cued speech

[Guest guest]

I am inspired by 's recent post and the encouragement to keep reviewing

your child's progress and needs and not to be intimidated by the school system.

My daughter's iep is set for mid-March. Last year I felt so frustrated by how

sketchy the goals were written in the first meeting. I spent 6 weeks rewriting

and rethinking things. It helped a lot, but I know I need to be even more

specific this year.

My daughter has a profound loss on the left (unaidable) and a mild-profound

sloping loss on the right (digital aid). She hears at 20db through 1500 but

then begins to drop to 40db at 2000 and it goes rapidly downhill from there.

Her hearing has remained stable since diagnosed at age 3 1/2. We used a bit of

cued speech and signs with her once we realized her deficits. We have since

dropped it as she seemed to progress fine with AV. However, her vocabulary is

about a year delayed and It takes her quite a while to incorporate new

vocabulary. Example - learning about Greece and the democratic representative

style of government....she can repeat the words and use them sort of rotely, but

I don't think she has absorbed their meaning for reference/expression. She

tests superior in the non-verbal areas, but average - low average verbally.

I have been questioning lately whether we should fully learn cued speech. It is

not known whether Maggie's hearing loss will increase. She will be learning

tons of new vocabulary in fourth grade related to the more indepth units in

Science and Social Studies. Do you think this falls under the guidelines for

the school to teach her (and us) cued speech as a preferred mode of

communication - or allowing greater access to the curriculum?

Sorry for such a long explanation/question, but I appreciate any

insight/experience anyone has on this.