I am pregnant with twins. I have a progressive hereditary hearing loss, for which I have hearing aids that are helpful to me, I will however one day be deaf. I grew up in a home where we signed. My grandmother and older sister were both profoundly deaf. My sister unfortunately passed away in a car accident years ago, and other than my baby sister whom i have full custody of, we do not speak with my family. I am a french-Canadian and my fiancé is Scottish, so we want the twins to speak both English and french. I want them to learn to sign eventually, as it is part of my roots. I am worried that if I sign with the babies as well as speak, they won't develop the oral languages. Should I sign with my babies once they are born? Will this hinder their oral language development?
Thanks
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My husband’s father has degenerative hearing loss. He’s probably about 90% deaf at this point. His current wife is completely deaf and has been since birth. My husband and his sister were never taught sign language and it would be very useful to them now. Communication is difficult with their father & step-mother. You can imagine how conversation at Thanksgiving dinner goes.
Another anecdote, I lived across the street from a family that was comprised of a completly deaf mother & father and two kids that had no hearing impairment. The kids could sign very well and could speak very well.
My point being that learning sign language would probably be a great benefit to your kids in the future (when you are deaf). And I do not think it would cause any long term problems with their verbal abilities. Go ahead and teach them. It’s so much harder to learn a new “language” as an adult.