My Introduction

[Heather Gibbs]

Hello! My name is Heather and I am interested in ASl because of my Deaf/hard of hearing family. My husband and two of our four children are D/HH. My husband has a moderate to severe hearing loss, our oldest son, 24-years-old has a mild to moderate hearing loss and our youngest son, 9-years-old has a moderate to severe hearing loss and speech issues. Their hearing loss is a congenital progressive sensorineural hearing loss. My husband and oldest son have lost more of their residual hearing fairly slowly over time but our youngest has lost his at a faster rate and he relies on sign to communicate because of his hearing loss and speech. He has an educational interpreter in school who is amazing! He has picked up on sign quickly but we have struggled to learn. With our youngest identifying with the amazing Deaf community, the fact that he is losing his residual hearing quickly and his hearing aids are not effective, and the need to communicate with him in sign daily I feel anxious to learn and become fluent. I have loved the Deaf community members that we have met and really want to be able to communicate with others. I look forward to learning and communicating on here! 

[Rachael LEyba]