Cochlea

What are the Benefits of Cochlear Implants? For people with implants: • Hearing ranges from near normal ability to understand speech to no hearing benefit at all. • Adults often benefit immediately and continue to improve for about 3 months after the initial tuning sessions. Then, although performance continues to improve, improvements are slower. Cochlear implant users' performances may continue to improve for several years. • Children may improve at a slower pace. A lot of training is needed…

Let me start of by saying that before the movie I did not think that deaf people were as active as they showed in the movie. I am not trying to say I thought deaf individuals stayed home 24/7 and did nothing, what I mean is I did not think that deaf people drove, wrote and acted in plays/musicals and never would have thought that there would be a completely deaf band. It was very interesting to learn that I was 100% incorrect with thinking the way I did. I believe a lot of that comes from…

Audism is when someone is being discriminated against based on their ability to hear or not to hear. The term audism originally started in 19775 by a man named Tom Humphries, to describe how some people feel superior based on their ability to hear (Bauman 2004). It is a term the hearing community does not understand and many do not notice that they are becoming an audist. It can be seen in both the deaf community and the hearing community when people do not trust that someone deaf can make…

Imagine Driving down the road with the windows down and your favorite song on the radio and everything is just so relaxed. Now Imagine one day you can’t do this anymore. Can you think of something that you love? Now imagine if that thing you loved was taken away or imagine even worse that you never could experience the thing you loved again. I love music. I love the way the notes dance around the lyrics. I love that some music can calm me when I am upset or get me pumpin when I’m jammin out.…

Universal Newborn Hearing Screenings Over 50 years ago, audiologists, educators, parents, and medical personnel recognized and stressed the importance of early identification of hearing loss among infants. The understanding for a need for early identification of a child’s hearing loss has led us to the modern technology and assessment of hearing for newborns, most commonly referred to as the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS). In the United States, as of 2007, over 90% of newborns are…

Introduction Language can be seen and heard; it can be diverse or standard. What does this mean? To average norm students, this describes the ability of communication. Too hard of hearing and deaf children language takes on a whole new role, influencing their personal, social and academic development as well as life experiences. Whether a student is hard of hearing or deaf gaining, learning and communicating through language, both oral and visual, entails an entirely different experience than…

For my Bodies project I decided to experience hearing impairment for two whole days. I would achieve this by wearing earplugs for the complete duration of those two days. During my time of disability, I realized how my life, socially, went evidently downhill. I saw myself becoming more reserved and generally just becoming silent. I talked lower, just nodded and said “yeah” to stop conversations, and generally stayed more in my room. I felt lonely and depressed, when classes were silent and I…

Deafness, like any other attribute a human may have, may be perceived in a positive or a negative light. As hearing people make up the majority of the population, it is easy for people who cannot hear to be looked at differently. I was full of wonder upon hearing the title, Reframing: From Hearing Loss to Deaf Gain as I am very familiar with the term “hearing loss”, but not very familiar with the term “deaf gain”. I was expecting “deaf gain” to involve the advantages of being deaf that I do not…

In mainstream society, we, as hearing people, tend to consider deafness as a defect. We tend to look at them with a feeling of pity. If they success in the hearing world, we will applaud them for overcoming a severe deficiency. We tend to consider signing as an inferior replacement for “real” language such as English or Spanish. We believe that all Deaf people will try to lip-read when communicating with hearing people as the only way to interact. Finally, when we heard about the devices such as…

Imagine yourself living in a community of people who are nothing like you, and will never become like you. In Varley’s “Persistence of Vision” the Keller community is full of deaf-blind people who have created their own way of living to better help themselves survive. The Kellerites are welcoming to any visitors that want to experience how they deaf-blind live, however, these visitors may not want to stay very long. Anyone who decides they want to step into the world of the deaf-blind society…