momto2bilateralciuse

I highly doubt that the person below is actually a researcher in language development, considering their comments and grammar. "Many researches" do not show what she claims. However, I wish to congratulate Kassie and her family on a great storyline. I met them a few years ago at CI camp in the Rockies and I am sure that they not only have their son's best wishes in mind, but those of all of our implanted kids. Implantees are showing terrific results these days, and the vast majority of kids implanted by age 2 to 3 are caught up by kindergarten or even preschool age. They are receptively (with audition) and expressively caught up to their same aged peers. They are doing well. The window of plasticity closes approximately from 3 to 7 years of age, after which it is much more difficult to become a comfortable, native speaker. It's laughable to imagine forcing hearing parents to utilize a foreign language (ASL) to communicate with their baby when there is such a great solution. Today's deaf infants do not have to struggle with their parents; they can have the same language as their community and peers. All babies are born with propensity to learn language. There is no more reason for a baby to consider ASL their native language than their is for us to think they ought to learn Russian. If a baby is found not to be an implant candidate, fine-- sign will work. But for the implantees (and more than 99% of deaf babies are likely candidates) they can look forward to normal education and, perhaps more importantly, do not have to rely on government assistance or limit their job opportunities with the disabling condition of not being able to speak the most common language of their community. The research clearly supports the educational and vocational benefit of speaking and audition, and we thank ONe Life to Live for helping bring this to nationwide attention!