Grendel’s Kitchen

Thanks Trudy — I totally agree with you! ASL is definitely her primary language (and now English will be her second language, we hope) — she LOVES to sign, and we’re trying hard to keep up with her. She’ll always be our little Deaf girl, so we want her to have every means of communication, whether she has her processor on or not.

ELS and Aileen: you are both so very sweet! We haven’t yet see a reaction to the dog barking. I don’t think she can identify what’s making sounds, yet, just that they are there. I suspect she’ll pick that up fast, we have quite an ear-splitting barker on our hands with Grendel who will provide good training.

Oh absolutely! I LOVED going through all the activation videos — most had me in tears.

I definitely think the wee one is pretty inspirational — and I’m convinced her ASL has made a huge leap in the past 2 weeks (sentences!), which is quite a coincidence! I’ll post on your blog as well just in case you don’t wander back this way.

We call Anna-Li “Li-Li” as a nickname and sign her name a lot like the ILY sign up by the chin with a bit of a wiggle that came of us trying to spell Li-Li — ah well, I can’t describe it well), She is profoundly, bilaterally deaf, with sensorineural hearing loss likely from birth (although her deafness wasn’t noticed until we adopted her at 12 months in February). In March, we enrolled her in the parent-infant and child care programs at the Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham, MA, began learning ASL, and a month or two later, after the ABR, we had the official medical word from Children’s Hospital, Boston that she is deaf.

She loves, loves, loves the program at TLC, which is a mixed group of hearing, deaf toddlers, and is taught by amazing teachers who all happen to have Deaf children and are fluent ASL signers. She signs in her sleep, which is just adorable, out the car window on long drives, and with her friends and teachers at school. At home, we try hard to keep up, but sometimes I’m convinced she’s signing about me … and I’m afraid I may on occasion inadvertently use some obscene signs while trying to describe her Annie’s Bunny Pasta or convincing her that spinach is not death :) .

She’s Deaf, no matter what technology we employ to enhance or foster communication, so ASL is her primary and most natural language — and this way we maintain strong communication in the bath, at the beach and in bed — any place her beloved CI can’t follow. And we are taking part in multiple speech-language classes throughout the week, so we look forward to strong English skills as well. Someday …. Mandarin? We’ll see. She taps her head whenever that processor slips off — she really loves that new sense! With such great technology inside, we can’t figure out why there’s not a better way to keep the thing on an active toddler!