:jaw: OMG.........now I understand why you are so much more comfortable in the signing/Deaf world. Although I met the usual idiots whilst growing up (and still do) I never had to put up with anything like this from family, or even co workers for that matter. How could your own family leave you out at family gatherings!!!!! As for being put in with low functioning children, that defies logic. You say in another post that this was 25 years ago and things have changed now, well my school days were 45 years ago and I dam well hope things have changed!. When my deafness was diagnosed, at age 5, my parents were advised to put me in the local deaf school, which would have meant boarding in. However my mother took one look and said "no child of mine is going there" which may have seemed snobbish, but she had not been able to have children,, married 7 years before adopting me and no way was she parting with her precious daughter.
