I understand exactly what you are thinking BAL, but what I learned when I researched was that a lot of kids (not all) prefer to be in the deaf community where they are one of many, rather that try to integrate in the hearing community where they are the deaf child and therefore different from their peers. Quite a few deaf children will take out their hearing aids to fit in more with deaf children I wanted to give boytwin the choice about who he wanted to associate with.