deaf parents hearing kids

As long as they have a language whether it is English, Spanish, or ASL...they will be fine. A child not having access to any language will end up worse...with language deficits and that happens to many deaf children due to not being exposed to sign language from the get go. Those kids usually never catch up because their cognitive process becomes very negatively impacted for life.
 
As long as they have a language whether it is English, Spanish, or ASL...they will be fine. A child not having access to any language will end up worse...with language deficits and that happens to many deaf children due to not being exposed to sign language from the get go. Those kids usually never catch up because their cognitive process becomes very negatively impacted for life.

I agree. Coming from a multi-lingual enviroment (my husband speaks several languages) It is said by those who are ignorant that learning more than one language at one time confuses a child. This is not true. But where they may get that idea is ithat n the initial stages of language development using more than one language the child will use whichever word they feel most comfortable with at the time, resulting in a mixture of language in the one sentence, but in due course as the child grows in fluency, he/she begin to distinguish the differences between the languages and separates them. Those who are ignorant are often quoted as saying this is language delay or deficiency. Totally not true.
 
Hi,

this is an interesting discussion!!!! (I am new to the forum) I do not have any children but my husband and I hope to have some in the future. I am hearing and he is deaf. So we always wondered how this would work out with children. Not that we expect a problem, but we are just curious about it. My husband and I sign, but I tend to speak while signing (my husband speaks well too) So we are wondering whether, if we would have a child if the child would do the same thing I do (speak and sign at the same time) or get mixed up and starts to speak to deaf people and starts to sign at hearing people.

So please, anyone with experiences with this, I am all ears!!!!

Trudy
 
I know plenty of deaf parents with hearing kids, and the kids are doing well!
 
Almost all of our deaf friends have hearing kids. We have two. All are doing well.

Since we mix oral/ASL/ESL, our kids pick up both. My son is autistic, and uses ASL a lot, even though he can speak.

The only issue is when the kids become teenagers, or when they have their friends around, they are naturally embarrassed by the parents....that is normal behavior, even among hearing parents.
 
Almost all of our deaf friends have hearing kids. We have two. All are doing well.

Since we mix oral/ASL/ESL, our kids pick up both. My son is autistic, and uses ASL a lot, even though he can speak.

The only issue is when the kids become teenagers, or when they have their friends around, they are naturally embarrassed by the parents....that is normal behavior, even among hearing parents.

I find in my house lately, my son will will revert to fingerspelling or what little ASL he does know when people come to the house. He says it's because he doesn't want me to feel left out. He and my daughter have been very open with any and all of their friends about me being deaf and that communication is hard, but they do rally around and I can understand most of what's going on. I know most teens are embarrassed by their parents, but then there are quite a few who are inspired by them. Personally, if I was a teen in Rockin Robin's house or Shel's house, I would be so proud of them both.
 
Coming from a multi-lingual enviroment (my husband speaks several languages) It is said by those who are ignorant that learning more than one language at one time confuses a child. This is not true. But where they may get that idea is ithat n the initial stages of language development using more than one language the child will use whichever word they feel most comfortable with at the time, resulting in a mixture of language in the one sentence, but in due course as the child grows in fluency, he/she begin to distinguish the differences between the languages and separates them. Those who are ignorant are often quoted as saying this is language delay or deficiency. Totally not true.

I totally agree with this! Code-switching is actually a sign of language proficiency, NOT deficiency, because it's completely patterned or systematic (i.e., people aren't just throwing in verbs in random places). Check out this quote from the literature:

"Considered a chaotic practice, code-switching is seen by most nonspecialists as a sign of lack of mastery of either or both languages. Even a leading researcher on bilingualism has claimed that the ideal bilingual is someone who is able to switch between languages when required to do so by changes in the situation but who does not switch when the speech situation is unchanged and “certainly not within a single sentence” (Weinreich, p. 73). Specialists, however, recognize code-switching as a functional practice and as a sign of bilingual competence. The results of a groundbreaking study of the phenomenon, for example, provided “strong evidence that code-switching is a verbal skill requiring a large degree of linguistic competence in more than one language, rather than a defect arising from insufficient knowledge of one or the other. The rule governed nature of code-switching is upheld by even the non-fluent bilinguals in the sample” (Poplack, p. 255).

Code-switching - Approaches to Understanding Code-Switching, Spanish-English Code-Switching, Growing up Bilingual

As an English-Japanese bilingual myself, I know that there are lots of reasons to code-switch, many of which have ZERO to do with how well you know the languages. Sometimes the word or phrase simply doesn't exist in the matrix language, and sometimes the feeling or the mood you want to express works better in the one you code-switch into. I also think that people need to A) give up their monolingual bias and B) maybe rethink what it means to be "bilingual" or "monolingual." If native-level fluency is the yardstick, then probably very few people could actually consider themselves bilinguals.

Thanks for bringing this topic up, FF. I'm so interested in CODAs and bilingual/bicultural (multilingual/multicultural) experiences, and I hope more people will chime in on this. :ty:

(PS--Sorry to have been so absent on the board lately--I picked up an extra writing class at work, am back in session at UBC, and am going full-steam in my ASL class!! Crazy busy schedule, but I am lovin my ASL class. It is SO hard for me, but really fun, cool and interesting!)
 
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Kristina, your kids are great and I think that you might have something to do with that. ;)
 
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