Wirelessly posted
we started very "tc" with my daughter. We would sign and talk at the same time. By age three it was very clear that she understood ASL better than english word order so we went voice off.
my daughter got very little spoken language benefit from her hearing aids but wore them for enviromental sounds and things like calling her name.
at age 5 her loss progressed to the level of severe and we got her an implant. The change was immediate. She began asking us for the spoken names of objects the very same day.
after almost a year of struggling with her ASL school to provide listening and spoken language services (we had the therapist refuse to not sim com during private speech and told us that she "doesn't teach language") (and we did not ask for AVT, AVT has very specific rules and we do not follow them) we as a family decided to move her to a spoken language, deaf program. My daughter was 6 at the time and was asking to learn more spoken language.
we believe she will use both languages to be successful.
It sounds like you are taking into consideration the changes your daughter is going through and adjusting your techniques/methods to match her. This is encouraging, I have seen too many parents stick to one thing because that is what the "professional" told them to use. Having been a particularly difficult child to educate, I can certainly understand how parents can get frustrated with the whole communication challenges. Kudos to you for sticking it through! You may never know if you made the right choices, but you are making choices you think are best for your child, I don't think we can ask anything more from a parent.
