Tuesday 2 May 2006

Hearing

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.

(AllDeaf)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to AD, nice to meet you after read cloggy's posts in past and getting to know him.

Wonderful she is learning to hear thru CI and learning to communicate with her family.

I have one question to ask u about your daughter, has she started to asking u questions yet something alike; why? how come? what is that? etc... Hearing kids and deaf kids with ASL started to ask those question around at age 3.

Cloggy said...

You have to remember that with speech she lacks 2 years. But she asks in sign and starts now with speech.
A couple of weeks ago she started using "I" and "You" consistently.
With the 2-year gap it's good to have some expert information on how she's doing.

For instance. She understands a question.
To me that sounded weired, but deaf people "see" the question based on facial expression. Hearing people don't need to use that anmd rely on intonation. Appearently, some people that have been deaf for a long time have problems interpreting the intonation when there's no facial expression.

Anonymous said...

I see your daughter still behind in those area even with CI. I don't mean to sound of being put u down but she still being left out unless u tell me otherwise she did not. For instance, was she able to get involve in family table conversative? Many of us don't get that privilage unless we threw tantrum and tell us what u guys talk about. My hearing kids were so chatter box at that age and bugged me with all those kind of questions. I realized I did not do those till I learn ASL at 9 years. Too late for me but hopefully not for your daughter. It does not happen with deaf kids with deaf parents, big difference between deaf kids with hearing parents and deaf kids with deaf parents. many of us did not get to have a freedom of communicate so I hope u don't stop that with ur daughter even thou she has CI, still not 100 percent for her.

Yes we depend on our eyes to read people's face expression. I was smiling now and looked back how easily I misread my mother's face when I was without a language. I was raised orally then something bad happened to me then asl come in afterward.

Cloggy said...

Thanks for your question.

She is behind. That's one of the reasons that CI is done as early as possible, to reduce the gap. But her learning curve is as steep as that of a hearing child... just lacking 2 years.

We notice that when we see other 3½ - 4 year old children. They chatter away with long sentenses. Lotte will have 3 to 5 word sentenses. Like a 2-year old.

For Lotte, she participates with the family table conversative as well. When the 2 elder children tell a story at the table, she also starts chattering. Complete stories where we can pick us some words, but not the context. My eldest daughter also did that when she was 2-3 years old, so we recognise it.
But she is participating, or at least claiming her part of the conversation.
It's really good to see her have that confidence.

Anonymous said...

I have a hearing 3.5 year old and she chatters in long sentences. However it wasn't that long ago when she was speaking in 3-5 word sentences. I noticed with her that her language exploded within a short space of time. It was almost as if she had listened to everything and absorbed it first before she put it into practice. From what I know of child development the brain develops in spurts?

Cloggy said...

We also see the jumps in development. Often after a visit in Holland.
Living in Norway, she will be surrounded by dutch, norwegian and sign.
When we are visiting in Holland, she's exposed to Dutch only and that does help her development. (So, when experts say that you must use speech - they do have a point - as long as communication is good.)

(Some) Milestones

  • 2013-08: Grade 6
  • 2012-08: Grade 5
  • 2011-08: Grade 4
  • 2011-03: BTE's on the ear
  • 2010-08: Grade 3
  • 2009-08: Grade 2
  • 2008-08: Mainstream School (6y. old)
  • 2006-10: All-hearing Kindergarten (4y. old)
  • 2004-11-22: CI activated (27 m. old)
  • 2004-10-04: Bi-lateral CI (26 m. old)
  • 2003-08: Deaf/HOH/CI Pre-school/"DEAF" Kindergarten (12m. old)
  • 2003-07: HA's fitted (11 m. old)
  • 2003-06: Diagnosed deaf. Start sign-language (10m. old)
  • 2002-11: Suspicion loss of hearing (4 m. old)
  • 2002-08: Born - A fierce LION
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