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.