A Story...

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 12/31/2004 11:56:01 AM Pacific Standard Time,

funkster0210@... writes:

She was not aware that the deaf world is slowly coming around to CI's, and

that there is not as much stigma associated with CI's now as there had been in

the past in the deaf world.

Refer her to NAD, they have articles about CI now,, a clear sign that deaf

world are now accepting the CI, just as they rejected and learned to accept

hearing aid 30 years ago...

Family has always been the " odd bunch " , I have a deaf sister, not yet

implanted, if she tried to talk to me and something LOUDER is in the way,, she

would YELL and CUSS demanding to know if I have my implant on,, I told her she

didn't need to YELL (at the time, high pitched sound were in the way).... I

guess she still have doubts.....

OH.. BTW being " superstar " ,, they are being stubborn, aren't they? I am one

those of " true " prelingual whatever it mean, born with profound loss,

implanted at 46 and doing well, still learning discrimination but I am hearing

more

and more without lipreading. In fact, if you want to, read my early day

story at _http://www.wasa-shhh.org/Summer%2004.pdf_

(http://www.wasa-shhh.org/Summer%2004.pdf) page 7. Keep in mind that article

was written about 3 months

after I was activated.

Lee

[Guest guest]

While at a family get together for the Holidays last week, I had a conversation

with one of my sisters, who is a special ed teacher for the most difficult of

special ed children.

She has one student who is totally deaf, and who relies on total ASL for

communication. The family is pretty much against a CI for the child. Prior to

that my sister was one of my biggest CI supporters. During our conversation at

dinner, she was telling me how she doesn't think the child should go the CI

route. When I asked her why, she responded by saying that from what she had been

told by various " professionals " , the child should not be implanted unless he had

prior hearing, ie: auditory memory, or else he would fail miserably, and a CI

would not be of benefit. I was kind of shocked. She explained to me that the

professionals she spoke with told her that only those with an auditory memory

would benefit. I then reminded her that my implanted ear for all practical

purposes had NO memory, since it went dead when I was but a few years of age,

and had no hearing in it for almost 40 years, and what hearing I did have was as

an infant, and very poor at that. As it turned out, I do very,

very well in that " bad " ear. So, long story short, we got into an arguement of

sorts for a while, and whe was telling me I was an anomaly. I proceeded to

explain to her that there are many true " prelingual " out there who had less

auditory memory in their implanted ear who do very well. She is now of the

opinion that I am a " superstar " CI recipient, which I resented, compliment or

not. It was hard for me to believe my own sister was brainwashed by the

so-called professionals she had spoken with.

However, I think I might have changed her way of thinking a bit, and I hope she

becomes more receptive to the idea of a CI for a child who has never heard a

whit of sound in his life. Time will tell. She had never heard of the film Sound

and Fury, and is going to get it. I told her to be prepared for it, since it is

not an easy film to watch. I also explained that there is absolutely no reason

for the child to retain his " deaf world " culture while at the same time being

able to hear, and hopefully discriminate speech. She was not aware that the deaf

world is slowly coming around to CI's, and that there is not as much stigma

associated with CI's now as there had been in the past in the deaf world.

Our conversation was actually kind of humorous, in that we were conversing at a

loud table of 15 people, and she said " huh? " , " what? " far more than I did. She

definitely had a harder time hearing and understanding me in noise than I did! I

know I'm the exception to the rule in that situation, but still, it was kinda

funny, and I needled her afterwards. She has perfect hearing too!

I have no idea whether the fact I had good auditory memory in my unimplanted ear

(now useless) has anything to do with how I perform with a CI. I suspect not. It

will be interesting to see what happens with her student as time goes on, and

whether he gets implanted. I was careful not to " push " her, but did offer to

speak with the child and his family about my own experiences. Time will tell...

McNamara

N24 10/99, 3G 5/02

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

,

Welcome to my world! LOL I hear from so many " professionals " how

CI's do not provide the benefits that those of us who are CI users

KNOW they do. I get this from d/hh teachers and from the people in

the d/hh degree program I'm a part of. Please keep in mind, though,

Deaf culture, in many areas is NOT coming around to the idea of

CI's. This is the first place I have met Deaf adults who were not

very crticital of my decision to receive a CI. One Deaf adult in my

classes refers to parents who have their children implanted as child

abusers. It's a very, very touchy subject in Deaf culture and in

educational circles.

However, like you, I feel that, barring medical reasons not to

receive a CI, children should be implanted if possible. Children's

brains are plastic enough to receive more benefit from CI's than

adults. The earlier children are implanted, the better they do.

There is a sort of nueral pruning that takes place as the auditory

nerves are not used due to deafness. However, this does NOT mean

that there is no benefit to CI's at any age. The prelingual adults

implanted who are on this list are proof of that. The ear that

hears is not at issue. Whether there was/is hearing is the issue,

as the brain does not know what to make of the sounds it has not

heard, or has not heard recently. It takes a lot of work to learn

to make sense of those sounds, but it can be done. =)

However, if the child's parents are against an implant, there's

really nothing that can be done about that. If the parents are

against the implant because of false information, and there is a LOT

of it out there..see my post about Marschark's statement in the book

Raising and Educating a Deaf Child, then the parents need to be

educated in the benefits of CI's. ALL educators and " professionals "

(and believe me, many " professionals " are far from being

professional or competent) need to know the truth about CI's. I am

doing my best to get the word out at work and at the university.

However, it's an uphill battle because of all of the negativity

surrounding CI's that these people have been hearing and reading

that's backed up by outdated research. Trying to convince them that

the research is outdated is another battle. =)

Beth