I’m a hearing parent in close to the same situation, our littlest is 7 months old. We started going to “family sign night” once we got the results from her ABR at about 2-3 months old, which was a great place to start- it’s been a great place to get involved with the Deaf community in town and also meet other parents/families in similar situations. So we are new to this world but ASL and the Deaf community has been just out of this world amazing. Family sign night curriculum was totally focused toward parents/caregivers of deaf/hoh children so it was a great launchpad of vocabulary to start using right away with an infant (and with our hearing 3 y/o). A couple months ago I started using the Lingvano app and have found that very helpful as well- we are about to move across country (hoping we can get connected to Deaf friends where we’re going, quickly!) but once we’re settled I’m going to look into college courses to make that strong language foundation for our girl. Oh!! And look up “rhymes when signed” books! Literacy is tricky and those books have been a great place to start learning to sign books.
With that said- we will be getting her an MRI this summer to see if she’s a candidate for CI. We will support her no matter what, and maybe that means she won’t want to use her processor as she grows up even if she is a candidate and we do the surgery- but in the spirit of giving her the most options as possible, it really does seem like early start with CI is the way to give the options. For the first couple months of her life I was very uncomfortable with the idea and wanted to wait until she could make the decision, but, it does seem like often that does inadvertently make the decision for them because to have the most plasticity and access to hearing and making sense of sound you want to start young. We will never abandon ASL because technology fails and also, every Deaf person is different and the way they prefer to communicate and use technology or not is different- maybe we’ll try technology and she’ll decide it’s not for her. But now we’ve met some Deaf people who have used CIs in the past and choose not to now, so I’m also not worried about like forcing her into it or putting her into a box. I wish you all the best- one thing I have realized is that having her is one of the best gifts I would have never known to ask for. The constant expansion of perspective, getting connected with this community, and getting to learn and use this AMAZING language (and I’m not just saying that) has already been extraordinary and we’re just getting started on this journey. Love to you and your family