2 parents with newly diagnosed deaf baby

Find support. Some areas have playgroups/support groups for families of newly identified children. If you are religious, find a local church with signed/interpreted services. They're a great place to make contacts.
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A good resource for support is the state school for the deaf or one of those formal programs specificly for dhh kids.
Do not let yourself be pushed to make any decision for your child. Everyone has their own opinion, but he's your son. Your opinion trumps all.
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Just a word of advice. I know it's difficult to figure out which methodology to use. I would use a child centered approach and offer him a variety of approaches. Meaning get him speech therapy but also teach him Sign too.
Oh, and you may be under the impression that Deaf people are against CIs. CIs for kids who require them right off the bat are being a lot more accepted then in the past. Heck, many Deaf folks here have gotten implanted. In five or ten years, they'll be accepted across the board!
 
julesallen said:
Hi

Myself and my partner have a beautiful 4 month old baby boy. We were told today that he is deaf. We have to see a specialist but that may take a few weeks. It has been quite a shock and we are full of questions and fears. We are reaching out our hands into your forum hoping to find some understanding.

Thanks

Julian & Kerri
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I am the mother of a 6 year old Deaf daughter. She is bilingual in ASL and spoken language. She hears with a cochlear implant.

Do you have any more information? Is he deaf or hard of hearing? You are going to have quite a journey ahead of you! I would recommend you start learning some baby signs, so you can start communicating now. You can do that before you have to make any other decisions. You will have a lot of appointments and opinions ahead of you, but the most important thing is loving your baby, following his lead, and providing language.

Good luck!!
 
welcome to the forms the specialists are going to overload you with information so it may take a bit of reading after you are done try to not make any quick decisions, you will have to learn sign regardless of weather or not you chose CI's as the sound from them is no ware near what it is like for a normal hearing person the more tools your child has the better of they will be , ( im not a big fan of CI's ) but like I said you will be overloaded let it all sink in .

on another note depending on ware you live you may be able to get free sign language classes for yourself and your child and those can go a long way as far as temper tantrums most are those are caused by " i cant tell them what I want so i'll cry till they figure it out" anyway we are all here for you.
 
Kateweb said:
welcome to the forms the specialists are going to overload you with information so it may take a bit of reading after you are done try to not make any quick decisions, you will have to learn sign regardless of weather or not you chose CI's as the sound from them is no ware near what it is like for a normal hearing person the more tools your child has the better of they will be , ( im not a big fan of CI's ) but like I said you will be overloaded let it all sink in .

on another note depending on ware you live you may be able to get free sign language classes for yourself and your child and those can go a long way as far as temper tantrums most are those are caused by " i cant tell them what I want so i'll cry till they figure it out" anyway we are all here for you.
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This post is patently untrue. Hearing with a CI is very very good. Most children with CI's hear in the "normal" range and don't lipread. Also, the vast majority grow up learning no sign, but instead listen and speak.

I recomend ASL for many reasons, but NOT because CI`s don't work.
 
FJ, she never said it doesn't work. She said it is not perfect as natural hearing. CI children still required alot of AVT, FM systems, visual aids, etc if they are going to go to the spoken English route with no sign languages.

I think you giving people too much high expectation from CI.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
FJ, she never said it doesn't work. She said it is not perfect as natural hearing. CI children still required alot of AVT, FM systems, visual aids, etc if they are going to go to the spoken English route with no sign languages.

I think you giving people too much high expectation from CI.
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:gpost: :gpost: :thumb:
 
Lighthouse77 said:
FJ, she never said it doesn't work. She said it is not perfect as natural hearing. CI children still required alot of AVT, FM systems, visual aids, etc if they are going to go to the spoken English route with no sign languages.

I think you giving people too much high expectation from CI.
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I think that people here have a way too low expectation for a CI. My daughter was a terrible candidate for spoken language with a CI, but she has done well.

A study from Children's hospital of Oakland says:

24.05% become fully caught up to their hearing peers and no longer need therapy. They are the "stars" who catch up very quickly and without huge interventions.

46.70% become fully caught up within the three years, but continue to need therapy. They are on a slower track but still reach all the milestones. They are also fully auditory learners, but many use visual cues such as lipreading.

24.90% never become auditory-verbal communicators. They are primarily visual language users, and never go beyond the word level with spoken language.

4.35% are non-users or gain no benefit.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
FJ, she never said it doesn't work. She said it is not perfect as natural hearing. CI children still required alot of AVT, FM systems, visual aids, etc if they are going to go to the spoken English route with no sign languages.

I think you giving people too much high expectation from CI.
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:gpost:
 
faire_jour said:
Does anyone have anything to back up that I am wrong, other than a distaste for CI's?? :roll:
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With a comment like that, you probably wont get a good response. People are entitled to their opinions of CIs so cant you just let sleeping dogs lie. One person said she wasnt a fan of CIs and you jumped on her. Just let it go.

The person that I am quoting is a CI user herself.
 
shel90 said:
With a comment like that, you probably wont get a good response. People are entitled to their opinions of CIs so cant you just let sleeping dogs lie. One person said she wasnt a fan of CIs and you jumped on her. Just let it go.

The person that I am quoting is a CI user herself.
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Did you read the stuff I posted, or do you just disagree with the success of CI's as a rule?
 
24.05% become fully caught up to their hearing peers and no longer need therapy. They are the "stars" who catch up very quickly and without huge interventions.

46.70% become fully caught up within the three years, but continue to need therapy. They are on a slower track but still reach all the milestones. They are also fully auditory learners, but many use visual cues such as lipreading.

24.90% never become auditory-verbal communicators. They are primarily visual language users, and never go beyond the word level with spoken language.

4.35% are non-users or gain no benefit.
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How big was the study? Was it only on kids who parcipated in Auditory Verbal Therapy? Yes, that's good that almost a quarter of deaf kids with a CI do that well that they are "almost hearing" but it also says that most still will require dhh interventions and support...I would bet that back when HAs were first being used, you would have gotten simlair results.
Heck, I would assume that since Oakland is not exactly a center of CI implantation you'd get better information on how kids with CIs are doing by conducting a LARGE scale national survey. Hey there are still MANY kids with CIs at Deaf Schools you know.
Besides, those with CIs can hear within normal ranges WITH perfect conditions. Very few real life listening conditions are perfect. Also they don't hear the way a hearing person does. They hear the way a HOH person does! There's a difference..and not all kids with CIs get such good benifit you know!
 
deafdyke said:
How big was the study? Was it only on kids who parcipated in Auditory Verbal Therapy? Yes, that's good that almost a quarter of deaf kids with a CI do that well that they are "almost hearing" but it also says that most still will require dhh interventions and support...I would bet that back when HAs were first being used, you would have gotten simlair results.
Heck, I would assume that since Oakland is not exactly a center of CI implantation you'd get better information on how kids with CIs are doing by conducting a LARGE scale national survey. Hey there are still MANY kids with CIs at Deaf Schools you know.
Besides, those with CIs can hear within normal ranges WITH perfect conditions. Very few real life listening conditions are perfect. Also they don't hear the way a hearing person does. They hear the way a HOH person does! There's a difference..and not all kids with CIs get such good benifit you know!
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It says around 30% don't get great benefit. This was a large scale study, it was published and it helped form timelines used in an Auditory Skills curriculum thaat is being used around the world.

It says that the vast majority, over 70%, don't need interventions or supports after 3 years post implant.

And no, the results for hearing aids are totally different. Kids max out with their hearing aids, and can not continue to progress with their spoken language after a certain point. Only about 20% acheive spoken language fluency, 80% didn't.
 
How can you be the teacher for the deaf when you go to college if you don't know anything about deafness at all? You still want your child and any other child to be perfectly hearing. In many other threads, you keep saying that you want a child to be able to hear with listening. No lipreading. To me, you sound just like the teacher in "Children of Lesser God". He want his students to be able to read lips and talk just like him. You just can not do miracle thing hoping that CI or stem cell will cure deafness. So come on, get real. You just don't know anything about us, Deafies whether we have hearing aids or CIs. :roll:
 
I think it is great that ci help people BUT I also think it's sad that parents think they don't need ASL to give them a boost.
 
There are very few adults who had implant since infancy. That was back in the days when they had the money to pay for it so they are usually middle-class or upper -class type of people. There is not enough research on implanted since infancy. But Alot of us oral HOH thought we were doing ok until we start looking back to our life. Back in those days, we just accepted ourselves as handicapped and not to expect more out of life. Nowadays, we realized we should have had ASL.

Doesn't mean I don't think deaf should not use spoken lanaguage. Just both ASl and spoken, rather they are CI or hearing aids user.
 
Bebonang said:
How can you be the teacher for the deaf when you go to college if you don't know anything about deafness at all? You still want your child and any other child to be perfectly hearing. In many other threads, you keep saying that you want a child to be able to hear with listening. No lipreading. To me, you sound just like the teacher in "Children of Lesser God". He want his students to be able to read lips and talk just like him. You just can not do miracle thing hoping that CI or stem cell will cure deafness. So come on, get real. You just don't know anything about us, Deafies whether we have hearing aids or CIs. :roll:
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You don't understand, she DOES hear and understand without lipreading. It has nothing to do with what I want. It is a fact. She understands me equally well whether I am facing her or standing behind her. I'm not saying that it is perfect, but she understands without lipreading and on the phone. Sorry, you are just wrong.

And yes, I believe that every child should have ASL. It has tons of benefits and no downside. But to imagine that most young implanted kids struggle to hear, or will fail without sign....it's not true. The facts do not show that at all.
 
Listening with implant is work. Hey, if I concentrate hard enough, I can get everything right . But if I'm tired or having a bad day, I can't understand a single word.

The overwhelming part is what I'm concern and why I feel they should get ASL. But even doctors mentioned not to expect success or 100% cure even at infant.
 
:welcome: to AD! Sorry your welcome post has become yet another CI debate.

The only piece of advice I would like to give is that no matter what you choose, exposing your child to both signed and spoken language is a win-win situation. Worst case scenario, he drops one language and only uses the other. He still have language. Best case scenario, he uses both spoken and signed languages and learning each language helps reinforce the other. :)

Good luck on your journey!
 
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