a kindergarten for deaf children. Later, you can send him to a deaf school. Your main goal should be learning him the sign language used in the country you lives in. If it's the US, it would be ASL. In the UK, it would be BSL. Maybe there are courses for parents, so they can learn sign language too. The reason he should learn sign language first is because of that's the easiest language to learn when you don't hear well. When he's old enough, he can learn reading and writing. Deaf people who've learned one written language are able to learn other written languages later.

I think the most important is learning him the sign language and written language used in the country you lives in first. That's what he need the most. With sign language, he can talk with other deaf people and with written languages, he can get access to information. You can still learn him other languages as well, but spoken languages would take longer time to learn because of his hearing and CI. Often deaf children need to hear a word more times than a hearing child to be able to learn it, because of they may not pick up words from conversations as easily.

When learning sign language on courses, pictures of the things are often shown. You can learn to associate the sign with the pictures you see and learn a few basic signs, until you've learned more of the language to the country you moved to. If you shows a picture to your child of a dog with text under and show him the sign, he would learn both the sign, spelling and what it means. You, as a parent, can learn both sign language and a spoken language at the same time relatively easily if you're around many people who knows the languages. Both of you can benefit from using a lot of pictures to more easily remember your target language.

Here are some examples on how pictures gets used in language learning:

 

[EllietheEncourager]

Language Deprivation is a diagnosis in the DMS-5. A developing brain NEEDS language and the best time to learn is from birth to 5 years.

Learn sign together. There are sooo many videos on YouTube. Bill Vicars is a professor that posts his lectures for free. There are children's books read in sign on YouTube and DPAN.com. Skillshare is less than $10 a month and they have ASL Classes online to get started.

Romanian, English, ASL (or another version of sign.) something. get started asap for his sake.

Wishing you all the best.

 

[x1heavy]

I did not possess a langauge until I was in Columbia School for the deaf in the 73' year which was the first 65 or so enrolled after it was built. Once I had my ABC and 123 etc in Sign the first hour the first day, being around that many deaf in a dorm situation evolved that language by the end of that first week. A month later I had pretty much all the words I needed and learned more.

You will be amused to know that the kids taught me street words and very bad language in signs that week. It was fun. Among other "Forbidden" subjects that were not taught to children back then by adults or teachers. You learn quite a lot very fast once you have a language to work with.

Then the State assigned me a voice therapist. She worked with me in spoken English for a very long time. This was from Signed English in those days to speaking english under the Galludet Signs. ASL did not exist back then. So decades later ASL was my third langauge to go with a few other extremly basic spanish, french and german for trucking purposes along with a bit of russian to order from food trucks in the NE when needed.

The Cochlear Implant creates sometimes more problems than it's worth. One of the old debating points about it is parents sometimes just install a device into the skull of a child and think good. He or she will be speaking like all normal children. Taint so. Not always. The parents never took a minute to ask the child if that child liked being deaf naturally as God made them. If you are deaf from birth and life means you don't know that you are missing out on hearing. You adapt and do well with other senses. Sometimes forcing a cochlear takes away a person's right to choice how to live or not. The parent never asked. Just spend the money and wham done. Now what?

The child in the OP's case needs to go to Deaf School in a grade appropriate and the Parents and family needs to learn sign language. The other languages will fall into place well enough. However once the child gets older its harder to learn a language.

I remember the day Johns Hopkins installed a hearing aid into me as a child. It opened up a world of hearing. However it was incredibly expensive and Father paid it all. It worked out well because i needed to hear for Trucking which was another issue into the 70-'s Deaf people did not become truckers until then. That caused other problems seperate from the Cochlear subject here.

One last thought. Do not be in the trap of discrimination for being either all deaf, a little deaf or hearing impaired as being somehow not deaf in a deaf insitution. Thats a form of racism which infected MSD for decades after I graduated under another Leader there. Some deaf or those who were hard of hearing were not treated equally as second generation deaf children of the parents attending that were my classmates in some cases.

Whatever the child has, do your best. And at some point all will be well.

 

[FlashAid]

I did not possess a langauge until I was in Columbia School for the deaf in the 73' year which was the first 65 or so enrolled after it was built. Once I had my ABC and 123 etc in Sign the first hour the first day, being around that many deaf in a dorm situation evolved that language by the end of that first week. A month later I had pretty much all the words I needed and learned more.

You will be amused to know that the kids taught me street words and very bad language in signs that week. It was fun. Among other "Forbidden" subjects that were not taught to children back then by adults or teachers. You learn quite a lot very fast once you have a language to work with.

Then the State assigned me a voice therapist. She worked with me in spoken English for a very long time. This was from Signed English in those days to speaking english under the Galludet Signs. ASL did not exist back then. So decades later ASL was my third langauge to go with a few other extremly basic spanish, french and german for trucking purposes along with a bit of russian to order from food trucks in the NE when needed.

The Cochlear Implant creates sometimes more problems than it's worth. One of the old debating points about it is parents sometimes just install a device into the skull of a child and think good. He or she will be speaking like all normal children. Taint so. Not always. The parents never took a minute to ask the child if that child liked being deaf naturally as God made them. If you are deaf from birth and life means you don't know that you are missing out on hearing. You adapt and do well with other senses. Sometimes forcing a cochlear takes away a person's right to choice how to live or not. The parent never asked. Just spend the money and wham done. Now what?

The child in the OP's case needs to go to Deaf School in a grade appropriate and the Parents and family needs to learn sign language. The other languages will fall into place well enough. However once the child gets older its harder to learn a language.

I remember the day Johns Hopkins installed a hearing aid into me as a child. It opened up a world of hearing. However it was incredibly expensive and Father paid it all. It worked out well because i needed to hear for Trucking which was another issue into the 70-'s Deaf people did not become truckers until then. That caused other problems seperate from the Cochlear subject here.

One last thought. Do not be in the trap of discrimination for being either all deaf, a little deaf or hearing impaired as being somehow not deaf in a deaf insitution. Thats a form of racism which infected MSD for decades after I graduated under another Leader there. Some deaf or those who were hard of hearing were not treated equally as second generation deaf children of the parents attending that were my classmates in some cases.

Whatever the child has, do your best. And at some point all will be well.

That was very well said. I couldn't agree more.

 

[George1]

I know the Germans are very nationalist, so it is not a surprise that the doctors recommend you to teach him German. In my opinion, do as your intuition says, because you are responsible for your child. I also encountered such a problem, of course, not as serious as this one, I wanted to buy for my kid a toy gun, and many people told me that it is bad, as they can develop an aggressive behavior etc. I didn't agree with their opinion as I was confident in the education I give to him, so I bought him a nerf gun for toddlers which is small and easy to use.