Tough Decisions

Recently I was approached by Savanah's deaf teacher about some concerns she has been having with Savanah and her language patterns.

Savanah leaves off linking verbs quite often, almost in all of her sentences. You never realize how important "the", "and", "in", "it", etc. are until you follow a story from Savanah. Although, as her parents, we can understand the point she is getting too, without the linking verbs.

Her teacher explained to us that if we cannot close this gap and help her with trying to use the linking verbs more and more, school is going to just get more difficult for her.

As hearing individuals, processing words in our brains comes with no energy. You hear a word, and not even a second later, you can understand the word, in fact, an entire sentence, story etc. If Savanah does not catch one word from a teacher, peer etc. not only does it take her an extra minute to process the word she did not understand, but then the words afterwards she has missed entirely.

We have decided after very careful consideration and every factor that the best thing for Savanah right now is to have her attend full-time Kingergarten at USD and finish out the year with Becky. I have faith in Becky and her abilites to help Savanah as much as she can with "closing this gap".

There were bittersweet moments with me yesterday, as it was Savanah's last day with her mainstream class. I know she has made friends there. I know she enjoys the class. We love the teacher and ultimately just want the most "normal" school experience for Savanah but we also want her to succeed in school, the entire way, and we all know what a long journey school can be.

I feel confident that we made the right decision, I only hope the very best for Savanah. She has come a long way for only being implanted for a little over two years! If we all keep up our part of the deal in helping her develop her speech, then she will definitely benefit in the long run!