Here for my son :)

welcome to alldeaf :)
 
Nope not "shy" at all @poweron ... just the name on my birth certificate lol.

@deafdyke, I actually got a call today from the early steps program which will help with his speech therapy and things of that nature. she told me that the deaf school will assign a case worker to him to help me with pretty all of his special needs. and they do house visits!

In that case, ask her about the local regional dhh programs. I mean yeah he's still young, but on the other hand it would be good to know about your options for schooling. Especially since they try to get away with providing minimal accomodnations, for HOH kids. I think what I'm trying to say is try to find a school that has an actual sizable formal program for dhh kids.....make sense? Like, he could take advantage of mainstream stuff but also have the advantage of dhh curriculum and teachers who are familair with dhh kids, as well as other dhh kids. But that's gonna be in awhile.......you still have a few years to wait!
 
Welcome to alldeaf! Seems you are on the right track :) Thank you for being so accepting of your son's deafness. He will thank you in the long run too!


aww of course!! he's my baby and we are a family. he may not be perfect in someone else's eyes but he is to me. while others see a disability, i see so much potential and an opportunity to learn and explore new things and communities. believe me, ill be the to thank him in the long run!!
 
Have you contact any deaf services in florida yet? They would give you the right referral office where you can get meeting. Hopefully the agency is not that far from your home. Ask them to see if any deaf worker there so you can meet and give you some ideas. some agencies have deaf mentor that can show you about deaf community, ASL and any deaf events. I dont know anyone who works with agency or deaf services in FL. =?
 
Have you contact any deaf services in florida yet? They would give you the right referral office where you can get meeting. Hopefully the agency is not that far from your home. Ask them to see if any deaf worker there so you can meet and give you some ideas. some agencies have deaf mentor that can show you about deaf community, ASL and any deaf events. I dont know anyone who works with agency or deaf services in FL. =?

The lady I spoke to yesterday was from Early Steps ... she said that a caseworker will be assigned to him from the deaf school (which is in St. Augustine ... about 2 hours from me) and that he/she will be making house visits and be able to help me find everything that you've mentioned
 
We're still waiting on his hearing aides. Hopefully he will get them in the next month or so. I think its very important for him (and all who surround him) to know ASL so that he can have a back up. There's so many what if's. I looked into that school ... it's two hours away from where we currently live. But it's still an open option for our family. I'm hoping though that if I get him enough help now, he may be able to go to a "regular" school with ease.

I am guessing your son hearing aides are child friendly. I wanted purple HA and got child friendly hearing aides ! The battery door can be locked so a child can't get the battery out on their own. My HA also has a red light that start flashing when I battery is going dead so the parents or teacher will know it time to replace the battery.
 
I am guessing your son hearing aides are child friendly. I wanted purple HA and got child friendly hearing aides ! The battery door can be locked so a child can't get the battery out on their own. My HA also has a red light that start flashing when I battery is going dead so the parents or teacher will know it time to replace the battery.

I'm guessing so 2 since I have them myself and they got swag.
 
He hasn't gotten them yet since his medicaid was cut off for the month of January for some odd reason ... Apparently he's supposed to have medipass started now in Feb so then we can get his molds done ... we already picked out the baby blue ones for him :)
 
He hasn't gotten them yet since his medicaid was cut off for the month of January for some odd reason ... Apparently he's supposed to have medipass started now in Feb so then we can get his molds done ... we already picked out the baby blue ones for him :)

They cut off my sons a lot in the beginning too so be ready. My little boy got some black and green ones :)
 
Yeaa I was preeetttyyy pissed. Didn't even get notification! I found out about the medipass when I spoke to that Lady that I spoke about on the phone. NOT looking forward to the crazy run arounds with the insurance mess ...
 
Oh yeah insurances are the worst especially going through the state medicaid. I had to wait 4 months for them to evaluate my sons case to decided if they would pay for his hearing aids. Now here we are with our second son and they have pushed his appointment for his sedated abr off three times now due to the insurance wanting them to jump through hoops at his pediatricians office. But the headache will pay off lol. Congrats on ASL we started the day we found out about our son. We are not nearly as close to schools that can help but considering moving. Our schools are 4 1/2 hours away it kind of sucks.
 
Yeaa I was preeetttyyy pissed. Didn't even get notification! I found out about the medipass when I spoke to that Lady that I spoke about on the phone. NOT looking forward to the crazy run arounds with the insurance mess ...

On the other hand, you really shouldn't panic. As recently as 15 years ago, HOH kids weren't dx until we were toddlers and we did OK. I know it's in a mother's nature to worry but at least he still has quite a bit of residual hearing......It'll just captialize on his speechreading abilty....a tiny bit of a delay in getting hearing aids won't really affect him negatively.....I think actually the research on aiding ASAP is from severe/profound or CI kids. (meaning kids with NO residual hearing)
 
Mothers worry? Lol it's what we are good for :) Deafdyke is one of the greats for some stellar information look for her to post for some good info
 
You know, I just thought of something......we have all these parents of HOH kids who are wanting them to have access to ASL and deaf culture and deaf schooling (whether formal dhh school or deaf school) ...HOH kids! That is AWESOME and amazing! I wonder if parents knew that dhh programs were and are HOH friendly, if more of them would opt for putting their kid in a program. I think the thing that hurts deaf schools/programs is the myth that they're voice off. Virtually ALL Deaf schools and programs do offer HOH/Clarke style intervention, like auditory training and speech therapy and things like that. I know there are a lot of THOSE types of parents....you know the kind that worships speech therapy and Inclusion....but there are prolly just as many parents who are completely unaware that deaf school/program would be an awesome option for their dhh kid.
Who knows? Maybe we'll see an uptick in HOH kids in deaf programs.....wouldn't that be funny?
 
He hasn't gotten them yet since his medicaid was cut off for the month of January for some odd reason ... Apparently he's supposed to have medipass started now in Feb so then we can get his molds done ... we already picked out the baby blue ones for him :)

That is odd that his medicaid was off. Did you find out why that happen?
Baby blue HA sound pretty.
 
I am guessing your son hearing aides are child friendly. I wanted purple HA and got child friendly hearing aides ! The battery door can be locked so a child can't get the battery out on their own. My HA also has a red light that start flashing when I battery is going dead so the parents or teacher will know it time to replace the battery.

I didn't know about those features. When I was little, I wore the body type hearing aids. My mother would know if the battery is dead if it quitted whistling before she put them on me.
 
Hi! My name is Shy and I have 3 boys ... my youngest (2 months old) is HOH. I just want to learn as much as I can and get as familiar with the "deaf community" as possible. Any ideas? Live in Florida, if that matters. :)

So your boy is HOH.... do you know how much of hearing loss he has in decimal (DB)? Just curious.

By the way, I am glad you are going for ASL.
 
I live in Ocala. I have been learning ASL (online) ... trying to teach it to my two oldest too. We want to go with hearing aides and speech therapy. CIs seems a bit extreme ... I don't if I'm totally comfortable with it. Either way, the doctor said that it wont even be an option until he's one. It would be great if I got to meet other deaf/HOH people because I've never interacted with them. Not by choice. My son is actually the first I've ever met.

Since you mentioned that your child is hard of hearing, he probably won't qualify for cochlear implants. The technology itself is really for people with profound hearing loss and cannot benefit from hearing aids. You are taking the right steps with your child. Continue what you are doing and your child will be successful. There may be situations where you may be in for a rude awakening, but they shouldn't stop you from parenting your child the way you intend to.

Also, I should say that language development should be a top priority in your child's life, especially the first five years as they are the most crucial years. ASL itself is a complete language, so is English. It's important for the child to learn a complete language rather than none at all. ASL is a language a child can learn and become responsive within the first few months. It's important that the child is able to distinguish between ASL and English.

Good luck on your journey.
 
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