Feb 2006

I'm Cloggy's wife and Lottes mum.
Cloggy said it was OK for me to chip in, problem is I usually don't take the time and sit down behind our PC other then checking my mail. I read some of your posts, and thought it would be nice to tell you a small anecdote from a couple of days ago (maybe Cloggy already told you, forgive me if so...).
Our two girls were playing upstairs, the oldest, Sanne, is hearing and 7 years old. From underneath the staircase I shouted: "Sanne, Lotte, dinner is ready!!!". Immediately I heard Lotte reply to her hearing sister: "Sanne, Sanne, come and eat!". Where we very often have to ask for a reply from the two hearing kids, we get it from Lotte spontaneously (wonder though how long that is going to last.....). Having called the other two kids "hearing", I must tell you that when Lotte is wearing her CI's, I do regard her as hearing too. Why, she has better hearing then my Mum!
Luckily, we can communicate through sign rather well, and we do believe that her learning sign at an early stage was an important "base" in order to learn the spoken language later on. For a long time we have used sign in addition to the spoken words, until we saw that Lotte herself started to use them less and less. Now we're at a stage where she will enthousiastically tell us something that obviously is important to her, she'll babble with no sign whatsoever, and we have no clue what she is talking about! Then we have to say, please use some sign so we know what you mean!!! To see her enjoying using her voice and communicating throug that voice, whether it is talking or singing, is a great gift.
(From AllDeaf messageboard.)