Childs behavior

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AmandaBarr

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Hello, I am new to the forum and need some advice. I am the first time parent of a 3 year old who has bilateral cochlear implants. She is horriblely delayed in her speech and language, she is at about a 13 months old level. I know that this will develop in time, but its seems like most days we are going to war with each other. I know she gets frustrated that we "don't understand" each other and chooses to have complete meltdowns. I am looking for advice or tips that have helped parents in this situation.
 
Are u learning ASL (American Sign Language)? Is your child in an ASL/Englosh program
 
AmandaBarr said:
Hello, I am new to the forum and need some advice. I am the first time parent of a 3 year old who has bilateral cochlear implants. She is horriblely delayed in her speech and language, she is at about a 13 months old level. I know that this will develop in time, but its seems like most days we are going to war with each other. I know she gets frustrated that we "don't understand" each other and chooses to have complete meltdowns. I am looking for advice or tips that have helped parents in this situation.
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How long has she had the implants?

Maybe she is just one of those kids who won't develop speech.

Do you use ASL?
 
That's what I wondered but didn't reply quick enough.
 
AmandaBarr said:
Hello, I am new to the forum and need some advice. I am the first time parent of a 3 year old who has bilateral cochlear implants. She is horriblely delayed in her speech and language, she is at about a 13 months old level. I know that this will develop in time, but its seems like most days we are going to war with each other. I know she gets frustrated that we "don't understand" each other and chooses to have complete meltdowns. I am looking for advice or tips that have helped parents in this situation.
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Check if her mapping , one type of mapping may be right for many children and may not be right for her. since she have two ci, she should be able to hear at least from one of them if the other is defective (but who knows, maybe both are defective)

See if she improves with ASL, she could simple be a very visual learner. Sometimes, not always, ASL encourage kids to use speech because their self esteem have improve (both of you are communicating and that usually improve a deaf child's self esteem)


Lastly, check for other disabilities she may have.
 
AmandaBarr said:
Hello, I am new to the forum and need some advice. I am the first time parent of a 3 year old who has bilateral cochlear implants. She is horriblely delayed in her speech and language, she is at about a 13 months old level. I know that this will develop in time, but its seems like most days we are going to war with each other. I know she gets frustrated that we "don't understand" each other and chooses to have complete meltdowns. I am looking for advice or tips that have helped parents in this situation.
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It sound like you are forcing your 3 year old daughter to talk with speech therapy and making the child understand language. It is not normal for you and your child to be at war with each other because the parent usually are not listening to your child's need and finding out why she is rebelling against you. You have to remember that CIs (Cochlear Implants) are just tools for her to hear sound but not be able to understand speech like listening like a normal hearing child. That is why we have been telling hearing parents that we don't hear like you hear as we hear differently instead of having a normal hearing. You must accept her hearing loss no matter what and I demand that you learn to sign ASL as it will help your child visually understand sign language better than orally. I do hope you understand what I am trying to say here. Just please stay with us and learn about deafness and our deaf and hard of hearing experiences of growing up. You will learn a lot about in many other topics in our forum. So don't go away. Welcome. See you around. :wave:
 
Hello from Delaware, too!

Sorry about your frustrations. It sounds all too familiar. I suspect that the frustration stems from your child not being able to understand what you are trying to say.

My opinion as a person who became deaf at a very young age: Find another means of communication besides the CI.

Knowing the audiologists and 'specialists' here in DE, you most likely have been told that the CI will work over time and that sign language is not necessary.

Just remember this: Your daughter does not hear what people assume she can hear. Right now she is depending on visual communication. Fingerspelling and/or sign language will make a tremendous difference, I can guarantee you.

If you want, I can make time to meet you somewhere with you all and discuss. PM me if you are interested.

I've been deaf since 4, and have lived through it all, now I have a CI with second one coming up soon.
 
green427 said:
Hello from Delaware, too!

Sorry about your frustrations. It sounds all too familiar. I suspect that the frustration stems from your child not being able to understand what you are trying to say.

My opinion as a person who became deaf at a very young age: Find another means of communication besides the CI.

Knowing the audiologists and 'specialists' here in DE, you most likely have been told that the CI will work over time and that sign language is not necessary.

Just remember this: Your daughter does not hear what people assume she can hear. Right now she is depending on visual communication. Fingerspelling and/or sign language will make a tremendous difference, I can guarantee you.

If you want, I can make time to meet you somewhere with you all and discuss. PM me if you are interested.

I've been deaf since 4, and have lived through it all, now I have a CI with second one coming up soon.
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:gpost: :gpost:

That is exactly what I meant. :thumb:
 
AmandaBarr,
You might think some of the members's comment are harsh. Well, they're speaking from experience, and many of us know what your child is going through in regards to frustration.

I suggest you use everything on hand such as ASL, speech and see which one she responds the most to. If her eyes lights up when someone signs then you know that it's a clue she wants to sign.

Borrow Baby signs DVD from the library or order one and learn it together. I'm sure she'll thank you someday for allowing her access to ASL.

If she had a language such as ASL then it might help her develop speech as it did for me. However, there is a chance she won't be a successful oral person. If that's the case then please learn to accept it and make adjustments to meet her needs.

Cheers
 
I am also a parent of a child with bilateral implants. Send me an email (click on my name and go down to "send an email") and I will talk to you about it.

How long has your child been activated? Are you getting therapy? Since you KNOW she doesn't understand what you are saying, do NOT expect her to understand! You need to find visual, non language based ways to explain. Have you heard of experience books? They are a great way of explaining things through pictures.

She is not "choosing to have meltdowns", it is the only way she has to deal with the situation.
 
green427 said:
Hello from Delaware, too!

Sorry about your frustrations. It sounds all too familiar. I suspect that the frustration stems from your child not being able to understand what you are trying to say.

My opinion as a person who became deaf at a very young age: Find another means of communication besides the CI.

Knowing the audiologists and 'specialists' here in DE, you most likely have been told that the CI will work over time and that sign language is not necessary.

Just remember this: Your daughter does not hear what people assume she can hear. Right now she is depending on visual communication. Fingerspelling and/or sign language will make a tremendous difference, I can guarantee you.

If you want, I can make time to meet you somewhere with you all and discuss. PM me if you are interested.

I've been deaf since 4, and have lived through it all, now I have a CI with second one coming up soon.
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I've been deaf since birth (rubella was the cause of my deafness) and I was a HA user until I was 41. While the CI is an improvement over HAs, they are a bit limited in noisy environments and many CI users will have trouble understanding people in noisy situations.As green said, your daughter may not hear same as the hearing do.

Do use ASL as this will make communication much easier for your daughter. Communication is vital to the deaf. I can not stress this enough.
Don't worry if you're not skilled. It takes practice and it will not happen overnight.

Once your daughter is able to understand what you're saying to her, things should be much easier for you and she'll be less likely to throw tantrums in frustration.
 
Thank you all for the posts. I do find it interesting that a few people on here assumed that we dont use sign, we do as much as we can, but its kinda hard when she is kicking and screaming for her to visually see us trying to "talk" to her. She got her first implant at 15 months and her second at 18 months. Her receptive language is scaled at a 3 year old level, its her expressive language that is at a 13 month old scale. Also please dont judge me by saying I haven't "accepted" my childs hearing loss, thats a harsh statement for someone who doesn't know me to assume.
 
AmandaBarr said:
Thank you all for the posts. I do find it interesting that a few people on here assumed that we dont use sign, we do as much as we can, but its kinda hard when she is kicking and screaming for her to visually see us trying to "talk" to her. She got her first implant at 15 months and her second at 18 months. Also please dont judge me by saying I haven't "accepted" my childs hearing loss, thats a harsh statement for someone who doesn't know me to assume.
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Is she autistic? I am. It got in the way as you are describing and I did not talk until age five.
 
AmandaBarr said:
Thank you all for the posts. I do find it interesting that a few people on here assumed that we dont use sign, we do as much as we can, but its kinda hard when she is kicking and screaming for her to visually see us trying to "talk" to her. She got her first implant at 15 months and her second at 18 months. Her receptive language is scaled at a 3 year old level, its her expressive language that is at a 13 month old scale. Also please dont judge me by saying I haven't "accepted" my childs hearing loss, thats a harsh statement for someone who doesn't know me to assume.
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Hi there,
It's easy for us to assume one is not signing with her child because unfortunately, many parents are not using signs with their deaf child. It's good you're trying to use signs with your little girl. Our apologies if you felt we judged you unjustly. We all have faced that at different times in our lives.

By the way, when she's in midst of her tantrum and you're trying to sign to her. Don't do anything until she calms down and then start signing to her.
 
When did you begin signing? I'm curious because it's probably all new to her. Some of us assume because Some parents don't choose signing when their child is implanted with CI and they trying to teach them listen and speak. (afterall, your original post was about your concern with speech.. you didn't mention anything about being behind in ASL as well, not to mention what type of sign language you are using)
 
Bottesini said:
Is she autistic? I am. It got in the way as you are describing and I did not talk until age five.
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I was just talking with a co-worker the other day. I have always known she had a deaf and autistic son, but I learned some new things that day. He's about 30 now, so this is not recent. He was at least 3 before they all figured out there was a hearing loss in there as well as his autism. So they all started with signing, and now he speaks well.
 
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