Confused mummy, frustrated hoh toddler. advice needed please

Kristina Clark said:
We already knew we would teach my son ASL as a baby due to my interest and research showing all of the benefits there are for it during the pre-verbal period. But It turned out to be a life savor for my son who had developmental delays due to his inability to retain weight (long story), but even though he lacked verbal speech he was a rockstar with sign. When I decided to return to work when he was about 2, entirely depending on sign, I knew we had to find somewhere that was willing to sign with him or risk him losing his communication progress.
I know that the situations are entirely different, but we definitely understand the fear of a child feeling left out due to difficult communication. I hope you get things sorted, but I think due to you already noticing, researching, and advocating for her, that you are on top of this and she will thrive. If you feel something is off, listen to your instincts! Don't let people put you in the "overbearing" box. I had friends who would get irritated with me for being worried about my son's development, essentially telling me that I was being too concerned and he would learn to walk and talk whenever he learned... and I had doctors confirming that there were things to worry about! So if anything, make sure you have an understanding support system so you can have a free space to talk about your concerns.
As for sign negatively impacting speech ability, the research that I have done shows the opposite. Bilingualism in and of itself is a major major thumbs up in boosting academics. And sign with speech is an awesome combination for even hearing children (like my son) because it uses both tactile senses and sound to reinforce each other. I know audiologists fear that relying on sign would be a crutch of some sort and negatively impact spoken word, but I would do my own research and listen to what the experts on the other side say. Doctors tend to want to fix, it's their job, so look at the whole picture and see if this situation needs to adapt to her or her to the situation. Everyone is different and there are a million and one ideas of what is right. Look at everything and decide what you think would be best for her. She's an individual and one person's fix isn't necessarily what would be best for her. Your doing awesome though! Sorry this was so long... I tend to talk in circles :/
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Aww thank you, I hope your son is doing ok and you managed to find ideal childcare that support him. I am using sign more with her now, she has her appointment Tuesday so going to mention a few things and see what they can reccomend even if they say her hearing is fine
 
Hideyhi said:
Aww thank you, I hope your son is doing ok and you managed to find ideal childcare that support him. I am using sign more with her now, she has her appointment Tuesday so going to mention a few things and see what they can reccomend even if they say her hearing is fine
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My son is 7 now and doing great. Now we have a 19 month old daughter, and we're constantly paranoid. She's petite, but not to the point of causing issues. We sign to her as well, but she wants to explore more than communicate at the moment.
Good luck at the doc! Going in prepared with a list of things to talk about is an awesome idea. It's what I do too :p How is she doing with picking back up on the signing? The childcare facility may be willing to use some basic signs themselves. I know it's becoming more popular to use with young children.
 
Well she has had her test today, apparently her hearing is now normal and they have discharged her. Must be normal toddler behaviour then I'm guessing. I really thought she had a loss
 
You may want to continue using some BSL with her - especially if she is receptive to it and finds communication easier. Sign language is helpful for hearing kids too. You also might want to have her retested periodically to confirm her status has not changed. If you do a search for "fluctuating hearing loss" you will find some research articles on this condition in children. It could be she is just doing toddler things but it does hurt to keep monitoring it.
 
Definitely keep with the BSL if you can. At that age it's hard for some kids to express themselves easily. My nephew hard a HARD time with that when he was around 2... a bit slow with speech. Now 10+ years later we can't get him to shut up sometimes lol. No... no ASL with him.. I tried when he was small and before I moved away... he wouldn't LOL.
 
Hideyhi said:
She does sign a little but that was just from when she was a baby and I did BSL with her, nice she started talking we stopped. (Didn't realise she had hearing loss when I stopped though). I was thinking of asking for aids but I don't think they give them with her level loss with the Audi saying it's normal for everyone to struggle in noisy environments. I am definatly going to atleast ask though at her review I think. It's like today we have been to the farm this afternoon and it was quite busy/ noisy and come 4 o'clock she was sat at a plastic cow on her own and when I went over to see if she was ok she said she was tired and having a little rest. She sat there for a good half hour just by herself.
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Well if she's unaided then she needs tools to help her so she doesn't have to work so hard. Pick up the BSL!
 
Very late to this party, but I lived this. When my daughter was young she was back and forth, back and forth, hearing down, hearing up, hearing down, hearing up (one normal test does not a complete discharge make!!!) and hearing down. She couldn't hear me, I couldn't understand her because with her hearing loss during the language development phase she struggled to speak clearly and had very little vocabulary. She became very shy and wouldn't speak very much. The hearing people told us the loss was not worth doing anything about, the speech people saw her for a while then said her speech was "good enough to be understood" but that's by the general population, not the one person she most needed a great, close relationship with. Communication was such a frustration! I took her to the local Deaf school mum and baby afternoon and it was amazing. They actually offered her a place in their nursery, as the criteria for a nursery place are much less stringent than a place in the school, which she'd never get with a moderate unaided loss. Sadly, we just couldn't make daily attendance work as the school was a 90 minute drive each way and she wouldn't be eligible for transport assistance, but the contribution that the bilingual environment and the other kids who didn't use speech either was awesome for her confidence. In later years, we took a family sign class together (BSL cos we are in the UK) and it just gave us enough support to get things across to each other. Her speech has really come on, and her hearing was 25 at the last test, which is very close to the normal zone. But I don't make any assumptions that she can hear me OK, because it can fluctuate back down again too. We have to make sure the school understands this is a real thing, not her ignoring them, and need to give them a good facepalm every time they tell her to let them know if she doesn't hear things.

She is now 11 and we are now moving on to some flashcard packs, posters and sign songs to increase our vocabulary in ways which make sense for the things we personally need and want to chat about. Our communication style is now SSE as it fits for us, even if we do get lambasted by every side for not doing "real signing"

Hope there is something usable in there!
 
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