Being deaf is hard. When we were considering a Cochlear Implant I asked the hearing wife of a deaf man what she thought of it. She said that life is easier when you can hear. As parents we want to make life easier for our children. This doesn't actually make any sense because everyone we celebrate and admire went through and overcame adversity. We fear that our children will never learn to be polite, grateful or independent. But then we try and give them the world because it makes us feel like we're great parents if we do.
For the first 5 years of my son's life he could communicate with 7 people. Mom, Dad, speech therapist, audiologist, 2 children at the school, and his baby sister. Conspicuously absent from this list are all of the other people who loved him but didn't learn to sign. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, our friends, their children, people at church... This was so hard for me, but it was good for our family. Because we didn't have family and friends signing with our deaf child, it was easier to move away from those family and friends, to find people that could.
I sometimes hear parents talk about why their child doesn't like an activity that makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes that is the reason they don't sign. They don't like being uncomfortable. Or, this one is great, the only reason they would learn to sign is for our son, and so they don't. Nothing says "Love ya!" like literally saying your child is not worth their effort. Some people say they would have learned sign if it were someone in their own family. But our experience with our own family suggests that some people are going to learn sign whether they have a family member or not, and that most other people aren't going to learn sign, loved one or no.
My son has the best attitude. Because all he has ever known is exclusion and being an outsider, he doesn't get down about that. Because every day he has people stare at him and not able to understand him, he rolls with it. At cub scout camp he was the only boy willing to get up and sing with the cub master. Some of that boldness comes from my side of the family. But I think a major component of his willingness to risk attention, is that he has had attention all of his life. Our highest goal was never to have him be just like "normal" kids. Normal is not good enough.
Monday, September 26, 2016
CI and ASL
My son was born with a progressive hearing loss that was diagnosed when he was 10 months old. He began wearing hearing aids at 1 while we began learning to sign and set up speech therapy. It was always our goal that he would sign and speak. By the age of 3 his hearing loss was profound and he wasn't making speech progress. I began looking into a cochlear implant. His sign language allowed him to progress with language at his own pace. But with no signing peers, other than his 1 year old sister, life was lonely.
When he was 5 he received a cochlear implant and we moved to have him attend the school for the deaf. Suddenly he had social options and a more rich language model. His speech was not functional for peer interactions until he was about 8. He is very athletic and was able to gain confidence in communicating with other children to play ball.
Along the way we have become fairly fluent as a family in ASL. In the beginning we watched all of the Signing Time episodes in a daily rotation. Fortunately our family has a high aptitude for reading so the usual story of low reading levels for deaf children did not impact us. Our son was reading at 4 and writing at 5. I do think it helped to have access to language via sign language and speech therapy. And I can't say enough about the educational benefits of Signing Time for all of my children.
When our hearing children were small, they signed first and spoke a bit late. By age 3 they are very articulate and starting to lose their sign fluency. So we have continued to watch Signing Time daily and use sign language in our prayers, scripture reading, and other ways to keep their vocabulary current. I sign to my children when we are at the park. I praise them in sign language. I scold them in sign language. I remind them that we have a deaf family member and that they need to sign.
Our son is now 11. Our 9 year old daughter uses lifeprint.com to practice sign language. Our 6 year old uses the Signing Time vocabulary sheets to check off her skills. Our 3 year old watches Signing Time nightly as a bedtime routine and sign along. Our 1 year old doesn't sign or speak yet, but he will, sign and speak.
We actively sought out a church community where we can use our sign language weekly with deaf and signing members of our church. We recently began watching simple church videos with ASL to practice voice interpreting. The video tells a story we are familiar with, and we are able to voice the story. Our deaf/CI/signing son loves to do this and he is excellent at translating the sign into sophisticated english.
My husband and I sign conversationally. We aren't very good interpreters, but we do interpret for children at church. And when we encounter a deaf person in town, we offer to interpret if needed.
I'm grateful for the cochlear implant that has allowed our son to develop speaking skills. I'm grateful that our family embraced sign language early so that our son is not left out of parent and sibling interactions. He is their big brother and idol.
When he was 5 he received a cochlear implant and we moved to have him attend the school for the deaf. Suddenly he had social options and a more rich language model. His speech was not functional for peer interactions until he was about 8. He is very athletic and was able to gain confidence in communicating with other children to play ball.
Along the way we have become fairly fluent as a family in ASL. In the beginning we watched all of the Signing Time episodes in a daily rotation. Fortunately our family has a high aptitude for reading so the usual story of low reading levels for deaf children did not impact us. Our son was reading at 4 and writing at 5. I do think it helped to have access to language via sign language and speech therapy. And I can't say enough about the educational benefits of Signing Time for all of my children.
When our hearing children were small, they signed first and spoke a bit late. By age 3 they are very articulate and starting to lose their sign fluency. So we have continued to watch Signing Time daily and use sign language in our prayers, scripture reading, and other ways to keep their vocabulary current. I sign to my children when we are at the park. I praise them in sign language. I scold them in sign language. I remind them that we have a deaf family member and that they need to sign.
Our son is now 11. Our 9 year old daughter uses lifeprint.com to practice sign language. Our 6 year old uses the Signing Time vocabulary sheets to check off her skills. Our 3 year old watches Signing Time nightly as a bedtime routine and sign along. Our 1 year old doesn't sign or speak yet, but he will, sign and speak.
We actively sought out a church community where we can use our sign language weekly with deaf and signing members of our church. We recently began watching simple church videos with ASL to practice voice interpreting. The video tells a story we are familiar with, and we are able to voice the story. Our deaf/CI/signing son loves to do this and he is excellent at translating the sign into sophisticated english.
My husband and I sign conversationally. We aren't very good interpreters, but we do interpret for children at church. And when we encounter a deaf person in town, we offer to interpret if needed.
I'm grateful for the cochlear implant that has allowed our son to develop speaking skills. I'm grateful that our family embraced sign language early so that our son is not left out of parent and sibling interactions. He is their big brother and idol.
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