My son is 13 years and has had one since he was five. He was born deaf in his right ear, but could hear in his left until that age. He just finished 8th grade and had all A's and B's. High school and adult hood is not easy and I was hoping people with experience on this could tell me what to expect. Any advice for him and for me to get him ready is greatly appreciated.

learning sign language will help him a long way. With his hearing loss going down, he will be getting less info in classroom. C.I. wont help that. A few tips: Having an ASL interpreter in class will allow him to get info in class than he would without one or relying on CI. It's important especially hearing what the teacher/students are saying or he is going to feel left out. Also for each of his classes, find a good student who is also a good note taker. Communicate with teachers to make sure he doesn't overlook anything. Communication is key, and having ASL interpreter will help.

See if he can take ASL as his foreign language requirement instead of Spanish or French.

What does your son wear on his left ear now? Is he aided? There is a distinct advantage to having bilateral CI's but I'm sure you would have pursued that by now if you were interested. If anything, I hope his left ear is aided in conjunction with his CI. Preferential seating in class is a must, as is informing the teachers of his hearing status. Unfortunately, your son will always have to put up with the stigmas surrounding wearing a CI or a hearing aid. Sometimes it can help if he tries to explain it to his peers but this is usually not the case. As a parent your level of support, patience, and understanding will be tested. I would only push supplementing oral communication with ASL if your son is open to the idea, it certainly can't hurt, however starting at this point will be doubly as hard. While I'm sure your son becomes discouraged at times, always encourage him to wear his CI, no matter what. Having the CI on and getting partial communication is always better than totally missing out (which usually is more of an precursor for exclusion/trouble from his peers).

I'm a lot like your son. I was born deaf in my right ear and could hear out of my left ear. I was pretty close to your son's age when I started to lose my hearing in my left ear. I'm 41 so keep that in mind as there wasnt any CI's back then.

I eventually lost my hearing in my left ear and hearing aides eventually became useless to me. About 6 years ago or so, I decided to get implanted (in just one ear). When the audiologist activated the CI, wow! Things were a pain in the ass to understand and I often got headaches because I wasnt use to loud sounds from everyday life.

Anyways, there are assistive devices that can turn speech into words on a laptop. Dragon speaking software from what I have been told is pretty good. There is also a program with a laptop, cant remember the name of it but if you do some good research via google, you can find it. Its expensive but it does really good. Its expensive as hell though. Last time I checked, was about $6k.

Your son can learn sign language as I did before I got the CI, but it is not that easy to learn. He would have to sign everyday for retention purposes and if there is no one else around to sign back to him so he can become familiar with how the words/fingerspelling are shaped with hands, it will be difficult for him.

So, I guess my advice is for you to seek out the dragon speaking software. Its like $50 and try it at home to see if that will help him out.

Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.

PM Da Donkey

although nastyx, there was this one kid at my high school with 2 hearing aids and it was all fine his speech was good too. he was just a giant dickbag to everyone and thats why he got made fun of.

 

Originally Posted by uminnesota

The doctor is unprofessional. How can you not allow your son the communication that will help him with sign language. How can a doctor say sign language would NOT help. Your son is the one who is deaf, not the doctor. ALL of the options should be presented to the parents, not just what is best according to the professional's opinion.

your biggest experience w/ this case is this thread. the doctor dealt with this directly. and "presenting options" means the doctor shouldn't give his opinion? it sounds like the doctor did present it as an option, then gave his opinion.

the doctor could be wrong in this case, but you're being incredibly presumptive.

 

Originally Posted by uminnesota

sign language would be able to help your child understand things in all environments, class room, friends and etc..... how can you expect a deaf person to survive without sign language and use the rest of his high school life to depend on lip reading and only get some of the information. or on the other hand, he can have an interpreter there so he doesn't miss anything in classroom. ASL is taught at a lot of high school and colleges. Why take away something that will be very helpful for him?

While sign language is a useful tool, you should be preparing your child for the real world, where most people will not be able to communicate in sign language.

Learning to ride a bike isn't easy but there will be many trails where training wheels won't work.

 

Originally Posted by warden

your biggest experience w/ this case is this thread. the doctor dealt with this directly. and "presenting options" means the doctor shouldn't give his opinion? it sounds like the doctor did present it as an option, then gave his opinion.

the doctor could be wrong in this case, but you're being incredibly presumptive.

<3

 

Originally Posted by uminnesota

sign language would be able to help your child understand things in all environments, class room, friends and etc..... how can you expect a deaf person to survive without sign language and use the rest of his high school life to depend on lip reading and only get some of the information. or on the other hand, he can have an interpreter there so he doesn't miss anything in classroom. ASL is taught at a lot of high school and colleges. Why take away something that will be very helpful for him?

In looking at your location, you live in a pretty strong deaf community there in St. Paul/Minneapolis. You need to take into consideration that the OP's location there may not be that many deaf people.

As I stated in a previous post in this thread, I am exactly like the OP's son. I wear an implant but I also know how to sign. Xnastynatex post is correct. While learning ASL, which will expand his communication with the deaf community, is NOT practical in the real, HEARING world.

If I didnt wear my implant and went out to do everyday things here in the 5th largest metro area in the USA and depended on people to know sign language to communicate with me, Id be screwed.

I actually know a woman who lips reads so well that you would never suspect she is deaf when talking to her. She is that good. So, you need to stop posting that ASL is the solution to the OP's son's communication because its just not practical in the real world where an overwhelming majority is hearing and not that many know how to sign.

I was born partially deaf and was completely deaf by like age 5 in both ears. I got implanted in 2001 after my senior year in high school the summer before I was about to start college. That was exactly 10 years ago this month that I got implanted and then activated in late June.

I think that most of the advice in this thread is flat out wrong. I have lived it. I'm also very educated and well, I'm pretty damn smart, too as it is. I also give other parents and other teens advice that get cochlear implants from surrounding areas. I NEVER EVER learned sign language. Let's face it, for the most part, only people that have deaf siblings or daughters/sons, or people that work with deaf people know sign language outside of the deaf community. I refused to learn it.

I can hear just fine. Yeah it took a lot of practice and things, but I exposed myself to as much sound as I could during the first few years of my implant. All different kinds of music, talked to as many people as I could on the phone that didn't mind me saying, huh, and what all the time. When you get an implant, no matter if you wore a hearing aid or you just suddenly loss your hearing. You have to teach your brain how to hear all over again. It's just like learning to walk for the first time, or learning to talk as a baby. If you have your child learn sign language, then you are giving him a crutch to rely on thinking it is ok not to hear what people are saying because you can rely on sign language. Don't do that. Let him learn the sounds and everything else and he will be just fine. I was the only deaf people growing up all those years, and I still ran around with all the "popular" groups and partied and had tons of friends and still do to this day.

There are many things in adult hood that I could talk to you about to prepare him better. I had to learn everything the hard way since obv I didn't know any other deaf people besides myself. Getting the implant was the best thing my parents ever did for me.

and FWIW, I only have an implant on my right ear. I don't want bilateral. It really doesn't make you hear that much better imo. Feel free to PM me and we can exhange AIMs or PMs or whatever and I'd be glad to talk to you more about the subject.


and NastyNasex is spot on with the speaking issues. I definitely mispronounce several words and I talk really loud sometimes because I can't hear how loud I actually am. Especially when I'm on the phone and using my telecoil thing that blocks out background noises. My friends MAKE FUN OF ME ALL THE TIME for stupid things I say or something that I didn't hear right. But they know I don't care and I have a sense of humor about it and I laugh, too. It is all in good fun. I say some pretty stupid answers to questions sometimes because I thougth I heard them ask me something else rather than what they really did. It happens, I know I'm never going to hear 100% but I hear pretty damn good and a lot better than I did before the implant.

They tried to force me to use note takers in college because I had the implant done just that summer. I refused to, they said it was mandatory. So the first day of every class, I told the note taker not to come anymore but that I'd tell those people that they actually did come. They caught me after the first semester and said fine we're not going to provide you with them anymore. I learned the hard way how to adapt to my teachers (especially the foreign speaking ones which are hard as fuck to understand) and did it all on my own. Sure, I had some rough and tough times, but I'm a lot stronger now because of it. If you baby the hell out of him thru high school and college with note takers, sign language, and all that other crap, it will be hard for him to become independent on his own and get confidence.

Shoot me a PM if ya want. Sorry for the rambling.


Also, I am probably one of the best lip readers in the world. This is no joke. They have tested me on how good I am at different hearing places and most doctors say they have never seen anyone that can lip read entire paragraphs and say it back to them as well word for word. That definitely made things easier as far as not learning sign language. But my two best friends who I have been with since 1st grade and went to college with and everything also know how to lip read really well just by learning from me. Lip reading > Sign Language and it's not even close.

DO NOT send him to a deaf school.

Wanted to add that all advice are autobiographical. Everyone's speaking from their own experience..