Hearing impaired first words

[Charles82]

I have a daughter who is about to turn two, from birth she was diagnosed with hearing issues, we started going to audiology appointments and she was diagnosed as hearing impaired. First diagnosis was unilateral loss but further tests they came to the conclusion it was bilateral loss, moderate and severe.

we have had hearing aids for her for a few months and feel there has been much improvement, even without the hearing aids it seems like she responds better. The hearing aids are not 100% configured correctly as we have missed hospital appointments a couple of times (cough and queens funeral). Our daughter seems to understand some things we say to her, we are not sure how much she is hearing versus taking visual queues from us.

other than hearing loss she is a happy, social, active toddler, always climbing, enjoys a story, she started walking at 18 months so a little late there too

we are just hoping and waiting for a first word, she has not even said mama or dada, a little babbling a lot of screechy noises.

I wanted to know to know if anyone had a similar experience and when your child first started talking

My son is deaf, his hearing loss was picked up at birth, so he had hearing aids from 3 weeks. He babbled as normal and spoke at around normal for his age, some of his speech sounds are unclear but he can make himself understood.
Do you have an allocated teacher for the deaf yet? Or a specialist SALT for the deaf?
Both of these plus the amazing audiology team my son is thriving.

Forgot to add his loss seems very similar ti your DD’s he has a 70db moderate loss on the left side and a 90db severe loss on the right side.

My nephew has severe hearing loss in both ears, after an infection when he was 3 months old.
He started signing at around 8 months and could do clear and purposeful signs from about 14 months.
He is five now and has been able to sign full sentences since he was nearly three. Thats when he flourished because he suddenly could have proper full conversations.
He does say a few words- mostly peoples names to get us to look at him so he can sign to us, before he learnt the names he would just make 'ahHaa' vocalisations. His first verbal word was 'no' when he was nearly four, after he had had hearing aids for just over two years.

thanks for that, I am not sure why it took so long for our daughter to get hearing aids, perhaps covid?

my mother in law works at a school and asked their hearing support worker about he development and she was shocked nothing had been done, but she arranged a visit and gas been back several times which our daughter loves.

that is great your son is thriving, gives me some hope our daughter will start talking too

Thank you sounds like he is doing great

did he have special training for his signing?

He hasn't had any special training yet, his Mum, already knew the basics of bsl as she had a friend in school with complete hearing loss.
When they found out his hearing loss would be permanent, his parents, me and my daughter and his paternal uncles started learning.
It took quite a while for all of us to learn but luckily as he was young we had time to learn alongside him.

He learnt from his parents who still have lessons and sign at home in order to teach him, now he is at school he is going to have some extra time with a signing tutor on his own but he is really good now.