ASL is a beautiful language, I'm learning..slowwwwly lol cuz I'm self teaching and getting help from my audi as well she's fluent in ASL
there is hoh (hard of hearing) or HoH everyone kinda spells it different
then there is little d deaf which is medically deaf and big D Deaf which is medically and/or culturally Deaf. Meaning Deaf is identifying as usually severe/profound or profound deaf and apart of Deaf culture i.e. ASL, isn't oral, believes in deaf culture etc
Many hoh/dDeaf people use hearing aids or sometimes don't use hearing aids. Some ASL users still use hearing aids and sometimes are oral users as well but it's a personal choice.
Cochlear Implants are usually only for severe/profound-profound hearing losses but there are always some exceptions to this requirement. For children the requirements are a bit more lax depending on how well you do with hearing aids (same goes with adults but adults can only get a cochlear implant (CI) but it's a bit different depending on speech scores).
Your husbands aunt is HOH and uses ASL? That's awesome
Not many ppl who identify as HOH learn ASL.
Drphil is partly right but partly wrong. Not everyone who has an implant rejects being deaf or changes their identity from deaf to hearing. It's the persons choice how they identify but someone who has a CI will still be deaf regardless as when it comes off you are deaf and don't get sound unless you still have some remaining natural (residual) hearing after the CI surgery, some ppl still have residual hearing some ppl don't. Culturally Deaf folks more have a problem implanting children than adults getting implanted. Some parents who's kids benefit somewhat from hearing aids but also qualify for a CI usually just opt for CI instead of giving the hearing aids a chance. Usually this stems from their children not acquiring speech fast enough which is usually when parents opt for a CI for their children. Not many kids these days are give the "full toolbox" that being oral and ASL. Some parents start out with ASL and speech but as soon as they get a CI for their kids the ASL is soon dropped because they think of their children as "hearing" instead of deaf. Some doctors even tell parents NOT to teach their kids ASL as its not necessary or ASL will delay your child etc.
In my own opinion if I have a deaf child I would want them to be oral as well as be fluent in ASL because you never know if and when it will come in handy later on in life. Most children who know two languages do really well picking up other languages quickly ..and who doesn't like to be bilingual I wish I knew ASL and was fluent, unfortunately I wasn't born deaf..prolly woulda been a heck of a lot easier if I was. My mom has previously told me that *if* I was born deaf than she would have made sure ASL was taught to me as well as spoken and written english.
Don't be put off by some arguments that may happen in the Deaf community. Mostly this is whether or not a child should be implanted and in my opinion if all avenues are exhausted and the child is either not speaking nor getting any or little benefit from hearing aids than CI's are the appropriate route to go if a parent wants their child to be able to "hear". CI's only simulate hearing so to speak, it's a processed sound thats processed by a hearing processor kind of like a hearing aid and there are electrodes that are insterted into the Cochlear which picks up sounds converts the signals received by the electrode and turns them into "sound". The sounds with a CI aren't amplified like an Hearing aid (ha) but instead coded into sound instead. CI doesn't give you natural hearing but many ppl can get hear in the normal ranges of sound but just differently than natural hearing
Don't be turned off by some peoples points of view esp some of the people here who don't want to associate or identify as Deaf or part of the Deaf community. If you want to learn more about it and ASL and the Deaf culture that's YOUR choice and your husbands and I assure you it's an interesting culture and community. Some ppl are just bitter here, so ignore them
Hope to see you around alldeaf welcome to the forum
