Education and early communication for Deaf Children is an absolute minefield.
It is so easy to say 'if I had a deaf child I would...' The truth is that when it happens it can be a baffling and uncertain situation and you are at the mercy of professionals who have their own (conflicting) views.
I have a profoundly deaf DS. He was born 3 months prematurely and was my first baby.
You simply don't know what you would do in that situation. I was a new Mum with no idea what I was doing. I had a shock of a very poorly premature baby. I was recovering from PTSD from giving birth in intensive care following emergency abdominal surgery (not a c-section. A laparotomy). I was ill for months and it took 2 years and more surgery until I was well myself.
And in the midst of it all I had to make big decisions about my DS.
His teacher of the deaf was a non-signer. He was implanted at 18 months and the CI team discouraged signing.
We went against that advice and he went to a deaf primary school which teaches in BSL and English bilingually. We learned sign.
I trained to be a teacher of the deaf and I now teach at the same school.
I believe in BSL for deaf children.
Having said that, my DS is now at Mary Hare (mentioned above) which is an oral provision. He does not use sign in lessons.
It was important to us to give him a deaf identity and sign. BSL is his first language. However, he has excellent access to sound and now chooses to speak rather than sign.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to decide whether I did the right thing by him. He struggles with literacy. He writes in BSL order. He struggles with English grammar. The SALTs say it is because he has been confused by the mixture of BSL, English and SSE he was surrounded by at Primary school.
There is no one answer. There is no 'right' thing to do. Any decision has pros and cons. As a parent you are flying blind - and not all deaf children have the same needs.
Even within the deaf education profession there is controversy and disagreement. It is so, so difficult.
And that is without the problems mentioned above about the lack of access to affordable BSL tuition. It is a big task to learn BSL. For a hearing child growing up in a language rich environment, much of language learning is incidental. Deaf children don't have that - and parents with pigeon level 1 BSL are not going to fill the gaps.
In my experience, the deaf children who do the best are either the ones implanted at a very, very young age and given intensive speech therapy and the deaf children born to deaf adults who are surrounded by good quality BSL from birth. I was unable to give either of these options to my DS.
I am not saying learning BSL is not important, but it is understandable that parents follow other routes and it is unfair of people to judge what is not as simple a decision as it would seem not he outside.