We had a full and wonderful weekend ... Our nephew's last high school football game and the Children's Museum on Friday, then Brady's 6th birthday party on Saturday where he and Austin swam and played in the gym with Brady's friends from school and football and a night out for Todd and I Saturday night with some of our great friends from our Hands & Voices group. We went to a Nebraska Association of the Deaf picnic and it never ceases to amaze me some of the fascinating people we meet who just also happen to be deaf. It got me to thinking about Austin's future though. With the success of Cochlear Implants most deaf and hard-of-hearing children Austin's age do not sign. From the very beginning, even before we knew Austin had Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), we chose to sign with him. Our decision was based on the fact that he is deaf and we wanted him to be a part of the deaf community as well as the fact that, while both my husband and I are extremely grateful for his Cochlear Implants and couldn't be more pleased with his progress with them, they are still, in fact, a piece of technology that could have difficulties. I hope that when Austin is the age of many of the people at the picnic, he has a similar group of friends around him. I know many of the Cochlear Implant surgeons discourage signing to improve their auditory memory, but if they could see how this group interacted, they would see that signing doesn't hold a deaf child back, but gives them an additional opportunity for communication. And, in Austin's case, we couldn't have been more fortunate to have been learning and teaching him sign language because almost a year after receiving his second implant is when we discovered he had severe CAS, but he already had a communication tool in place. So, while I couldn't be happier for all those CI kids out there who are complete Auditory Learners, I always encourage parents to be flexible and don't shut down any options entirely. While Austin loves his Cochlear Implants, he is completely fine without them when swimming and showering and at bedtime. So, while I regularly worry about if I am doing enough, I know I have truly given him every option for his future. Now to just sit back (yeah right!) and see where he goes with it!
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