Listening And Hearing, Not The Same For Children With CI

When infants are born deaf, their development is shaped by a silent world. They learn to tune into the sights, smells, and touches that are relevant to them in their environment - but not the sounds

Perhaps that's why deaf babies respond to sign language very quickly.
 
We hear, but we don't hear like hearing people. We hear like deaf or hard of hearing people. Gee, I wonder how Auditory Verbal International will react to THIS study? LOL
 
When infants are born deaf, their development is shaped by a silent world. They learn to tune into the sights, smells, and touches that are relevant to them in their environment - but not the sounds

Perhaps that's why deaf babies respond to sign language very quickly.
My mother didn't know signs. But she had the sense to be expressive, using some body gestures to go along with articulating and mouthing the words. It just came to her naturally. And we clicked, I understood every word she said, even from across a room with a noisy background or something.
 
When infants are born deaf, their development is shaped by a silent world. They learn to tune into the sights, smells, and touches that are relevant to them in their environment - but not the sounds

Perhaps that's why deaf babies respond to sign language very quickly.

Dang! If I had a nickle for everytime I have said this and been told I didn't know what I was talking about around here, I could retire wealthy!:lol:
 
Dang! If I had a nickle for everytime I have said this and been told I didn't know what I was talking about around here, I could retire wealthy!:lol:

:laugh2:
 
nobody as a newborn automatically knows how to listen when they are spoken to. It is an aquired skill for everyone not just new CI implantees. A newborn does not automatically know what you are telling them or that speech means something. They will startle to the noise but they are not going to know what is being said. A newborn learns speech and how to listen much like a child who gets a CI. You have to talk to them and teach them to listen. It is a more intensive process with a CI because they are behind their hearing peers in the area of learning to listen but other than that they learn the same way. I KNOW some people are not going to like that I said this- sorry. I am not trying to offend but my son got a CI and did not know even to respond to his name until we taught him he was supposed to respond.
 
nobody as a newborn automatically knows how to listen when they are spoken to. It is an aquired skill for everyone not just new CI implantees. A newborn does not automatically know what you are telling them or that speech means something. They will startle to the noise but they are not going to know what is being said. A newborn learns speech and how to listen much like a child who gets a CI. You have to talk to them and teach them to listen. It is a more intensive process with a CI because they are behind their hearing peers in the area of learning to listen but other than that they learn the same way. I KNOW some people are not going to like that I said this- sorry. I am not trying to offend but my son got a CI and did not know even to respond to his name until we taught him he was supposed to respond.

You have been talking to the CI advocates and the oralists, haven't you?
 
no fighting

I did not make that post to pick any fights, just to state a different viewpoint, the one I happen to believe.
 
One thing

Imagine you are blind, have never seen anything, are you going to automatically know what everything you see is? No- you have to learn. I think it is similar with listening in that the first time you hear you are not going to know what everything is- you have to learn. I know again some will disagree with me- and that is okay. I have a deaf son who I chose to get CIs for as hearing aids provided him with no benefit, he is profoundly deaf. He can now hear softer sound at 18 months old than his father can hear. It is wonderful for him. I sign with him, but I do primarily do verbal communication and expect him to do the same. If he is 18 and chosses not to wear them at that point, that is his decision. But, at leat then he will have learned how to talk and listen therefore can choose which lifestyle he wants.
 
There are many, many differences between a child who has functional hearing learning to hear and make sense of what they hear, and a child born deaf learning to hear through technology and making sense of what they hear. Not the least of which is that the child born hearing has 100% undelayed access to sound. The child using technology never has 100% access, and also are having to overcome the deficits of language deprivation in their process.
 
Imagine you are blind, have never seen anything, are you going to automatically know what everything you see is? No- you have to learn. I think it is similar with listening in that the first time you hear you are not going to know what everything is- you have to learn. I know again some will disagree with me- and that is okay. I have a deaf son who I chose to get CIs for as hearing aids provided him with no benefit, he is profoundly deaf. He can now hear softer sound at 18 months old than his father can hear. It is wonderful for him. I sign with him, but I do primarily do verbal communication and expect him to do the same. If he is 18 and chosses not to wear them at that point, that is his decision. But, at leat then he will have learned how to talk and listen therefore can choose which lifestyle he wants.

Hearing and seeing are two completely different senses. Oranges and apples.
 
My son at 18 months know how to say and the understanding of what he is saying with over 30 words. That is good for any 18 month old.
 
My son at 18 months know how to say and the understanding of what he is saying with over 30 words. That is good for any 18 month old.

My son, at 18 months, had the ability to understand over 150 ASL phrases, and to produce expressively, approximately 90.
 
nobody as a newborn automatically knows how to listen when they are spoken to. It is an aquired skill for everyone not just new CI implantees. A newborn does not automatically know what you are telling them or that speech means something. They will startle to the noise but they are not going to know what is being said. A newborn learns speech and how to listen much like a child who gets a CI. You have to talk to them and teach them to listen. It is a more intensive process with a CI because they are behind their hearing peers in the area of learning to listen but other than that they learn the same way. I KNOW some people are not going to like that I said this- sorry. I am not trying to offend but my son got a CI and did not know even to respond to his name until we taught him he was supposed to respond.

Hearing babies newborn already know sounds, they already know their mother voice and even their father if he around a lot and talk to baby in mother womb. Deaf babies don't have that from the start. Hearing starts before hearing babies are even born. They do learn to listen their mother voice from other sounds, they won't understand words or anything, just sounds of voice.
 
Hearing babies newborn already know sounds, they already know their mother voice and even their father if he around a lot and talk to baby in mother womb. Deaf babies don't have that from the start. Hearing starts before hearing babies are even born. They do learn to listen their mother voice from other sounds, they won't understand words or anything, just sounds of voice.

True, that. They can perceive sound even before they are born.
 
Imagine you are blind, have never seen anything, are you going to automatically know what everything you see is? No- you have to learn. I think it is similar with listening in that the first time you hear you are not going to know what everything is- you have to learn. I know again some will disagree with me- and that is okay. I have a deaf son who I chose to get CIs for as hearing aids provided him with no benefit, he is profoundly deaf. He can now hear softer sound at 18 months old than his father can hear. It is wonderful for him. I sign with him, but I do primarily do verbal communication and expect him to do the same. If he is 18 and chosses not to wear them at that point, that is his decision. But, at leat then he will have learned how to talk and listen therefore can choose which lifestyle he wants.

I'm not blind, but quite near-sighted. I remember the very first time I got glasses, when I was about 8 years old. My third-grade teacher told my mom that I couldn't read the blackboard when I was seated in the back of the room.

Those new glasses - WOW! So THIS is what seeing is all about! I could see the individual leaves on trees - never knew that was possible. When there was a metal transition strip on the floor, from a carpeted area to a tiled area, WOW! It was as if it were right smack in front of me! I had to hold my mom's arm because I was afraid I would trip over this huge thing. The same huge thing that had just been a blur before, and caused me no problems.

Clearly I had needed glasses for a while. :shock:

Definitely I went through a bit of a process of learning how to see and learning how to judge distances all over again.

Hearing aids were much the same way. I was an adult, not a child, but I had to learn what various sounds were (the hum of the fridge, for instance), what sounds were normal, what sounds meant "Pay attention! Your car is making weird noises!"

Willsmom, sounds to me like you are doing just fine by your son. Please don't be scared off by others who went in a different direction. You are giving your son wonderful access that he would not have had before this technology came along. Eventually, as you said, he can make up his own mind if he wants to use it or not, but you have given him the gift of choice. Sounds like a good thing to me.
 
Last thing

This is the last thing I am saying because I feel like There is no one here who is on my side now and I don't know why. Getting him the CI was the hardest choice I have ever made but I would do it again. Hearing children are expected to know 20 words by 18 months and my son is beyond that. I have worked my butt off for him to get him everything he needs and to learn a completely new language (ASL) since he was born. This does NOT make me a bad person! I have simply done what will make my sons life easiest in the long term.
 
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