New member here!

Lillys dad

Lillys dad

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Hello everyone! I am the father of the most beautiful little 2 year old girl on the planet!
She was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss about 2 weeks before her 1st birthday. We immediately got involved with Central Institute for the Deaf here in St.Louis. We had her fitted with hearing aids at first. Even with the most powerful hearing aids on the market, she could not hear lower than 65 db. We then made the decision for her to get a C.I.. She is now hearing at 20 db!
Honestly, before finding out my daughter was deaf, I had no idea about the deaf culture. Now I am getting progressively more involved in it. Since becoming a father, my priorities have changed. I am all about playing with, teaching, showing my daughter everything the world has to offer, and I/we are loving every minute of it.

Sorry so long and drawn out. :crazy:
 
Hi Lily's dad! Are you going to expose your child to Sign later on? I have noticed that some parents(even those who orally educate their kids) are becoming a little more open to exposing their dhh kid to Sign and Deaf culture. Welcome! Hope you don't find this place too radical.....lol
 
:welcome: Enjoy your stay at AllDeaf.Com!

I went to CID when I was a little girl!! Been there for 12 years, and of course, I know CID has changed over the years already. Your adorable child will learn a lot from everybody, especially you, at CID. God bless!

Again, :welcome:!
 
:welcome: I'll let you slide on the cutest 2yo since my girl is one and the 2yo is a boy. She is adorable. Anywho my 2yo is Deaf. I was new to all this too. The people here have been great to me. I'm learing a lot. Right now Little G is still missing half of the speech sounds aided. We have been using a combo of speech and sign. See if you have a St. Joe's School for the Deaf in your state if you want to go oral. Good luck with everything with your beautiful gift.
 
:welcome: to AD and hope you enjoy your stay here !!!! God Bless !!!! :) :thumb:
 
Thanks everyone!
We are going to teach Lilly ASL. Just not yet. Right now the emphasis is on speech. When she is a little older and has a good grasp on hearing and speech, we will introduce her to sign. In fact, we will learn it also, so we can be involved in her non hearing life as well as her hearing life. I/we are very involved in her education at C.I.D. as well as at home. I plan on staying just as involved when she gets older, so sign will allow that.
As far as St.Joseph goes, we visited there. My wife and I felt CID was more suited for Lillys and our personailties. Im not saying anything bad about the place at all. Its an incredible place. Its just that CID was more for us.
After she was diagnosed, we looked at the school dist we were living in and discovered it to be unacceptable for what we needed. We moved last aug. to another area thata has an incredible school dist that will do what ever is needed to help Lilly.
The welcome here is nice. There is one thing that I do not care for on this site. There seems to be a very vocal % of members here that are very anti C.I.. I am well aware of the differences of opinion within the deaf community about this. Thats all fine and good. BUT I get VERY pissy when challenged about my families decision to implant my daughter. I have noticed alot of members saying very inflamitory things about parents implanting their children.
Whats that pro-choice saying? "against abortion, don't have one". Well as far as I am concerned, that saying applies here as well. "against cochlear implantation, dont get one".
 
:welcome: TO AD!!! you will like what you have learning out here. There are many thing for us to learn more and know what is the best for your beatuiful lilttle girl! such a cutie!! I have 2 beautiful boys here. They are 3 and 1 years old. They are both hearing boys. im happy you are doing everything to make sure your daugther meet her needs in her situation. Not many parents with deaf child are like that. Nowadays paretns are starting to realize and trying to make their deaf child to have a better life.. Again,im happy to hear u are doing anything to make sure ur daugther's future to be brigther! :thumb:
 
G'day Lillys Dad,
Welcome to AD. Hope you'll enjoy your visit here. It's good to hear Lilly will learn sign later on as well you. Good luck with everything. :)
Cheers! :wave:
 
welcome to AD! enjoy your stay! I'm sure you will learn alot from Alldeaf.. there are some pros and cons about whether your child should learn oral or go ASL but I wish you the best of luck. Maybe you'll learn alot more from us (deaf gals and pals) I think you'll find something new everyday and learn from it.
 
Thanks again everyone!
I have learned plenty here in the few days that I have been a member. There are several reasons I joined a few deaf message boards, the most important is to get a feel for the deaf culture. As I said in previous posts, Lilly is making great progress with the CI, but she will also be taught ASL. After all, she is deaf and it is important for her to be involved in the deaf community. I also feel it is important for my wife and I to be involved in it too. That is why we will all learn sign.
My first impressions of AD.com were a little rough, I'm glad I decided to stick around. I think I will be happy here. :cheers:
 
As I said in previous posts, Lilly is making great progress with the CI, but she will also be taught ASL. After all, she is deaf and it is important for her to be involved in the deaf community.
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I wish there were more parents like you out there! I really do! I think my best advice to a hearing parent who is opting for oral first, would be to introduce Sign at a relatively early age, like around kindergarten or first grade. A lot of the resentment that many Deaf have with the oral approach is that we were forced to discover ASL on our own.(were expected to assilmuate into the greater hearing world) Some of us didn't learn ASL until our teens or twenties, and found it a great and valuable tool. We resent having to wait around for a tool that many of us found useful. The doctors said that if I was exposed to ASL, I'd use it as a "crutch.".....my parents believed them. In retrospect they now say they shouldn't have gone with the oral-monolingal route.
Oh, and Lilysdad, the debate over CIs is slowly but surely becoming more moderate. A few years ago the debate was EXTREMELY negative. Now more and more Deafies are accepting them.....Besides back when hearing aids were introduced, a lot of Deaf people were extremely against them b/c they thought that it spelled the end of Deaf culture.
Again, I wish there were more hearing parents out there.
 
Hello and welcome to Alldeaf! Obivously you're dedicated and committed to relate to the Deaf culture, to grasp what it must be like, by obtaining various of information regarding the well-being of your precious beautiful child....and that shows how much you truly do care and love your child. :)

Hope you'll be able to enjoy your stay here in AD! ;)
 
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