Intro: mom of HOH 5 year old boy

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cindy2875

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Hi all!

I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Cindy, and my son Carson just turned 5 years old. He has a moderate hearing loss in both ears and wears Phonak BTE aids with an FM system at pre-school. He has been wearing aids for only 2 years now, and I have a million questions now that he's getting older (like what to do during sports or gym class when he starts kindergarten!) He also has 2 hours of speech therapy a week, one hour at school and one hour at the children's hospital in the city (never in my life did I think I would ever drive in the city, but now I do it every week! The things you do for love!) I am so excited to find this forum, as I've been looking for something just like this for two years now! Thanks for letting me in! <3
 
Hi Cindy!!!!!! Welcome!!!!! Are you in touch with RI School for the Deaf?
RI School for the Deaf
You might even want to see about putting him in preschool and kindergarten at RISD! The thing is with HOH kids, is that 98% of the time, we get oralized.....yanno the speech therapy/FM device/sitting up in front approach. But we very rarely get ASL and Deaf schools and deaf culture.
You may hear that HOH kids "don't need ASL" But, trust me we get TONS of hoh adults posting here saying they wish they'd been exposed to ASL and deaf culture and been in the deaf ed system as kids.
Also the advantage of deaf school/program placement is that you won't need to fight with clueless hearing admins for accomodnations etc. Plus when your son is older, and if he struggles in middle/high school (especially socially) he could attend American School for the Deaf or something.
 
And I just want to say that Deaf Ed tends overall to be HOH friendly. Especially now with CIs...... If he attends deaf school, he'll get all the HOH style interventions along with ASL!
 
The thing is....HOH kids can thrive with a minimal speech therapy approach. They do not need hyperintense speech therapy to develop spoken language.
Does RI have regional dhh programs? If so, I would look into them.
I think you'll be amazed at how dhh schools/programs compare with mainstream schools. Especially early on (like in preschool and kindergarten) ... the difference is AMAZING!!!!
 
Well first off, I want to applaud you. My parents did not intervene about my hearing as a child, and while I obviously wasn't screwed up too bad by it I definitely resent the lack of intervention.
Once I finally got them, I did wear my aids for PE and sports other than rugby and swimming. (dunno what to tell you on the FM system, I didn't get mine until college but I imagine it'd be in the way)
I second the comments that he should learn ASL. The younger you start learning a language the easier it is to learn, and it can only help.
 
CareyJay said:
I second the comments that he should learn ASL. The younger you start learning a language the easier it is to learn, and it can only help.
Click to expand...

Yes, by starting ASL early he'll be able to become fluent in it, and aquire it easier. Remember with ASL, he'll have the advantages of being BILINGAL... a lot of hearing parents seem to miss that....he'll be able to function fully both WITH, and without his hearing aids. He will be able to sign fluently and speak fluently!
 
Welcome to AD!! I am mother of a hearing 5-year old girl who is in Kindergarten. if you ever wanna just talk mom 2 mom, I'm here. I have some friends in RI, what part are you from?
 
Hello! It's great that you are here learning as much as you can to make the best decisions for your son!

I wore my hearing aids for some sports like softball, but not for sports with too much contact like martial arts. The FM system came off for anything non-classroom or assembly related. (I was told it was worth more money than I could imagine and that I should be very careful with it).

I think speech therapy is good (this isn't everyone's opinion), and much like learning presentation skills or how to write a friendly letter, can make it easier to communicate later on in life. I'm glad I did that early on, though it wasn't as much work for me since I'm post-lingual (Scarlet Fever at age 4).

ASL-wise, I really really really wish that I had been given the opportunity to learn sign when I was young. Speaking and listening can be a lot of work (especially in groups and all day long), so ASL affords me the opportunity to communicate at home without the extra effort. I know the audiologists and speech pathologists often recommend against teaching HOH kids ASL, but some people teach their children English and Spanish or English and Russian or English and Hindi. Why not English and ASL? :)

Good luck with everything!
 
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