I'd like to recommend a blog posting highlighting an excellent example of a parent raising their deaf/HOH child in a bilingual home. The deaf child asked to get a CI when she was 7 years old. The key to the success was the fact their home was always bilingual. In order for the CI to be a successful in every way possible, you want to give your child the most opportunities for communication. Notice the emphasis on communication, not language. A lot of hearing parents measure the success of their deaf child functioning in the hearing world as the ability to speak English. Speaking English isn't adequate by itself. You need effective two-way communication. Don't throw your child into speech therapy and make them do all the work to understand you (speech therapy, auditory training, reading lips, etc). Meet them halfway by raising them in a bilingual home.
Here's a couple excerpts of the parent's blog I'm referring to:
" Speech is not a language. Speech is one way to deliver a language.English is a language, American Sign Language is a language, but speech… speech is a skill. "
"Technology frequently changes and even fails..... Batteries die and parts break... Sign language will never fail...you never have to “turn it on” ..."
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