When I was born, I was profoundly deaf. That was not known until I was a year and a half, and got my first hearing aids. According to my mother, I showed immediate response to the hearing aids, acting as if I wanted them in my ears. Today, my parents probably would have waited only a few months, then gotten me a cochlear implant.
Just today, I read about a baby that was suspected of being deaf at 14 months, and by the time the baby was two years old, the baby had a cochlear implant. Before the implant, the parents did try hearing aids. So that means hearing aids were given no more than six months' time to produce results, probably less time than that.
One reason it is so difficult for many in our generation (born before the 80s) to accept the cochlear implant in babies is because all we had were hearing aids and/or sign language. Cochlear implants were not an option for us. Our parents had no choice but to wait longer to see if we responded to the hearing aids. Many in our generation did okay with hearing aids, but many of us also came out of our growing up deaf years with less developed English skills.
Today's hearing aids just apparently are not good enough for deaf babies. The parents wait a few months, and if the baby does not show response to sound or start producing language, it's off to get an implant. Who can blame the parents? Time is of the essence if their children are going to develop good English skills.
Instead of getting so upset over cochlear implants in babies - something that admittedly bothers me, but I accept because there is no choice but to accept it with the majority of deaf babies getting implants today - should we be pressuring the hearing aid manufacturers to improve their technology? After all, if hearing aids worked better, there would be no need to implant the deaf babies.
Hearing aids worked for me as a profoundly deaf toddler. What I do not know and may never know, is did they work for me because I was older, and more aware of my environment? Did they work for me because I had just enough hearing left to be able to benefit from hearing aids? What if I had been a tiny infant under six months old? Would hearing aids have worked for me?
I've even asked myself an analogous question. What if I had a blind baby and I had two options available, a pair of strong glasses and surgery to give my child artificial eyes? How long would I be willing to wait for my child to be able to see with the strong glasses? Would I rush to get my child the artificial eyes? It is not a matter of wanting my child to be "normal," but a matter of wanting my child to be able to see.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
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8 comments:
I was born deaf and started wearing hearing aids when I was in the first gread (1958). It help me along with learning to speech read (lip read). Now I depend on both hearing aids and speech reading. I cannot understand speech without one or the other.
If my child was born deaf... I would be open to give her an CI as I would if s/he was born blind. I want to give the child all the oportunity I can give him/her.
David Pearosn
dkl.pearson@gmail.com
To me, a hearing person, this seems reasonable, and a good analogy. I wonder as I think about it - I wonder how long I would wait for glasses/surgery for child. Probably until the years when the child would start to read. And probably avoid surgery until I knew that glasses would not work?
I know that I have chosen to use contact instead of lasik eye surgery - I wonder how relevant that decision is.
You are a believer in the value of Sign, so wondered while you write as if hearing aids and cochlear implants were the way for a baby to learn language.
You have an excellent point in pressuring hearing aid manufacturers to improve their product and it CAN be done to a degree that is better and more flexible than the CI. Also, the CI destroys future options for improving hearing as the technology develops; the hearing aid does not.
In all cases of babies learning language, they should have both hearing assistance and Sign as early as possible.
Consider this perspective.
Two countries exist side by side. One is much bigger than the other. They speak different languages and they have one big physical difference: the people in the bigger country all have straight hair and the people in the smaller country have curly hair. The languages they speak are genetically related to their hair condition.
The countries have developed a fairly good relationship where people can cross boundaries for any economic purposes, but curly haired people tend to live in the smaller country and straight people tend to live in the bigger country and speak their own languages, and run their lives and politics based on their language and hair.
Now, due to the "6th degree of separation", there will be times where straight hair people give birth to curly hair babies and vice versa.
Which would be more HEALTHY psychologically, physically, spiritually, community-wise, linguistically?
1) enlist the help and support of people from the other country to raise their baby---to embrace their hair and language without any negative feelings for the parents or the bigger country
or
2) the bigger country to be obsessed with the "abnormality" of curly hair and their language, especially those born to straight hair people, and believing ridiculously that straight hair people and their language is the RIGHT and BEST just because the country is bigger and has more power. They pour millions of dollars on medical (and profitable) creations to make unnatural straight hair and to force the bigger country's language down the curly hair children's throats for the parents' and the system's convenience.
DEFICIT THINKING are DAMAGING to a LINGUISTIC community. Deficit thinking looks at Deaf people as people lacking something rather than as people with potential to play unique roles on the Earth to provide fresh and challenging perspectives on "family", "humanity" and "language" in every country, and simply to provide natural diversity to keep everybody humble and more loving.
Hearing aids, cochlear implants, English only, "majority rules", etc are examples of AUDISM. Audism hurts and destroys. We need to rid of audism no matter how prevalent it is around us. Just like we need to rid of environmental hazards no matter how hopeless fixing it may seem.
zI do agree, ella, that those in the hearing community who give birth to a deaf baby should embrace it, enlist support from the Deaf community, and do everything possible to allow that child to be who they were born as. However, the reality is that too many hearing parents who have a deaf baby, however sad it may be, do not know what to do, and they don't do everything they can to learn ASL and teach their child. They instead want their child to be able to learn and speak their language. I work at a preschool where I see too many of these cases. Because a CI is available these children will be much better off than they would entering school with virtually no language whatsoever. A 5 year old that just began attending has absolutely no language. No words, no sign. If she at least had amplification of SOME kind she would be that much better, because her parents are obviously not doing anything to help her communicate. I apologize for getting away from the original point of the post.
I am sorry I don't have the information to refer to the precise studies, but they are all showing that the severe to profound children who get CIs early (infant to 18 mos) do much better in verbal language that those with hearing aids.
Each child is different of course, but generally speaking, the high frequency is very hard for HOH people to get, even with hearing aids. This is not a problem with the implant. They get full access to the entire frequency range, which then allows the child to develope spoken language much more easily.
As a hearing parent of a deaf child, my love and acceptance of her would never change no matter if she got the implant or not. Our reasons for getting her the implant were to allow her more access to extended family and more opportunities in her future. If you were there when she recovered from the meningitis, and saw the confusion on her little face when all sound was cut off, it would have broken your heart too.
Kim
One point that has not yet been made is that the cost of hearing aids is not covered by insurance companies. While there are good quality, high end hearing aids, they are VERY expensive.
Cochlear implants are covered by insurance at least for one. Bilateral are becoming more common as well, though are not covered universally yet.
Now, please don't perceive my comment as stating that this is a good (or only) reason to get a cochlear implant. However, the hearing aid companies are having to deal with competition from the CI companies, who are covered by insurance. I expect this is a problem. Additionally, hearing aids still rely on residual hearing, which can only be "enhanced" so much.
So not only are CI's better in that they provide a fuller range of access to all frequencies, but you aren't dishing out thousands of dollars to purchase them either.
I think hearing aid coverage should be mandatory for deaf children, but unfortunately, it is not. I wonder if it were, though, if more parents would allow a longer period of hearing aid trial before moving on to a CI?
Just food for thought - for myself as well!
I find your blog rather interesting and useful. Hearing aids is still a way out for those who have hearing problems. However, certain people are deprived of a chance to hear the sounds even with the help of hearing aids. I have learned from www.pissedconsumer.com that they are very different and diverse depending on the level of the deafness. There are numerous hearing aids manufacturers in the world which present their products on the US market.
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