I used gestures to try to communicate with my family and young kids my age. I did not speak until I was in elementary school when I was almost 9 years old. I did learned how to talk with the help of Speech Therapist. I learned to read in the elementary school. That really interest me a lot. Then I used paper and pen to communicate with hearing people. I really struggled in the mainstream school, both elementary and high schools. After I graduated from high school, it really open the door to being able to use ASL and I was very happy about it. I wished that I had learned how to sign ASL when I was very young before I entered into elementary school. My mom does not know about those things and how I feel about being in my deaf world. It was a brutal thing to be force to be in the hearing school and not be able to communicate with signs better.
ASL is very important to help me and deaf people to understand in our Deaf world. If you and anyone who are hearing understand how important ASL is to Deaf people like me and Shel and willing to help us communicate in ASL instead of Oral Only method or think we can hear better with hearing aids and CIs than not have no hearing at all. You are absolutely wrong that we are struggling with trying to understand by lipreading and trying to make out what the person said. It was very frustrating to not be able to understand what the person said even if we have hearing aids or CIs. Our hearing is not the same like yours. That is why hearing people don't get it at all. They keep pressuring us to go to oral mainstream school instead of Deaf schools and force us to be like the hearing people. What a crock!!! :roll: