New mom to deaf/hoh baby

Waitbird

Waitbird

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Hello! I am a "hearing" mom to a baby with hearing loss. We found out our sweet baby girl was deaf/hard of hearing after she failed the newborn hearing screening. We are from a rural area so we've had to drive many hours to see audiologists and ENTs. The diagnosis is bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. She is 11 weeks old and getting her first pair of hearing aids next week. We've been discouraged from teaching her sign but I feel ASL is important. I'm striving to become somewhat proficient so I can raise her in a bilingual environment. I just want to give her the best possible future. Ok, enough about me. I can’t wait to get to know all of you! :bye:
 
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Waitbird said:
Hello! I am a "hearing" mom to a baby with hearing loss. We found out our sweet baby girl was deaf/hard of hearing after she failed the newborn hearing screening. We are from a rural area so we've had to drive many hours to see audiologists and ENTs. The diagnosis is bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. She is 11 weeks old and getting her first pair of hearing aids next week. We've been discouraged from teaching her sign but I feel ASL is important. I'm striving to become somewhat proficient so I can raise her in a bilingual environment. I just want to give her the best possible future. Ok, enough about me. I can’t wait to get to know all of you! :bye:
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Welcome!!! And there's no reason why you cannot also sign....There's many different pieces to the puzzle!
 
I started going deaf in my teens, I have hearingaids which mostly just help ambient noise but do not wear them because they cause me to have some serious migranes. I am in a rural area, rarely meet anyone deaf, even more rarely do I meet anyone that signs, my family learned basics when I started learning and it does help greatly. I really really really hope you choose to teach your baby to sign when she is big enough, this will open a whole new world to her especially if when she is older she is uncomfortable for any reason using the hearing aids
 
So you are already being discouraged from teaching her ASL- and she is all of 11 weeks old! Well, you can never meet prejudice too soon! There are also people who would discourage bilingual parents rom using, say, both Spanish and English with their babies even though parents have been doing such things for a very long time and raising smart and capable kids.

Trust your own judgement and use ASL. More is better.
 
You are obviously an intelligent and caring person. Go ahead and use both ASL and English. Your daughter's life will be so enriched by it.
 
Waitbird said:
Hello! I am a "hearing" mom to a baby with hearing loss. We found out our sweet baby girl was deaf/hard of hearing after she failed the newborn hearing screening. We are from a rural area so we've had to drive many hours to see audiologists and ENTs. The diagnosis is bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. She is 11 weeks old and getting her first pair of hearing aids next week. We've been discouraged from teaching her sign but I feel ASL is important. I'm striving to become somewhat proficient so I can raise her in a bilingual environment. I just want to give her the best possible future. Ok, enough about me. I can’t wait to get to know all of you! :bye:
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Didn't she come with an instruction manual???? Hah, just kidding.
Seriously, you sound like you are doing just fine. The longer I am a member here, the smaller and more ineffectual I feel.
 
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Welcome! I understand what it's like to struggle with hearing loss as a child in a rural environment. I am from a mountain town in western CO and had problems getting proper services growing up. I mean I didn't not get anything and I had wonderful teachers and specialists and therapists who all tried very much but they weren't even from the school district or the county they were from the entire western part of the state. We have something called Mountain BOCES (Board of Cooperative Education Services) which does everything for special needs kids for like a 6 county region bigger than most states, and they travel around.
 
VyxBee said:
I started going deaf in my teens, I have hearing aids which mostly just help ambient noise but do not wear them because they cause me to have some serious migranes. I am in a rural area, rarely meet anyone deaf, even more rarely do I meet anyone that signs, my family learned basics when I started learning and it does help greatly. I really really really hope you choose to teach your baby to sign when she is big enough, this will open a whole new world to her especially if when she is older she is uncomfortable for any reason using the hearing aids
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If you ever want to chat feel free to message me. I went Deaf at age 6 fractured temporal bone badly in a car accident, we got hit by a drunk driver. I grew up in a rural area, I finally moved to the city a couple hours away after my parents split up and finished school there. I was mainstreamed but there 3 deaf/HoH kids, one girl was Deaf and used ASL and a terp, I was HoH using FM system and cued speech with some signed English, one boy used a CI exclusively no sign. This was out of 3000 kids.

I understand being lonely and feeling too Deaf for hearing too hearing for Deaf. :hugs:
 
zeefour said:
Welcome! I understand what it's like to struggle with hearing loss as a child in a rural environment. I am from a mountain town in western CO and had problems getting proper services growing up. I mean I didn't not get anything and I had wonderful teachers and specialists and therapists who all tried very much but they weren't even from the school district or the county they were from the entire western part of the state. We have something called Mountain BOCES (Board of Cooperative Education Services) which does everything for special needs kids for like a 6 county region bigger than most states, and they travel around.
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I really do think that if a child is from a rural area or from a not so good area (like the type where even hearing kids don't get a good education) that around third/fourth grade, the residental School for the Deaf should be presented as an option. Note I said as an OPTION. Most of the pro inclusion people seem not to realize not everyone has access to excellent schools. Obviously paint it so the parents could move closer. Dorming it and missing out on family life is tricky.....But sometimes moving can't happen........Such a tricky sitution.
 
deafdyke said:
I really do think that if a child is from a rural area or from a not so good area (like the type where even hearing kids don't get a good education) that around third/fourth grade, the residental School for the Deaf should be presented as an option. Note I said as an OPTION. Most of the pro inclusion people seem not to realize not everyone has access to excellent schools. Obviously paint it so the parents could move closer. Dorming it and missing out on family life is tricky.....But sometimes moving can't happen........Such a tricky sitution.
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Glad to see a post from you, deafdyke, where you admit that moving can't always happen.
 
Hi! I, too, am a hearing mom of a deaf daughter. She's 18 months old and such a joy! You have a wonderful journey ahead. Feel free to PM if you want to chat. We learned Gemma had bilateral sensorineural hearing loss at about 5 months old. She was fitted with hearing aids, but with her severe to profound levels, didn't benefit much, so we decided to give her CIs at 12 and 13 months. My husband and I have been learning ASL and Gemma's signing has just blossomed over the past couple months. Her first sign was "milk" and then "dad". Anywho, welcome!
 
deafdyke said:
I really do think that if a child is from a rural area or from a not so good area (like the type where even hearing kids don't get a good education) that around third/fourth grade, the residental School for the Deaf should be presented as an option. Note I said as an OPTION. Most of the pro inclusion people seem not to realize not everyone has access to excellent schools. Obviously paint it so the parents could move closer. Dorming it and missing out on family life is tricky.....But sometimes moving can't happen........Such a tricky sitution.
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I honestly love my home too much, my dad did too. What I did do for high school is move down to the Denver area to live with my mom and intend a public school with 3 "magnet" schools in the district for all Deaf/HoH kids to go to, although in my high school of 2000 kids only 3 were Deaf/HoH 1 Deaf girl 2 years older than me, 1 HoH boy my age with a CI and no sign. And CO School of the Deaf and Blind is.... not a good school. They have opened Rocky Mountain School for the Deaf which is AMAZING. But it is a charter day school in the West Denver suburbs. I am also too old it was opened after I graduated high school I think.
 
zeefour said:
I honestly love my home too much, my dad did too. What I did do for high school is move down to the Denver area to live with my mom and intend a public school with 3 "magnet" schools in the district for all Deaf/HoH kids to go to, although in my high school of 2000 kids only 3 were Deaf/HoH 1 Deaf girl 2 years older than me, 1 HoH boy my age with a CI and no sign. And CO School of the Deaf and Blind is.... not a good school. They have opened Rocky Mountain School for the Deaf which is AMAZING. But it is a charter day school in the West Denver suburbs. I am also too old it was opened after I graduated high school I think.
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Well correction......CSDB's early childhood programming is OK. It can be good for deaf plus kids or to get a kid who is severely behind up to at least fourth grade (basic literacy level) It's NOT an awesome school....but most of that is due to the fact that the kids are so behind when they transfer into the school. Just wanted to clarify for any lurkers. They do have grads who go to Gally/ NTID , although they're in the minority. I get what you're saying......god, if they tweaked things it could be an excellent program.......
 
zeefour said:
I honestly love my home too much, my dad did too. What I did do for high school is move down to the Denver area to live with my mom and intend a public school with 3 "magnet" schools in the district for all Deaf/HoH kids to go to, although in my high school of 2000 kids only 3 were Deaf/HoH 1 Deaf girl 2 years older than me, 1 HoH boy my age with a CI and no sign. And CO School of the Deaf and Blind is.... not a good school. They have opened Rocky Mountain School for the Deaf which is AMAZING. But it is a charter day school in the West Denver suburbs. I am also too old it was opened after I graduated high school I think.
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Oh and I get what you're saying..Too bad the high school program wasn't larger
 
Jane B. said:
Glad to see a post from you, deafdyke, where you admit that moving can't always happen.
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When have I said it's not an option? I simply bring up the idea b/c many parents are unaware there are good Deaf schools, where people move for. Remember most parents aren't even aware there are Deaf schools in the first place.
 
deafdyke said:
Well correction......CSDB's early childhood programming is OK. It can be good for deaf plus kids or to get a kid who is severely behind up to at least fourth grade (basic literacy level) It's NOT an awesome school....but most of that is due to the fact that the kids are so behind when they transfer into the school. Just wanted to clarify for any lurkers. They do have grads who go to Gally/ NTID , although they're in the minority. I get what you're saying......god, if they tweaked things it could be an excellent program.......
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You are so right sorry. My ASL professor actually works for CSDB. She is an ECE home coordinator and works with kiddos and their families from birth to age 3 from Arapahoe County. I can't begin to tell you how great she is.

I grew up in the mountains so there was no Deaf program there. Even when I moved to the Denver area with my mom our program was so small, it was TC and really disjointed. That was one of the better programs in the state too! Now theres RMDS which is the charter school in JeffCo where I was. I cant count the times I've wished I was younger so I could have gone there!!! :-p
 
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