A Cure

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I'm talking about Bek's post #606

RD quoted her and asked her where she got her informations
 
Grendel, I honour that your choices are in the best interests of your child, being a mother of 7 myself. I understand that fully. I am not discrediting your choices. My comments on the article were not a personal hit on you or your choices. My mother also thought she too was acting in my best interests as a child, but we were not given full information or options. Back then, it was indeed an experimental trend of the medical profession which, for many of us here, failed at our expense. It is true, that advancements have been made, some good, some not. I am not against medical advancements when it comes to curing sickness, disease, and life-threatening conditions. (My daughter is studying to become a doctor). I work in areas where medical help is in great need. But deafness is not in that category. It is not a sickness, disease, nor is it life-threatening.

In my opinion, these advancements for a cure for deafness do more harm to someone's pyschological state than good and because it is all new there are many risks in other ways too.

The potential positive outcomes that everyone hopes for and are told to believe in, have taken, and will take more than a life-time.

I am not against spoken language as long as the child has sign language to fall back on for a respite. Being raised oral, having started speech therapy at age 11, having used speech my whole life, I am still not (at the age of 47) able to speak without effort or strain, I still stumble over articulating words, although many may think I can speak fine, for me it is a constant struggle. Only last year, did I begin to accept myself as I was - severely deaf. Since then I began learning sign language and now it is such a relief that just be myself. Yes, I still speak but I now have a choice not to. I would much rather see people live their lives happy and healthy without the stress of going from specialist to therapist to specialist. If people choose to take trials in medical advancements, then it is their choice. I just don't want any child to have to go through what I went through. I will always stand by this - do away with 'experimental trends' especially on children.
 
That's ok, I probably didn't organize my sentences properly to avoid confusion.
 
I get where you are coming from, Beclak. It just seems that you are giving a blanket "No thank you" very quickly and putting a whole lot of judgment on even the consideration of what each of these possibilities might mean for our children.

We definitely need to learn from experience and history, but we also need to consider that today's multimodal cognitive “brain training” exercises is not necessarily the same as yesterday's "monstrous speech therapy." Unless you happen to be a rat and your SLP was plying you with musical tones.

These items are from just one paper published last month, and not even as the focus of the paper, which is about the impact of profound deafness on children today. They are a couple of doctors' informed, but not sacred, projections of where efforts are going in future developments. The thread is about what we might consider cures, if anything (and cats and skunks, I know). I don't think that it makes sense to close our eyes to change or to a potential for advancement. I would never hand my husband that list and say, go for it -- plug all of into the child. But I think it is worth knowing what's being developed. Possibly even having a voice in the matter in some small way.

Whether we act on what's legitimately and safely made available to us 5 years, 10 years, 20 years in the future is up to us. Isn't it at least interesting to know what's in the works?
 
rockdrummer said:
yes my question was to BecLak
Click to expand...

My apologies RD, in that post the 'quote' function didn't work as expected.
It is a segment of quote from the article GrendelQ posted. She states the references in her quote. (you figured that already).
 
not a skunk

14387110_0dfb9db508.jpg

Gryphon
 
Where is the info? Google knows! To one of the above comments - your brain waves with an Cochlear Implant-being "tested" next Tuesday -a research project at Sunnybrook/Toronto. Thanks to PFH-bring Professor SKY with me -she can keep her eye on things!

Implanted Advanced Bionics-Harmony activated Aug/07
 
Where is the info? Google knows! To one of the above comments - your brain waves with an Cochlear Implant-being "tested" next Tuesday -a research project at Sunnybrook/Toronto. Thanks to PFH-bring Professor SKY with me -she can keep her eye on things!

Implanted Advanced Bionics-Harmony activated Aug/07
 
drphil said:
Where is the info? Google knows! To one of the above comments - your brain waves with an Cochlear Implant-being "tested" next Tuesday -a research project at Sunnybrook/Toronto. Thanks to PFH-bring Professor SKY with me -she can keep her eye on things!

Implanted Advanced Bionics-Harmony activated Aug/07
Click to expand...

Are you really getting your brain waves tested?
 
GrendelQ said:
I get where you are coming from, Beclak. It just seems that you are giving a blanket "No thank you" very quickly and putting a whole lot of judgment on even the consideration of what each of these possibilities might mean for our children.

We definitely need to learn from experience and history, but we also need to consider that today's multimodal cognitive “brain training” exercises is not necessarily the same as yesterday's "monstrous speech therapy." Unless you happen to be a rat and your SLP was plying you with musical tones.

These items are from just one paper published last month, and not even as the focus of the paper, which is about the impact of profound deafness on children today. They are a couple of doctors' informed, but not sacred, projections of where efforts are going in future developments. The thread is about what we might consider cures, if anything (and cats and skunks, I know). I don't think that it makes sense to close our eyes to change or to a potential for advancement. I would never hand my husband that list and say, go for it -- plug all of into the child. But I think it is worth knowing what's being developed. Possibly even having a voice in the matter in some small way.

Whether we act on what's legitimately and safely made available to us 5 years, 10 years, 20 years in the future is up to us. Isn't it at least interesting to know what's in the works?
Click to expand...

Grendel, Thank you. I'm glad you're getting where I'm coming from.

The intention of my 'argument' here and throughout the forum has never been to cause discord but to let people know that just because it is the latest technological or educational advancement, doesn't mean that it should be blindly accepted as the norm. eg: when hearing aids first came out, everyone was told that it was the 'cure' for deafness so every HOH or deaf child from hearing families had hearing aids slapped on them; similiar situation with CIs when they first came out.

It should be an informed choice made with all options on the table. Today, we are fortunate to have an internet society where we can 'google' information immediately and research into things for ourselves. I only pray that with the information and choices we have today, history does not repeat itself.
 
GrendelQ said:
14387110_0dfb9db508.jpg

Gryphon
Click to expand...

I'm glad that's not a skunk, as that would be one funny looking skunk if it were :lol:

But ... if you would like a skunk, er ... kitty, these girls might need help:

here-kitty.jpg
 
BecLak said:
Cochlear implants are likely to become multi-functional, combining drug-delivery (e.g., neurotrophic factors) and cell-delivery capabilities to rescue spiral ganglion cells or even generate new ones; innovations in design will allow better encoding of temporal fine structure, improving speech perception against background noise and the ability to enjoy music. Hearing conserva- tion through cochlear implantation should allow the synergistic combination of acoustical and electrical stimulation of the same ear; further technological advances will probably improve the outcome of implantation. Objective markers of brain maturation or response to complex sounds (e.g., with the use of electroencephalo- graphic measures) may guide future decisions about candidacy for cochlear implantation. Actively harnessing the brain’s computational capacity through the development of multimodal cognitive “brain training” exercises will probably further enhance outcomes. Emerging evidence suggests that auditory brain-stem implantation may be of value in children who do not have cochlear nerves.

Bolded: That's messing with someone's brain if you ask me. Zapped.
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Yes, auditory brainstem implant involve surgery on the brain. That is the only part of that that does. I explained what they are doing with EEG's in a previous post. And "brain training" would be like speech therapy but focusing on learning to listen and understand, rather than production of speech.
 
BecLak said:
Grendel, I honour that your choices are in the best interests of your child, being a mother of 7 myself. I understand that fully. I am not discrediting your choices. My comments on the article were not a personal hit on you or your choices. My mother also thought she too was acting in my best interests as a child, but we were not given full information or options. Back then, it was indeed an experimental trend of the medical profession which, for many of us here, failed at our expense. It is true, that advancements have been made, some good, some not. I am not against medical advancements when it comes to curing sickness, disease, and life-threatening conditions. (My daughter is studying to become a doctor). I work in areas where medical help is in great need. But deafness is not in that category. It is not a sickness, disease, nor is it life-threatening.

In my opinion, these advancements for a cure for deafness do more harm to someone's pyschological state than good and because it is all new there are many risks in other ways too.

The potential positive outcomes that everyone hopes for and are told to believe in, have taken, and will take more than a life-time.

I am not against spoken language as long as the child has sign language to fall back on for a respite. Being raised oral, having started speech therapy at age 11, having used speech my whole life, I am still not (at the age of 47) able to speak without effort or strain, I still stumble over articulating words, although many may think I can speak fine, for me it is a constant struggle. Only last year, did I begin to accept myself as I was - severely deaf. Since then I began learning sign language and now it is such a relief that just be myself. Yes, I still speak but I now have a choice not to. I would much rather see people live their lives happy and healthy without the stress of going from specialist to therapist to specialist. If people choose to take trials in medical advancements, then it is their choice. I just don't want any child to have to go through what I went through. I will always stand by this - do away with 'experimental trends' especially on children.
Click to expand...

The bolded part is exactly what CI's and other advancements are trying to avoid. One of the major goals of oral education combined with AV therapy and technology is the automaticity of spoken language.
 
Are you really getting your brain waves tested?
Click to expand...

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I think that ABR testing is a part of the ENT standard operating procedure. Maybe ABR testing is what he means?

I haven't had the ENT battery of tests. It's a waste of time and money for me.
 
sallylou said:
Please correct me if I'm wrong. I think that ABR testing is a part of the ENT standard operating procedure. Maybe ABR testing is what he means?

I haven't had the ENT battery of tests. It's a waste of time and money for me.
Click to expand...

Yes, an ABR measures your brainstems reaction to sound. The test I mentioned, measures your auditory cortex's reaction to sound.
 
BecLak said:
My apologies RD, in that post the 'quote' function didn't work as expected.
It is a segment of quote from the article GrendelQ posted. She states the references in her quote. (you figured that already).
Click to expand...
thanks for the clearification.
 
faire_jour said:
Yes, auditory brainstem implant involve surgery on the brain. That is the only part of that that does. I explained what they are doing with EEG's in a previous post. And "brain training" would be like speech therapy but focusing on learning to listen and understand, rather than production of speech.
Click to expand...

FJ, I said in my previous post, that I read the article and comprehended everything just fine. I know what all these procedures are and do. Stop talking as if I don't know what I am talking about, I'm not stupid.

Brain training is brain therapy. It is the 'therapy' that is a repeat of history, whether it be oral, brain, or whatever.

Electrical stimulation is unnatural interference whichever way you want to look at it.

As for the EEG's that is still testing, guinea-pig material.
 
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