Christine, the Med-El representative from St. Louis, spoke about her experiences as a mother with a deaf child.  Her son, Dylan, became deaf at 1 due to spinal meningitis, and just turned 18.  He wore hearing aids and was schooled at an oral deaf school that did teach some sign language, but then the hearing aids started not working and they had to go to sign language only for a short time.  That was around when he was reading and writing and communication was starting to get difficult.  He eventually told his family that he wanted to hear and that he wanted a cochlear implant.