Deaf Mentor Services

This past week we had the first meeting with our new Deaf Mentor here in Ohio. We received deaf mentor services in Pittsburgh while Ben was deployed and I thought that the help and guidance that I received was vital. Since returning to Ohio not only have I missed these services, but also I feel that we would really be able to benefit since our family is whole again. RIHP (Regional Infant Hearing Program) was able to connect us with a new deaf mentor and we have services up and running again. I would highly recommend obtaining this service if it available to you--it plays a key role in introducing your family to the deaf community. Since we are a hearing family, we knew next to nothing about deaf culture or about what life is like when you're deaf, what life will be like for Abigail. There are no wrong or inappropriate questions when it comes to your deaf mentor--just answers, answers for anything that we as hearing parents might wonder about.

I learned so many things that I had never even thought of, but probably the most important thing that I learned was that I didn't have to be scared of the deaf community. It didn't matter that I was just learning ASL, it didn't matter that I still talked while I signed and it didn't matter that we were hearing and they were deaf. Everyone that I met was so eager to find out about our family and we were so eager to find out about others.

Some people have questioned our decision to become involved with the deaf community since Abigail isn't really deaf, she's hard of hearing. My response to that is that she's not really hearing either, she's hard of hearing. We believe that she should be involved with both the hearing community and the deaf community because she falls somewhere in between. We could decide not to teach her sign language, we could decide not to take her to deaf community events, we could decide to ignore the fact that she has a hearing loss altogether. But it still wouldn't change the fact that she has a hearing loss and as her parents we want to provide her with every tool possible so that she can succeed.

Results of the Developmental Assessment

We recently had our IFSP and received the written reports from the various evaluators that were present during Abby's assessment. The physical therapist determined that there was really no concerns about her gross or fine motor skills and that her size was probably the biggest inhibitor to her crawling. (She's a large baby who likes to eat!) The speech therapist and the EI both confirmed our thoughts that she did have a speech delay-approximately a two month delay. Although this might have been expected for a baby with hearing loss, it is certainly not what we strive for and she will be held to the same communicative milestones of a hearing baby. The major concern for her speech development was her failure to babble--i.e. no repetitive sounds like ah ah ah, no consonant sounds, and no back and forth "game-like" communication. Why this might sound silly, these beginning sounds are the basis for compound sounds, then identifying sounds, and so on and so forth.

The speech therapist gave us a Nuk brush to stimulate her tongue and mouth in hopes that this will lead to a greater production of sounds. We also are going to continue to encourage the "back and forth" game play with a variety of sounds. One of the things that Ben and I learned during this IFSP is that any signs that she learns to use will count toward the "15 by 15" count. (This is a very general guideline that a toddler should use 15 words or signs to communicate by 15 months.) We are going to continue to sign to her regularly and will begin medical model speech therapy at about 12 months.

So, the IFSP conclusion...

• We will continue to have our hearing therapist meet with Abigail once a week;
• Our EI will come every other week to monitor Abby's progress in other areas of development;
• The speech therapist will come once a month to visit Abigail and provide us with ideas to encourage her communication;
• We will receive the services of a deaf mentor to help us build our sign language vocabulary and work on ways to incorporate signing into our daily lives; and
  
• We will begin medical model speech therapy at 12 months.

IFSP success for now at least...