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SJ’s Signs Part 1

We leave for Illinois in about 2 weeks and we will be meeting up with old friends that haven’t seen SJ in a while. This video is to prepare them and other loved ones to see first hand what signs she knows. Knowing just a few simple signs will help bridge the communication gap, but she is also in the middle of getting the kinks worked out with her hearing aids and starting speech therapy so it’s also important to clearly verbalize the word with the sign so that we can continue to encourage both ASL and english. This isn’t something I want to push on everybody, but I want to make sure SJ’s friends and family have a fair chance to know what she is signing or how to get a point across to her, although truth be told she is 2 and won’t even look at what you are signing half the time!  

It was hard for me to narrow it down because there are so many other signs that she can say, but I don’t think you will need to know cat, bath, or ice-cream while we are camping. Here are some personal notes about the 10 signs I decided on for the video

1. More- This is the one she uses the most and it usually just means she wants something even if she hasn’t had any to have any more of.

2. Eat- She understands and produces this sign.

3. Help- She uses this one usually if she is trying to get something open although it is a little hard to recognize so I show her variation in the video.

4. Please- She doesn’t do this one often, but she has known it since before she was diagnosed hearing impaired, so I try to encourage manners and remind her to sign PLEASE when she wants something.

5. Toilet- Sometimes she signs toilet sometimes she just grabs herself, ha ha.

6. Thank You- Same as please and sorry. We are working on our manners.

7. Careful- SJ does use this sign, but she understands it. Since it is a command that comes up often with her I thought it might come in handy.

8. Sorry- She does not produce this sign either, but much like please it is something we are working on to show respect. If you sign it make sure to be expressive! Facial expressions are an important part of sign language.

9. No- She sees this one a lot and uses it a lot, but it’s usually because she is being a stinker.

10. All done- This was one of her first signs. She also sometimes uses it as a way to express when she doesn’t want something. Similar to wanting more of something she hasn’t had sometimes she is all done with something she hasn’t begun.

If you have any questions just let me know!

By |2023-06-12T06:31:41+00:00June 15, 2012|ASL, Uncategorized|2 Comments
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Tips and Links for Learning to Sign

Since finding out my daughter SJ has severe hearing loss my sign language vocabulary has gone from barely a handful to a pool full of words and information on ASL and deaf culture. I am still a beginner, but I’ve come a long way and I wanted to share some of the tools I’ve been using.

1. Baby Sign
When SJ failed her first hearing test I pulled out the baby signing curriculum that I haven’t glanced at in years. The DVD includes 145 ASL signs which I kept practicing until I knew them all. I also started watching Signing Time videos which are a great way for both children and adults to learn on a number of levels.

2. Talking With People
One of the best tools for me has been talking with some of my friends that are interpreters for the deaf. I have gone up to complete strangers that have hearing aids and talked to them. I have sought out council from friends of friends that are deaf or hard of hearing. I want to hear from anyone and everyone that can help me on this journey.

3. Phone Apps
There are a few free phone apps that I downloaded to help me learn on the go. There is one called Wierman’s family ASL which includes 50 signs and you can take quizzes. All the free apps are very limited, but every little bit helps when you are starting out and you can always delete them if they are taking up too much space.

4. ASL University
This website is really in depth and I’ve only completed 3 of the units, but it’s been informative and it was recommended to me by someone who teaches ASL full time.

5. Online Dictionaries
I have three websites that are my go-tos for looking up signs they were all recommended by some of my professional interpreter friends.

www.signingsavvy.com

www.aslpro.com

www.lifeprint.com 

My biggest advice as someone learning to sign is CROSS REFERENCE! It’s hard to learn when there is so much conflicting information on which sign is the right one. Many times there are a few different signs used depending on a persons age or region. It’s a bit of a headache, but I always check 3 sources and pick whichever is most common or up to date.

6. TV

Once I started learning ASL I noticed that signing was happening all around me already. For example programs my kid’s watch like, Blue’s Clues, Sprout Good Night Show , and PBS kids all use some sign language. Then I came across this Sia music video, which I had seen several years ago, but it didn’t occur to me at the time that the entire video was in ASL! Now I can watch it and recognize most of what they are signing. src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/t1x8DMfbYN4?fs=1″ width=”480″>

7. Switched at Birth

I had a signing teacher recommend this show to me (featured on ABC family, ABCfamily.com, and netflix) and I was skeptical at first because I am just not a fan of teenage drama. Watching the entire first season  has confirmed that this show would probably be my last choice in entertainment OTHER THAN the sign language. Many of the main characters all communicate with ASL. Seeing the usage in conversation and modern language was SO helpful. I think this program is what really taught me to be more comfortable implementing what I know into every day speech. I would often rewind pause or try to interpret without reading the subtitles. I fully intend to watch the entire show again eventually just to see how much more I understand the second time around.

8. ASL dictionary


At this time in my journey I invested in a heavy duty hard back ASL dictionary for about $30 at half price books. I use it all the time, but I do wish it was even more current than 1998 edition because some of the words are outdated already.

9. Documentaries

The Sound of Fury
Through Deaf Eyes
Touch the Sound

The first two documentaries are on Netflix and they teach you a lot about deaf culture, cochlear implants, and the history of sign language. The last one is a film I saw several years ago about a deaf percussionist.

10. Practice

I think one of the reasons I have been more successful with ASL than any other language I have tried to learn is because it’s applied to my everyday life. I needed a language to speak to my daughter that is still in-between the world of the deaf and the hearing. I use sign language everyday and I keep an ongoing log of words I want to learn. My 4 year old keeps me on my toes anytime he asks me a sign that I don’t know I just say lets write it in the notebook and later we look them up. We usually do this practice once or twice a week. I will learn one song or story at a time and this helps a lot too. Every time I learn a new song or children’s book I realize there is a little less that I have to look up because my vocabulary is expanding.

I’m linking this up with Top Ten Tuesday at Many Little Blessings. I know it’s a lot of info, but I’ve wanted to share these tips with my friends and family for a while and I always love to network and learn new things myself (see #2). For those interested in my daughters story feel free to browse through the blog or read this post for details.

By |2023-06-12T06:27:12+00:00June 12, 2012|ASL, Uncategorized|287 Comments
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Getting Used to Hearing Aids

 SJ got her hearing aids on Friday. It was a long and exhausting day, but it had a good turn out. Our doctor told us that there were so many different reactions with children that you just never know what to expect. They may cry, they may squirm or act confused, they may not react at all. Or she said in a few cases you have that “Disney moment” where the child lights up when they hear their first sound and act like this is what they were waiting for their whole life!

For SJ we did not have a Disney moment. In fact, I would call it more like a dentist moment or worse (for the stereo typical child that does not like the dentist). The hearing aids were squealing, she got very upset and kept trying to pull them out. The Doctor wanted to make sure that J and I knew how to put them in so she had us practice a few times before we left and it was rough. She repeatedly told us that we just had to work through this stage and when SJ takes them out just put them back in. She cried and cried and looked at me with those big puffy eyes full of tears like MOM save me! I pictured us wrapping her up in our arms like a  straight jacket just to get her out of the office with them still in. It was not a pretty mental picture. LUCKILY, we were told to give her a rest and try again when we got home. We are supposed to start with 2 hours a day, increasing the amount of time she keeps them in each day, and by a week they basically need to be in at all times.

After a stop at McDonald’s and a nap, I said Okay, let’s do this. Hearing Aid boot camp here we come. We pulled out all the stops; squeezable yogurt, a juice box, and a popsicle. J pushed her in the swing which was perfect because she had to hold on. We watered the garden and played fetch with the dog. These are all activities that she loves and kept her hands occupied and her mind distracted. By the end of the two hours I felt like we had tamed the beast.

Once she had warmed up to the idea of the devices I got out my camera to document this moment. These shots will give you an up close look at her new daily accessories. The aids are attached to a bungee cord that clips on the back of her shirt.

For now the aids are encased in a flesh colored sock thingee (don’t mind my technical jargon) and this is to prevent damage if they do fall out or hit something.

The mechanical part of the hearing aids are pink, but until we know she can be trusted without all of the protective gear, you can’t even see that part. In fact, we pulled her hair back to help us get them in, but even with trying to photograph the aids, in a lot of pictures you just can’t see them at all. 
The mold that goes in her ear is clear. She has already been refitted for a new one. They need to be precise and at this age the ears are changing all the time. It’s been over a month since they did the first mold and it appears that it is already too small which maybe why the aids are giving so much feed back which I guess is referred to as “whistling”. 
Yesterday she wore them for 4 hours and only took them out twice. This time instead of plugging her ears at the sight of them she did not protest at all which makes me think maybe she does enjoy the newfound sounds. 

There are still a lot of unknowns with her condition and a lot of trial and error from what I’m told. The volume starts at HALF of what it should be and will gradually increase over the next 3 weeks. So far I’ve noticed a few times that she seemed to react to a noise (once was at the doctors office when they tested with some maracas.) Honestly though, it’s hard to tell what she can hear and I try not to jump to conclusions. I’ve learned a lot about patience through this journey so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how she does as the volume increases and the speech therapy begins. Our Disney moment will come.  God has a plan. I really do believe that.

By |2023-06-12T06:18:37+00:00June 10, 2012|Hearing Aids, Uncategorized|3 Comments
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Learning to Communicate

Finding out you have a child that can’t hear is a little bit of a shock, but as with most situations in parenting you have only a moment to let it sink in before you have to respond. The day SJ’s was diagnosed we were sent home with quite a bit of reading material about being the parent of a child that is deaf or hard or hearing. That alone is a little surreal. I feel like parenthood has thrown me a few curve balls already, but nothing that required a team of experts and a stack parenting handbooks. 

  

The most important thing for me at this point is to give my daughter a way to communicate. SJ is still at a good age to pick up speech quickly, but the ideal window for acquiring a first language is half closed already. The doctors and therapist can only work so quickly. No matter how concerned they are and how much they encourage a sense of urgency it seems like the standard protocol in this field is “hurry up and wait”. I can sit around and wait for the Doctors, but the thing is, I am pretty stubborn.  I am ready to communicate with my daughter now and I know that sign language is realistic way to do that. So I have been devouring every bit of information I can in this area. In less than 2 months I have acquired a 250 word vocabulary in ASL. SJ has gone from knowing 5 words to 9 which might not seem like a big deal, but those are just the words that she is producing on her own. She repeats and understand a lot more than that. It’s a big step forward in minimizing frustration and educating her about the world around her. 

For example, we went to the zoo and beforehand I learned every zoo animal sign I could think of because  she wasn’t going to hear me say elephant or rhinoceros, but she could see me sign and start identifying that these amazing creatures have names! Here is a little video of her signing shoe, which is basically thumping your fist together at the thumbs.

I have so much to say about sign language, which I will be sure to post more on in the near future. When SJ gains oral communication she may decide to drop signing all together or our whole family could end up bilingual. Either way I’m hooked. I know I am just a beginner when it comes to this beautiful language, but I am grateful for what it has already done for me by enabling me to communicate with my daughter. It’s funny, I’ve been vocal my whole life (just ask my family), but for this season that I am in it’s like ASL is what has given me a voice.

By |2023-06-12T06:31:57+00:00May 27, 2012|ASL, Our Hearing Loss Journey, Uncategorized|3 Comments
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What This Means (as far as I know)

For those visiting from the links  I sent out you, may be interested in some of these previous blog posts. 

It began with a shocking visit to the ENT. 

Then we had to wait a month to learn more.

 Finally last week we received test results.

I know that there are probably a lot of questions and this affects anyone that is involved with my family at all, so I want to be as informative as possible even if I do feel ill-equipped to explain or understand exactly what is going on. Feel free to skim through the information below and if you have any questions or advice for me at all don’t hesitate to leave a comment here, or contact me on Facebook www.facebook.com/natobuch

1. What type of hearing loss does she have? SJ has had 2 separate tests to rule out the potential that her hearing loss is from something like fluid or an ear infection. What she has is considered sensorineural and to put it simply, it’s the scary kind. Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) occurs when there is damage to the inner ear, or to the nerve pathways from the inner ear to the brain. 
This is considered to be permanent hearing loss. SNHL reduces the ability to hear faint sounds and speech.

2. The biggest question most people have (including myself) is how did this happen? The answer to this question is no fun. We don’t know. We may never know. We may end up having some genetic testing done, which could potentially explain a lot. There are plenty of cases of genetic deafness where deafness shows up for the first time in the family history and at least half of all childhood hearing loss is due to hereditary causes.

3. Another big question is was she born with it? I am already seeing a pattern here in that there are no easy answers. We never had a newborn screening done, but it certainly looks as though she could hear (at least to some degree) at one time. 

4. So then could she continue to loose her hearing? I emailed this question to our audiologist, so I will give you her exact answer. 
Right now, it’s unclear if her hearing loss is considered”progressive” because it’s the first time we’ve had a documented hearing loss.  We will continue to monitor it so we can answer that
question.  Genetic testing may also answer this question as well. 

5. Is she deaf? Ah, another question with a complicated answer. In one of the pamphlets I was given deafness is “a loss of hearing, which is severe enough to make it hard for a person to understand speech through hearing.” So this would describe my daughter, but she has enough of her natural hearing available to amplify through hearing aids in order to understand speech. At this point I understand that SJ is considered hard of hearing. 

6. Will she learn sign language or talk? Both. The audiologist is aware of the signing that we have been doing with her and she encouraged it. I have been told that she will be able to learn English and I look forward to this since that is a big part of our lives (obviously), but I am also very excited about learning to sign. I break it down to 3 reasons we’ve considered this option.

 1. SJ at this point has no way of hearing or talking to us other than sign, so for now I’ll take what I can get. 2. Even with the hearing aids there are certain times she would need to take them out or the potential that they could malfunction and I would not want to have her communication with us completely dependent on the use of aids. 3. Question #5 was complicated because deafness and hard of hearing go hand and hand and they aren’t as far apart as some would think. SJ can probably relate to a deaf child as much as she would with a hearing one, if not more. If she wants to be involved in the deaf community I embrace that and ASL would make it easier for all of us to communicate in this area. 

7. What can she hear? Right now with no hearing aids SJ hears at about 70 dB and below. We were given an audiogram for her that shows that she can not pick up any language at all. She can hear really loud machinery or music, but not like we do. Even fireworks or an airplane would be muffled and subdued to her. That is why she does not get startled. I asked the Doctor what percentage of hearing loss she has and although they don’t like to break it down in that way, she would say she has a 90% loss. This was the part of the appointment where my jaw hit the floor. 

8.  What about the cochlear implant? I brought this up with my audiologist, not because I was interested in it, but because I knew it was all the rage when it comes to hearing and that other people would ask. For those that have never heard of a cochlear implant, it is surgically implanted hearing device, a “bionic ear” of sorts, that will pick up sounds and transform them into electric impulses. While this procedure has done wonders for many people it is also extremely invasive. At this point no cochlear implant for SJ. I am not saying that it won’t come up again, but our audiologist doesn’t feel like it applies to our situation at all at this time.

9. What happens next? I am supposed to be contacted by several different specialist and have been informed of the urgency in getting the ball rolling with SJ in this very critical age of learning to communicate. She should have hearing aids by the end of the month and has already been fitted for the pink Otticon hearing aids. It is going to take a team of people  to help our little cupcake and this team includes; The pediatrician, ENT specialist, Audiologist, Speech therapist/speech-language pathologist, and of course friends and family. 

10. Is there anything we need ? We have such a great support system, it is incredible. Financially everything so far has been covered by CHIP. It’s the first time in our lives we have ever had any governmental assistance and the timing couldn’t be any better. If we were on our own in all this we would be sunk, but God is in control. I would LOVE to have help learning sign language and I know several interpreters but they are all out of state and that does make it a little more difficult. We can always use prayer. Specifically that the Lord would bring all the right people into place. We still need to find a decent pediatrician. Other than that, the thing SJ needs is just for all of us to be chill. I am preaching to myself here, but as far as she knows nothing is wrong. It’s not like I can explain it to her anyway. She is just a typical two year old that runs around, watches nick jr., throws tantrums, and has learned to adapt. She still needs people to talk to her, even right now while she can’t hear. If you know any signs at all feel free to use them. I am the worst at feeling self conscious about it in public because I feel inadequate, but I am working on getting over what other people think. 

Whew, so that is all the information overload I have for you today. On behalf of SJ and our family, for anyone who has taken the time to care, I say

  

By |2023-06-12T06:32:07+00:00May 8, 2012|Our Hearing Loss Journey, Uncategorized|7 Comments
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