When will he be aware of sound? probably as soon as he can hear it. Wether he has some hearing left or from the first time u turn on his hearing aid etc. Now when will he realize the importance of sound? The importance of being able to verbally comunicate? that is a much more important question. This all depends on how you handle your childs education. Im no parent. In fact im only a 20 year old who can only offer you his perspective on how his family handled him.
When i was diagnosed with a hearing disability it was recomended to my mother that i be placed in a school for kids with special needs. My mom fought hard to get me into a public elementary school and succeeded. So there i was, a deaf child thrown to the sharks. Or so everyone thought. The truth is i excelled in elementary school. I got great marks, was the captain of sports teams and won speech contest! and i was quite the ladies man
. Doesnt seem to bad for a deaf kid huh? Elementary school was a blast and I owe it all to my mother.
DO NOT LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO SAYS ANYTHING LIKE " your kids happy being deaf, teach him ASL and he'll be fine" That infuriates me to the max! How ignorant someone must be to say that! How could you possibly shut such a huge door on a child that isn't old enough to realize the importance of being able to verbally communicate in todays world."you cant teach an old dog new tricks". If you wait till ur child is 10 to have him start speaking chances are his speech wont be nearly as good as it could have been if you pushed it on him at a young age. Your child's speech may not be up to par with someone who can hear well but if the job interview, when he is 20, is between two equally qualified people one of whom cannot speak at all who do you think is getting the job? Yes it its wrong to discriminate but the truth is its going to happen. Alot of people dont even realize im deaf. They think i have an accent! I owe this to the fact that my mom dragged me to the speech therapist i hated so much when i was a kid.
Now we hit high-school ,the days where i truly began to realize the importance of communication, things change. Interaction between peers becomes more and more social and less and less physical like when we were kids. Instead of playing tag with 10 friends, we are sitting in a busy cafeteria yelling over each other. Needless to say it makes following a conversation impossible for a deaf/hoh person. My parents didn't expose me to the deaf world at all. I grew up feeling like i was the only young person who was deaf and the only other people who had the slightest idea how i was feeling were old farts. I slowly became more isolated and fought depression constantly. I had no one to talk to and would keep my feelings bottled up until every once in a while id break down and cry on my mothers shoulder.
That was my parents mistake. They didn't realize they closed the door to the deaf world on me. They were so busy trying to keep me oral they didn't stop to think that i might feel isolated. Now that i am more mature i am starting to seek out other hard of hearing people in my area but i cant shake the norms. I cant see myself signing in public with other deaf people it weirds me out. Its funny how i can be such a hypocrite but it was how i was raised. I often hate myself for being deaf and am still currently fighting constant depression. A normal kid stuck with a couple of broken ears. A mind with so much to offer no one to easily communicate with...
My point is open as many doors for your child as possible. I thank my parents for having me mainstreamed because i can function quite easily in society. I thank them for pushing me to use my ears and voice as much as possible as a child. I thank them for telling me i am normal. Now you can learn from their mistakes as well. Have your kid learn both the spoken language of english as well as ASL. Expose your child to the deaf community so when he is older he does not face the same feelings of isolation as i do.
I hope this helps you to understand how ur child may be feeling one day in the future
lucas
