I am one of those who was born profoundly deaf (90db at 250hz sloping down to NR at 500hz right ear and at left ear 110db sloping down to NR at 500hz) I was aided at 2 years old (late DX) I had intense speech therapy/my mum worked hard with me but didn't utter a word until I started mainstream with unit infants school (at 5 years old) It is possible for your child to speak but when he's good and ready although keep encouraging him/teach him signs to help him express what he wants/needs, sign and speak visually at the same time so he can grasp what the sign means/speech means, if possible keep up with speech therapy.
For 30 years I had no access to speech sounds but managed to spend majority of my life as oral. I am fluent in oral that people don't realise that I am deaf.
At 30 I was implanted in my right ear, the sound quaility is MUCH better than HA, I am aided in the speech banana (20-30db) because of this I was able to access to speech. But at 30 it's a lot different to child of 3 because my brain is 1/3rd of century old, and I had no auditory memory of speech sounds! it had taken me LONG time to grasp what a word sounded like, I now are able to use phone only with my collegue at work/my Mum, thats down to determination and sheer gut I have got, I worked so hard to make CI possible. A young child has brain like a sponge, they just absorbs the sounds and learn with help as they grow up. So the sooner the better.
There is cicircle (yahoo group for parents with children who uses CI)
Facebook got quite alot of parents with deaf children (ci or not) experincing different problems. I have few parents on my list with deaf little kids (few of them with CI's)
