Cochlear decison

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Beach girl said:
So, Mountain Man, what do you do with your kid(s)? What is their hearing loss, what do they use, how well are they learning language and their other school subjects?

That might be useful for someone to know if they are deciding between CIs, HAs, nothing at all and using ASL-only, or whatever combination.
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Mountain Man has been very forthcoming regarding his child and the decisions they have made and the evironment they provide. Most of us are familiar with his posts.
 
Banjo said:
Rush Limbaugh (Yes, I know he's a blowhard jerk) once described that music didn't hear the same to him after getting a cochlear implant. He said that he could only enjoy listening to the songs he listened to before he went deaf. The interesting part is, the only way to enjoy these songs was to recall the way they heard while listening.

Basically, it confirms what you said. It's a physical impossibility.
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Exactly. Rush is relying on auditory memory. It has long been known that auditory memory is useful in getting optimal benefit from a CI. One of the reasons that late deafened adult experience cannot be compared to childhood experience.
 
Mountain Man said:
Here's a simulation of what cochlear implants sound like:

Cochlear Implant Simulations

Please tell me that even the 32 channel sample (pretty much state of the art for current CI technology) is as good as natural hearing.
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Thanks for that link. And you are absolutely correct. Even at 32 channels, this, in no way, is comparable to natural hearing, even though dB levels in speech frequencies may be same as hearing people. That is just an indication of where sound is perceived. Sound is basically useless noise if it can't be converted by the brain to something meaningful. Range and fidelity in all of these samples are greatly reduced from what is perceived and processed by someone with normal hearing.
 
Mountain Man said:
Here's a simulation of what cochlear implants sound like:

Cochlear Implant Simulations

Please tell me that even the 32 channel sample (pretty much state of the art for current CI technology) is as good as natural hearing.
Click to expand...

:laugh2: Next you'll be saying natural hearing is better than hearing aid technology, too :roll:
 
GrendelQ said:
:laugh2: Next you'll be saying natural hearing is better than hearing aid technology, too :roll:
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Wasn't it you that was making the comparison between natural hearing and the CI? Reading back over the previous posts, it would certainly seem that way. Likewise, MM's post are stating, several times, that one cannot compare CI hearing to natural hearing.:dunno2:
 
Mountain Man said:
I find this response confusing. What exactly are you objecting to?
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Do you think that people who say they have positive experiences with hearing aids, that they can measure their hearing at typical hearing levels and can access sounds across all frequencies are saying that it's BETTER than a typical hearing experience?

Plus, haven't you heard all the stories of having to filter out all those sounds that hearing aids and CIs bring to the forefront, the noise factor? My daughter hears people walking through the hallways as though they are right next to her, she hears children talking outside a window as loudly as she hears the teacher three feet in front of her. This isn't a positive thing.

My daughter didn't have typical hearing, and then we decided, 'Oh, it would be so much better if she had CI technology!'
 
GrendelQ said:
Do you think that people who say they have positive experiences with hearing aids, that they can measure their hearing at typical hearing levels and can access sounds across all frequencies are saying that it's BETTER than a typical hearing experience?
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Who has said that?

GrendelQ said:
Plus, haven't you heard all the stories of having to filter out all those sounds that hearing aids and CIs bring to the forefront, the noise factor? My daughter hears people walking through the hallways as though they are right next to her, she hears children talking outside a window as loudly as she hears the teacher three feet in front of her. This isn't a positive thing.
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Who has said that?
 
I'd like to clarify a few things, from someone who has had speech therapy while having hearing aids, and AV therapy in the later years while having CI.

Facts (Or at least what I perceive to be facts):

1) AV therapy is completely different from speech therapy.

2) With a CI implant, AV therapy is pretty much a requirement. The term" Full access to sounds" can be misinterpreted. CI users generally have "full access" to sounds that a hearing person hears, meaning they hear things that are within the normal hearing range. This is why their audiograms show that they can hear everything that a hearing person can. However, just because they have access to them doesn't mean they hear them as NATURALLY and FULLY/SPECIFIC as a hearing person. This is why AV therapy is a requirement. I have no idea how much I'd progress (IF ANY) if I didn't have AV therapy (in conjunction with mapping), but I'm guessing it would not be much.

My opinion:

Frankly, I don't know how I'd do AV therapy if I didn't know how to speak (when you know how to speak, you know how it is being said, if that makes any sense), so I can see why ST and AVT usually come together for someone implanted very young.

Also, I find it amusing that some people have problems with drills or whatever they want to call it. Isn't that what school does, anyway? Or is the problem that they do it at a very young age? Wait till they are in 1st grade before drills are okay?

My mom kept "drilling" me before I started kindergarten:
"Keep your elbows off the table!"
"Keep your mouth closed when you chew!"
"Don't burp!!! Say "excuse me" if you burp!" (Maybe this is part of those speech therapy drills? Making me talk?)
"Don't bother other people!"
And so on.

That totally ruined my playing time, my interactions with older people, my eating enjoyment, my freedom for body gas release.

Honestly, I don't see a difference between what I listed and "Zeb-wa." "No.. ZebRA".

To me, the difference is HOW OFTEN you do it. Imagine hearing that stuff ALL THE FREAKING time. Which I suspect happened to quite a lot of people here in terms of AVT/ST.

Moderation is key.
 
Mountain Man said:
Here's a simulation of what cochlear implants sound like:

Cochlear Implant Simulations

Please tell me that even the 32 channel sample (pretty much state of the art for current CI technology) is as good as natural hearing.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I comprehend your position. I understand the whole CI debate and the sentiments behind it, however are you implying that CI's need to be a 1:1 replica of natural hearing?

Most (if not all) synthetic replacements of human body parts aren't exacts of what they replaced, the point is that the users adapt to take advantage* of it.

* = advantage being a variable definition.
 
GrendelQ said:
Do you think that people who say they have positive experiences with hearing aids, that they can measure their hearing at typical hearing levels and can access sounds across all frequencies are saying that it's BETTER than a typical hearing experience?

Plus, haven't you heard all the stories of having to filter out all those sounds that hearing aids and CIs bring to the forefront, the noise factor? My daughter hears people walking through the hallways as though they are right next to her, she hears children talking outside a window as loudly as she hears the teacher three feet in front of her. This isn't a positive thing.

My daughter didn't have typical hearing, and then we decided, 'Oh, it would be so much better if she had CI technology!'
Click to expand...

Do you have some sort of device that connects you directly to your daughter's auditory experience? I find it amazing that you seem to be able to hear through her CI.
 
naisho said:
I'm not sure I comprehend your position. I understand the whole CI debate and the sentiments behind it, however are you implying that CI's need to be a 1:1 replica of natural hearing?

Most (if not all) synthetic replacements of human body parts aren't exacts of what they replaced, the point is that the users adapt to take advantage* of it.

* = advantage being a variable definition.
Click to expand...

His position is clear. At least to me his position is clear; and I suspect to many others, as there are only 2 now that express an inability to understand his posts. He is demonstrating that CI hearing is not comparable to natural hearing, no matter how many parents claim it is. He is insuring that factual information is presented.
 
Beach girl said:
So, Mountain Man, what do you do with your kid(s)? What is their hearing loss, what do they use, how well are they learning language and their other school subjects?

That might be useful for someone to know if they are deciding between CIs, HAs, nothing at all and using ASL-only, or whatever combination.
Click to expand...

Very briefly, my son is 5-years old and profoundly deaf. He wears hearing aids but only to give him access to environmental sounds. He theoretically has access to speech sounds, but he doesn't respond to them. My wife and I have been learning ASL for the past several years and use it at home when interacting with my son and his siblings along with some simultaneous communication (voicing and signing simultaneously) which my wife finds easier even though it technically puts the signs in the wrong order. Watching the kids communicating with each other in sign while they play is the cutest thing I've ever seen.

For language immersion, my son attends the local Deaf school which has an ASL-only voice-off program. His receptive skills are very good, but he does appear to have some expressive delays that we're looking in to.
 
GrendelQ said:
Do you think that people who say they have positive experiences with hearing aids, that they can measure their hearing at typical hearing levels and can access sounds across all frequencies are saying that it's BETTER than a typical hearing experience?

Plus, haven't you heard all the stories of having to filter out all those sounds that hearing aids and CIs bring to the forefront, the noise factor? My daughter hears people walking through the hallways as though they are right next to her, she hears children talking outside a window as loudly as she hears the teacher three feet in front of her. This isn't a positive thing.

My daughter didn't have typical hearing, and then we decided, 'Oh, it would be so much better if she had CI technology!'
Click to expand...

I still have no idea what you're objecting to. All I've done is state the facts. Why does this make you so angry?
 
jillio said:
Do you have some sort of device that connects you directly to your daughter's auditory experience? I find it amazing that you seem to be able to hear through her CI.
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A 'device' that connects me to her auditory experience? I do, actually, and while it's not what her brain is processing, I can hear how each program changes the mix of sounds and I find it amazing to listen to how the sound of hair against the mic, the sound of the person speaking directly in front of us, and the low conversation outside the doorway can all be brought in at the same "depth" or "priority" with her music program, vs. one that intentionally dampens down sound from all but a defined focused direction.

But I don't use a device to connect with her and understand that the she's just picked up the conversation out in the hallway that I'd filtered out.
 
Grendel is not claiming it is, either. She has said that many, many times, that "access to sounds" via the CI is not the same as natural hearing.

Are all the people objecting to the years of speech and AV training also objecting to all the years needed for ASL learning? Either way, or both ways, kids will need a lot of extra attention to learn language(s).

ASL is not coming to come naturally to the typical deaf child born to hearing parents, either. Both the parents and the child will have a lot of work to do.

Like DareDevel, I'm not particularly surprised by that.
 
jillio said:
His position is clear. At least to me his position is clear; and I suspect to many others, as there are only 2 now that express an inability to understand his posts. He is demonstrating that CI hearing is not comparable to natural hearing, no matter how many parents claim it is. He is insuring that factual information is presented.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone has said that CI hearing is the same as typical hearing.
 
GrendelQ said:
A 'device' that connects me to her auditory experience? I do, actually, and while it's not what her brain is processing, I can hear how each program changes the mix of sounds and I find it amazing to listen to how the sound of hair against the mic, the sound of the person speaking directly in front of us, and the low conversation outside the doorway can all be brought in at the same "depth" or "priority" with her music program, vs. one that intentionally dampens down sound from all but a defined focused direction.

But I don't use a device to connect with her and understand that the she's just picked up the conversation out in the hallway that I'd filtered out.
Click to expand...

Well, if you are not able to connect to what her brain is processing, you are missing the most important facet of the experience of hearing.;)
 
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