are we deaf or hearing?

[Guest guest]

Medically and educationally speaking, we're still deaf. We function as a

hard of hearing person as long as the CI is on, but without it, we're deaf.

Even the CI stars still function as hard of hearing, even if they do

consider themselves hearing (and I did until my audiologist pointed out the

difference between my audiogram and a normal audiogram). Shoot, this is the

best I can ever remember hearing, except that I can't hear all of the range

of pitches that I remember which makes music a whole lot harder than it used

to be. I'm hoping the 120 channels software will help with that. Just as

an FYI, here is a reference for how you are rated by an audiologist.

-10dB to 25dB = Normal range

26dB to 40 dB = Mild hearing loss

41 dB to 55 dB = Moderate hearing loss

56 dB to 70 dB = Moderately Severe hearing loss

71 dB to 90 dB = Severe hearing loss

over 90 dB = Profound hearing loss

A lot of us still have audiograms in the mild/moderate range, and some

people are never able to understand more than environmental sounds with a

CI.

Beth

The mere imparting of information is not education. Above all things, the

effort must result in making a man think and do for himself.-- G.

Woodson