Hearing mom with deaf toddler, AB Canada

NaidaUP said:
Learning to sign and speak is fine but only learning to sign is not giving him access to full areas. 50db loss means the child can learn to speak as with HAs, the child would have very good hearing, which means you would have to have that child tested to know fully what his loss is!!!! Not getting you child tested is plain stupid!!
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The thing is, I haven't seen anyone advocate against (at least in this thread) giving the child the opportunity to develop spoken language as well. That is part of why it's so important that he get his HA's ASAP so that he starts having more access to auditory input so that he can begin to develop speech skills.

I'm a huge proponent for providing DHH children with access to spoken language, as well as a visual mode of communication.

I used a TC approach with my son (and still do at times depending on the situation), signing and talking at the same time. This allowed for him to have not only the auditory input, but a visual mode of input as well.

I don't think it's productive to discourage the use of a visual mode of communication with a DHH child.
 
NaidaUP said:
They have other problems to why they can't speak but why stop someone with a mild loss from speaking and only sign with them!!! STUPID!

I'm totally for sign but with a mild loss, you have more hearing then you are deaf!!!
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I think this might be where the disconnect is. It seems you are inferring that the use of sign language precludes the use of speech, and that isn't necessarily the case.

It is possible to use both signed and spoken language with a child who is DHH.
 
CSign said:
I think this might be where the disconnect is. It seems you are inferring that the use of sign language precludes the use of speech, and that isn't necessarily the case.

It is possible to use both signed and spoken language with a child who is DHH.
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No i dont think sign lanuage prescludes the use of speech.

I can sign and speak and I am profoundly deaf, yes not all profoundly deaf people can speak (I have a lady that lives round the corner from me who cant speak) but when your child doesnt have that much of a hearing loss why are people teaching them to sign and not speak?!! (Laura and Botts seems to have understood!)
 
NaidaUP said:
No i dont think sign lanuage prescludes the use of speech.

I can sign and speak and I am profoundly deaf, yes not all profoundly deaf people can speak (I have a lady that lives round the corner from me who cant speak) but when your child doesnt have that much of a hearing loss why are people teaching them to sign and not speak?!! (Laura and Botts seems to have understood!)
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Because Deaf people and also some HOH people speak loud and not clear voice like hearing people. It is call "funny voice" that Deaf people are embarrass and don't like people squint or laugh at them. They would rather be voice off better than speaking out loud. The child may not be aware of making loud sound when speaking. But if the child like to sign so that he or she can follow what someone said instead of struggling with lipreading. So ASL is more important and should be in the Deaf Culture for eternity.
 
NaidaUP said:
Learning to sign and speak is fine but only learning to sign is not giving him access to full areas. 50db loss means the child can learn to speak as with HAs, the child would have very good hearing, which means you would have to have that child tested to know fully what his loss is!!!! Not getting you child tested is plain stupid!!
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I know several people with that kind of loss who have no speech skills. Then there is someone with my kind of loss 120dB who can speak almost like a hearing person.

Important that the child has ACCESS to a language and not end up with language delays and that is where ASL comes in.

speaking should not be the primary concern.
 
Woah, woah. Okay, clarification time, at least from my perspective as OP...

1. I said his loss was AT LEAST moderate, based on the booth testing. He does NOT have good hearing unless the sounds are very loud (vacuum cleaner, blender, hair dryer). Hence the retesting and hopefully pushing for HAs instead of the "wait and see" approach that the audis have taken. I AM trying to blast through the red tape and get the answers I need to get the services (and HAs) he needs to help him. I am NOT advocating that he continue without HAs, I am trying to navigate the medical system here.

2. Our EI program for D/HoH toddlers advocates speech AND sign, so we are doing both. He doesn't get multiple-days-a-week programming until he turns 3, so I'm trying to do what I can on my own for the time being to help him communicate. My family always talks with my son, but we also sign. While we get no confirmation of his understanding of simple speech commands, if I sign something he will do the action immediately. He signs for most things and a few words he says. Hence, we use both.

3. My son tries to speak but the sound is, as before-mentioned, deaf-sounding. I have had this confirmed audis, Deaf friends with hearing parents. He is missing many consonants so his words don't come out in a way that most people understand. He is not old enough yet for even private speech therapy here; we need to wait until he's officially 2.5 years old.
 
Pitchbug said:
Woah, woah. Okay, clarification time, at least from my perspective as OP...

1. I said his loss was AT LEAST moderate, based on the booth testing. He does NOT have good hearing unless the sounds are very loud (vacuum cleaner, blender, hair dryer). Hence the retesting and hopefully pushing for HAs instead of the "wait and see" approach that the audis have taken. I AM trying to blast through the red tape and get the answers I need to get the services (and HAs) he needs to help him. I am NOT advocating that he continue without HAs, I am trying to navigate the medical system here.

2. Our EI program for D/HoH toddlers advocates speech AND sign, so we are doing both. He doesn't get multiple-days-a-week programming until he turns 3, so I'm trying to do what I can on my own for the time being to help him communicate. My family always talks with my son, but we also sign. While we get no confirmation of his understanding of simple speech commands, if I sign something he will do the action immediately. He signs for most things and a few words he says. Hence, we use both.

3. My son tries to speak but the sound is, as before-mentioned, deaf-sounding. I have had this confirmed audis, Deaf friends with hearing parents. He is missing many consonants so his words don't come out in a way that most people understand. He is not old enough yet for even private speech therapy here; we need to wait until he's officially 2.5 years old.
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I'm actually wondering if your experience is going to be closer to what dhh toddlers of my generation experienced. The key is getting the Dx, and the hearing aid...Like he's not severe enough to need CI right off the bat right? I wonder if as soon as you get HAs, he'll start responding more orally. Is there anyone who has been working with dhh kids a very long time that you could see for a consultation maybe? If he tries to speak, that might be a sign that he has residual hearing to work with......I also think maybe there's still time to develop speech and hearing skills. He's got ASL first which is good. I know other hoh kids who have good receptive oral understanding, but they still have poor oral expressive language.
 
shel90 said:
I know several people with that kind of loss who have no speech skills. Then there is someone with my kind of loss 120dB who can speak almost like a hearing person.

Important that the child has ACCESS to a language and not end up with language delays and that is where ASL comes in.

speaking should not be the primary concern.
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Really shel? Moderate with no speech skills? That's fairly uncommon. Are they mentally handicapped?
But yes, even mentally normal dhh kids can REALLY thrive with ASL....Like yeah, many kids can develop oral abilty, but it takes a lot of energy to do so.
Dhh kids should have the chance to develop oral skills, but it shouldn't be the be all and end all of the tools in their toolbox.
 
deafdyke said:
Really shel? Moderate with no speech skills? That's fairly uncommon. Are they mentally handicapped?
But yes, even mentally normal dhh kids can REALLY thrive with ASL....Like yeah, many kids can develop oral abilty, but it takes a lot of energy to do so.
Dhh kids should have the chance to develop oral skills, but it shouldn't be the be all and end all of the tools in their toolbox.[/QUO

Many! Moderate deafness with no speech skills! I have better speech skilsl than they do and they have better writing skills than I do cuz they were exposed to ASL since babies and had no language delays. I would rather have better writing skills than better speech skills!
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NaidaUP said:
No i dont think sign lanuage prescludes the use of speech.

I can sign and speak and I am profoundly deaf, yes not all profoundly deaf people can speak (I have a lady that lives round the corner from me who cant speak) but when your child doesnt have that much of a hearing loss why are people teaching them to sign and not speak?!! (Laura and Botts seems to have understood!)
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Nobody is saying that. Even DODAs where the Deaf is HOH learn to speak!
It's just that sometimes due to things like tracheostomies, apraxia etc a HOH kid cannot learn to speak. HOH kids do deserve a full toolbox....just like deafer kids deserve to have a full toolbox.
And the thing is, you don't generally have to teach an audilogically HOH kid to speak. They may have speech and even spoken language delays but you don't have to sit with them and put them through intense spoken language therapies the way you might with deafer kids. Heck, a lot of HOH kids weren't dx until they were toddlers or even in first grade (and some of them didn't even HAVE spoken language delays!)
 
shel90 said:
deafdyke said:
Really shel? Moderate with no speech skills? That's fairly uncommon. Are they mentally handicapped?
But yes, even mentally normal dhh kids can REALLY thrive with ASL....Like yeah, many kids can develop oral abilty, but it takes a lot of energy to do so.
Dhh kids should have the chance to develop oral skills, but it shouldn't be the be all and end all of the tools in their toolbox.[/QUO

Many! Moderate deafness with no speech skills! I have better speech skilsl than they do and they have better writing skills than I do cuz they were exposed to ASL since babies and had no language delays. I would rather have better writing skills than better speech skills!
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No kidding.......But I do remember a post from someone who was banned that she said that deafer kids can sometimes speak better then HOH kids...
and I'm with you.....I'd rather have really good writing skills, then spoken language skills....it's good to have spoken language, but it's not essential!
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I was many discussing think on what Bebonang was stating that there isn't any point in getting kids tested for deafness and you should just sign with them.

Maybe if the OP child is aided he would do a lot better, I don't know?!

I'm profoundly deaf and have been ALL MY LIFE but you wouldn't know I was deaf! My mom states I hated the way I sounded so put A LOT of work in the speech therapy that I had for 20 years upto only a few years ago.
 
Wirelessly posted

You guys all bring up valid points. Yes we are hoping that with HAs my son will pick up more of the consonants etc in speech and we will be able to understand more of what he is saying. There appears to be enough residual hearing that he is trying to talk to us but not enough for it to work well right now unless I spend my entire day 3 ft away from his face, shouting at him. Hence the addition of ASL, which he is picking up surprisingly fast. There is no cognitive issue there.I think both are equally important to him right now. Learning any language whether spoken or sign is important so he can express his wants and needs (and so I can be sure he understands me as well). Spoken language will come as his hearing is aided but we will continue ASL as well both for clarity while he's learning, and later on for culture and friends/family.

Again with getting the dx on paper - many more resources open up for us as soon as I have that accurate dx on paper incl auditory therapy if we so choose to use it (and he needs/wants it). We are looking into possibility of APD in addition to hearing loss but again, the child needs to be able to tell the audiologist what he can and cannot understand in the test, so if that's impacting his spoken language skill we cannot do anything until he can communicate back to us... Again, hence the need for sign...

As for CIs, I don't think that he would be a candidate anyways due to having enough residual hearing (I think?) and I don't want to lose what he has naturally. Not a topic we need to discuss here :)
 
Wirelessly posted

NaidaUP - my friend is also profoundly deaf and he can lip read and speak extremely well. He doesn't use sign at all when talking with other hearing ppl but uses ASL exclusively with his dhh friends... So I totally understand where you're coming from. He had an insane amount of speech and auditory training when younger and he's very proud of his ability to do both. It was him and his family that originally suggested for me to introduce ASL to my son and then doing speech a little later on once he's aided.
 
NaidaUP said:
I was many discussing think on what Bebonang was stating that there isn't any point in getting kids tested for deafness and you should just sign with them.

Maybe if the OP child is aided he would do a lot better, I don't know?!

.
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Bebonang, I actually think that with the way deaf ed is going, it's going to be kind of rare to see Sign only kids. Sign is very important....but that doesn't mean that spoken language abilty isn't ALSO useful.....the whole full toolbox and all you know?
Speech therapy doesn't mean that the mom is going to go all hardcore auditory verbal (with a hand always blocking her mouth) or sending her son to Clarke or another oral school. She just wants him to have spoken language abilty. Exactly like how in a spoken language bilingual immersion program, the kids involved in that program would learn how to speak the other language.
It's about having another skill/abilty, that's all. I know Sign only kids who say they want to learn to speak you know.....
 
He had an insane amount of speech and auditory training when younger and he's very proud of his ability to do both. It was him and his family that originally suggested for me to introduce ASL to my son and then doing speech a little later on once he's aided.
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Exactly...... Just to add, parents shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that MORE speech therapy= better spoken language. It is the QUALITY of speech therapy, NOT the quanity. As long as a kid has quality consistant speech therapy, they will develop oral skills/abilty.
 
deafdyke said:
Bebonang, I actually think that with the way deaf ed is going, it's going to be kind of rare to see Sign only kids...
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I see many sign-only kids, sometimes Deaf of Deaf, but not always. Some wear aids, some don't. But they do have a full language in sign, so there's not an effort to develop a spoken language when sound is not accessible to them. But then maybe that's because I'm involved with a bi-bi school for the deaf. In the mainstream, I'd expect that would be rare, as you describe.
 
GrendelQ said:
I see many sign-only kids, sometimes Deaf of Deaf, but not always. Some wear aids, some don't. But they do have a full language in sign, so there's not an effort to develop a spoken language when sound is not accessible to them. But then maybe that's because I'm involved with a bi-bi school for the deaf. In the mainstream, I'd expect that would be rare, as you describe.
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No, I have known several sign only kids in the mainstream in dhh programs recently.

Why would you assume it is rare?
 
Bottesini said:
No, I have known several sign only kids in the mainstream in dhh programs recently.

Why would you assume it is rare?
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If it is a "mainstream DHH program", it is likely that a portion of their day is in a specialized DHH placement.

I think Grendel's point is most students/individuals who may not be able or choose not to use their voice and use ASL as their primary mode of communication, are at a deaf school... or potentially in a magnet/regional program as somewhat described above.

Grendel can correct me if she meant something different.
 
CSign said:
If it is a "mainstream DHH program", it is likely that a portion of their day is in a specialized DHH placement.

I think Grendel's point is most students/individuals who may not be able or choose not to use their voice and use ASL as their primary mode of communication, are at a deaf school... or potentially in a magnet/regional program as somewhat described above.

Grendel can correct me if she meant something different.
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Ok, but that isn't accurate, at least where I am now.
 
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