To be worried about this child?

[EverybodyBlessHisSpouse]

I'm going to try and keep this brief, but give as much info as possible. This is strictly an AIBU to be concerned about this, or is it nothing to worry about?

A close relative of ours is starting school this week. He is profoundly deaf and has 2 cochlear implants. His mum signs to him, but only occasional signs if she is not standing right next to him or if's it's very busy/noisy, otherwise she speaks to him - the little boy doesn't seem to have too many problems understanding (in terms of following instructions/simple questions) if you speak to him directly. However, despite having had some speech therapy his speech is very poor. He is very 'vocal' but most of it is unintelligible sounds with the occasional name thrown in so I know who he is talking too/about. But rarely understand what he is 'saying'. No one else in the immediate family (his dad/sister/grandparents) sign to him. He has no other SN that might explain his lack of speech.

DH and I can sign, but this is actively discouraged by his parents because it "isn't necessary" now he has the implants. He has just been granted a statement which means he will have an allocated support worker in school but, when they queried something and the school reassured them that the support worker could sign and would work with him, they told her that they did not want their DS to be signed to. "What's the point of him having implants if he's going to sign?"

My concern is that he currently finds communicating difficult - and he's often isolated from the other children (e.g. mine) when with them because he can't join in the game - he wants to and starts off watching them closely and copying but then loses interest and goes off on his own because he isn't really playing 'with' them. IYSWIM. He doesn't have the speech to communicate, but doesn't have the signing skills either (and these aren't going to improve if no one signs to him). I am concerned about his ability to communicate/identify with his hearing and deaf peers if he lacks the skills to communicate with either group. So am I being U in being concerned about this, or is it typical, that once a child has CI, signing stops?

I just think that if it was down to me, I'd want to maximise his ability to communicate, not restrict it. If it isn't going to do this, then fair enough. Thanks.

Signing is useful even for hearing babies - that's why groups such as Sing & Sign are so popular. It helps communication skills before speech has developed.

Cereal try going into Tesco and Signing that you want to know where the frozen peas are.

Playing at signing is great fun for hearing people.

It is a wonderful means of communication for deaf people,between deaf people, but having said that it is still very limiting.

To maximise a hearing impaired childs ability to acquire speech it is best not to teach signing. They may decide they want to learn to sign at a later stage if they socialise within hearing impaired groups.

That should have read "To maximise a hearing impaired childs, with an implant, ability to acquire speech it is best not to teach signing."

Perhaps show his parents the research (there is loads) showing that sign increases speech development rather than delays it? Although presumably the consultants are well aware of that.

If they don't want to use BSL (which isn't really possible to combine with speech easily because the word order is different) they could use Makaton. I don't suppose it's a problem unless they are ignoring advice because of unfounded concerns about sign delaying speech development.

moonstone - well from that perspective, yes, I can see what you mean. I just suppose I also wouldn't discourage people from speaking to him in his first language either. But I take your point, you wouldn't want to go through all that and then pretend you hadn't! I just wondered whether, in the long term, it would be appropriate for him to learn to sign properly too. No harm in being bi-lingual!

saintlyjimjams - that is the issue with BSL, isn't it, for them. They would end up using SSE which isn't really appropriate anyway!

Quick update - I've just seen a child with implants on channel 5. His speech was great, he was communicating fine.

saintly just re-read your post and saw your last comment, they have made comments to that effect before about not wanting him to sign in case he "doesn't bother" speaking. That was a while ago now, I suppose/hope they're just following the advice as given.

Yes I understand speech is going to be necessary if possible for communication with the hearing world. That doesn't negate the benefits of signing before this is possible though. Baby signing isn't "playing at signing" by the way, it is proven to help develop language skills in general.

I think they're wrong about kids 'not bothering' to speak - certainly the research doesn't back that up at all - quite the opposite.

moonstone - do you have research that shows that it would delay speech (am very interested in that) because that's the total opposite of any research I've seen (which admittedly has been more about LD's than hearing impaired).

www.cochlear.com/files/assets/what_children_with_ci_need_school.pdf

This looks very helpful (although I think is US based). It talks in there about using total communication (which would be speech and something like Makaton - rather than BSL). We use total communication with ds1.

I do think it's important to distinguish between using something like BSL (which is a language) and Makaton (which supports speech) though. They're different things.

Why don't you sign up to www.alldeaf.com/ and post on their forum to see what people are D/deaf think of this? I started reading through it after a close friend started dating someone who was deaf and one thing that struck me was that many people were upset about childhood experiences and how they were treated as the only deaf person in their family. We take for granted that we can talk to our friends and relatives and have them understand us and be able to understand them, but not everyone has this luxury. Your relative is obviously struggling to communicate with those around him and that must be very distressing for him. I think it's sad that his parents are trying to minimilise signing- he's learning another language, yes, but that doesn't mean you cut off the previous one. That sounds lonely.

Can I assume that now he has implants he can hear OK, and this is going to be about him learning to speak? I would assume that his parents want him to learn to communicate and feel that if he is only signed to he will be locked out. It might be more difficult now, but no doubt they think it is better for him to learn to speak now rather than have to rely on sign language. I would also assume he will get speech therapy to help me with his language skills. Children learn very fast, so if he can hear now, he will probably pick up speech quite quickly I can imagine.
Not all deaf people rely on sign language though, many can lip read, and as far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong), not many are actually unable to speak, most can actually speak, so I can imagine some deaf people might find it a bit patronizing to be told that as they are deaf they must always need an interpretor.
At the end of the day though, it is up to his parents how they bring up their child, not you. Would you like it if they went around asking if they should be concerned about your children because of the diet/education/discipline/lack of foreign language lessons after school etc. Having a child with special needs does not give everyone else a license to interfere.

I've only just seen this thread but I would be interested in knowing how things are. My Dd has 2 implants and doesnt sign so I am probably more able to comment than some. It boils down to brain development, by the age of 7 your neural pathways are fixed and in visual communicators ( sign users) some of the hearing pathways in the brain switch so the visual cortex is larger than in verbal children, if speech is the objective then it is better to focus on listening and speaking rather than expanding his signing. It is not easy to drop all sign if that has been the child's only mode if communication until school age though and it needs to be supported by extensive therapy. Cochlear implants are amazing and can give near normal hearing. Think of it from the parent's perspective it's 5 hours or more of surgery on a young child's head plus years of dedicated therapy, you shouldn't do it if you don't want your child to learn to talk along side friends and family. FYI my dd is 4 in mainstream school with some help, she has normal speech and language and has only had her magic ear for 2 years