Cochlear Implants Decrease Your IQ?

[fyborg]

Last year I found the story about CI can increase IQ they believe. I gave link to SmileyGin. I still not find. I would not post here about anyway. Maybe she has it?

I think CIs do make learning in a hearing enviroment easier...but that doesn't indicate an uptick in IQ points.

 

[deafdyke]

hey, hey........i was just throwing out a possible hypothesis. But I mean there's a difference between being behind and being stunted academicly b/c of the focus on aquirring oral skills. I was thinking more along the lines of culturally deprived kids or kids with LDs that are the result of growing up in a poor family.
Have to remember that the fourth grade reading level also includes orally skilled kids.
Fy, there are some kids who have done well and even really thrived orally...definitly don't deny that. Not criticizing oral skills.....in fact I'm pretty oral myself. .but i'm just wondering if maybe part of the reason why dhh/ special needs kids acheivement levels have remained relatively low, might be because of some parents' hyperfocusing on the defiect.

 

[fyborg]

hey, hey........i was just throwing out a possible hypothesis. But I mean there's a difference between being behind and being stunted academicly b/c of the focus on aquirring oral skills. I was thinking more along the lines of culturally deprived kids or kids with LDs that are the result of growing up in a poor family.
Have to remember that the fourth grade reading level also includes orally skilled kids.
Fy, there are some kids who have done well and even really thrived orally...definitly don't deny that. Not criticizing oral skills.....in fact I'm pretty oral myself. .but i'm just wondering if maybe part of the reason why dhh/ special needs kids acheivement levels have remained relatively low, might be because of some parents' hyperfocusing on the defiect.

...
Could it be because they don't want to recognise the fact their child is deaf, and therefore feel justified in leaving them to sink or swim?
Could it be that public schools' services for deaf children, more often than not, tends to suck rather actually helping the child?

 

[deafskeptic]

One would think that if children became retarded, the parents would sue the doctors who implanted the children in the first place. I've not been able to find any info about the impact that CIs would have on cognitive skills. Most CIs do report an increase in verbal ability though.

From what I've seen of diagrams of implants, the brain does not appear to have any contact with any part of the the implants. Given the position of the implants, I'd think that that the temporal lobe would be most likely to be affected.

If CIs did damage brains, we'd expect to see impaired memory for sound and shapes if implants were done on the right side. If CIs were done on the left side, we'd expect to see memory impairments for words and an inablity to understand language. I'm not a doctor though, just someone who likes to research stuff. While there are risks for CIs, I've never heard any reports of this.

 

[Oceanbreeze]

...
Could it be because they don't want to recognise the fact their child is deaf, and therefore feel justified in leaving them to sink or swim?
Could it be that public schools' services for deaf children, more often than not, tends to suck rather actually helping the child?

I'm hearing, but I still agree with this. I have a possible theory as to why this is. Alot of public school spec. ed. programs rely heavily on the IEP for placement and education goals. In my opinion, the IEP is outdated and needs to be tossed aside. Even though I was mainstreamed into regular education classes, I also had an IEP kept on me from the time I was in elementary school until I graduated HS. I went back at the end of each year and saw what was written, and I have to say that about 80% of it the comments on my IEP was FALSE, MISTATED, IN ERROR, or was just flat out WRONG!

 

[LuciaDisturbed]

I'm hearing, but I still agree with this. I have a possible theory as to why this is. Alot of public school spec. ed. programs rely heavily on the IEP for placement and education goals. In my opinion, the IEP is outdated and needs to be tossed aside. Even though I was mainstreamed into regular education classes, I also had an IEP kept on me from the time I was in elementary school until I graduated HS. I went back at the end of each year and saw what was written, and I have to say that about 80% of it the comments on my IEP was FALSE, MISTATED, IN ERROR, or was just flat out WRONG!

I think I had an IEP from my very first day of school til I dropped out of high school. I also had a IEP drawn up so I could finish my high school diploma at a technical college. IEPs aren't that great, though.

I think the new thing now is "504 plans" or something like that...not sure exactly what that is.

 

[deafskeptic]

Excellent point, Fyborg. I think that's what started the whole CI vs Sign controversy in the first place. Parents seem to expect miracles from CIs especially if they don't accept their children's deafness in the first place.

I still have some reservations regarding CIs in infants and young children but this has more to do with the parent's expections than with the CIs themselves.

CIs will help but they can not make up for underlying LDs or ADHD. If there are declining grades after a child get implanted, there must be an underlying cause like family problems, stress, disease, etc.

I don't even want to think about what my IEP says about me from my public school days. They likely describe me being brain damaged due to rubella or emotionally disturbed.

It turned out years later that I have ADHD - not brain damage and a oc spectrum disorder.

 

[LuciaDisturbed]

I don't even want to think about what my IEP says about me from my public school days. They likely describe me being brain damaged due to rubella or emotionally disturbed.

I'm sure my IEP has a lot of crap describing me as emotionally disturbed and other stuff like that...none of the good stuff in my IEP except that I'm highly intelligent and have a high IQ...actually a lot of my IEPs pushed for complete mainstreaming due to me not being challenged enough in the DHH classrooms, and due to my always getting into trouble with other DHH peers, not cooperating in class, etc, unless I was in a completely mainstreamed class with no other DHH peers except myself. I've always done well mainstreaming but always did horribly in the DHH classrooms social-wise. Schoolwork was just always too easy, with the exception of math. ::shrugs::

And yes, I have ADD.

 

[Fragmenter]

One would think that if children became retarded, the parents would sue the doctors who implanted the children in the first place. I've not been able to find any info about the impact that CIs would have on cognitive skills. Most CIs do report an increase in verbal ability though.

From what I've seen of diagrams of implants, the brain does not appear to have any contact with any part of the the implants. Given the position of the implants, I'd think that that the temporal lobe would be most likely to be affected.

If CIs did damage brains, we'd expect to see impaired memory for sound and shapes if implants were done on the right side. If CIs were done on the left side, we'd expect to see memory impairments for words and an inablity to understand language. I'm not a doctor though, just someone who likes to research stuff. While there are risks for CIs, I've never heard any reports of this.

Ding ding ding!

The FDA is thorough (at least until lately) and they wouldn't have let cochlear implants get through their filters.

 

[ismi]

Skeptic: correct, the implant doesn't go through the skull, even.

Re: IEP/504. I suspect the problem has to do with the fact that "special needs" students (not a fan of the term) need individual attention. You can accommodate quite a few "standard" needs - ramps and elevators - but most will need to be individualized in some way to suit the student's specific needs. I had excellent results with my IEP, mostly because I was lucky enough to have a case worker who put down "Self-advocacy" as my one and only objective most years. That let me request whatever I needed as things came up, and say, "it's in my IEP" when challenged; obviously, I still had to justify stuff, this just made it easier to deal with teachers who weren't being supportive. The other advantage that I had was that the special ed staff at my school was only trained in LD/BD issues (although in many cases, not well, from what I saw), so that gave me a lot of freedom and flexibility; they basically took their cue from me.

The upside to the IEP is that it allows for recourse if a student is not being provided with a FAPE (free and appropriate public education); the downside is that it is a checklist that some people will take, pay lip service to, and then say, "that's all we need to do". I've been lucky in that, in terms of school and employment, my superiors have generally been willing to provide accommodations as necessary, without really worrying about what the law requires (i.e., I didn't have to jump through hoops; and a few times, I managed to get better than what was minimally required by law).

 

[fyborg]

Skeptic: correct, the implant doesn't go through the skull, even.

Re: IEP/504. I suspect the problem has to do with the fact that "special needs" students (not a fan of the term) need individual attention. You can accommodate quite a few "standard" needs - ramps and elevators - but most will need to be individualized in some way to suit the student's specific needs. I had excellent results with my IEP, mostly because I was lucky enough to have a case worker who put down "Self-advocacy" as my one and only objective most years. That let me request whatever I needed as things came up, and say, "it's in my IEP" when challenged; obviously, I still had to justify stuff, this just made it easier to deal with teachers who weren't being supportive. The other advantage that I had was that the special ed staff at my school was only trained in LD/BD issues (although in many cases, not well, from what I saw), so that gave me a lot of freedom and flexibility; they basically took their cue from me.

The upside to the IEP is that it allows for recourse if a student is not being provided with a FAPE (free and appropriate public education); the downside is that it is a checklist that some people will take, pay lip service to, and then say, "that's all we need to do". I've been lucky in that, in terms of school and employment, my superiors have generally been willing to provide accommodations as necessary, without really worrying about what the law requires (i.e., I didn't have to jump through hoops; and a few times, I managed to get better than what was minimally required by law).

Oh, the annual IEP meetings!
Just like getting a root canal, only without the meds! The hours that were spent on those stupid, boring meetings are hours I'll never get back. I don't miss having an IEP, that's for sure.

 

[Oceanbreeze]

Oh, the annual IEP meetings!
Just like getting a root canal, only without the meds! The hours that were spent on those stupid, boring meetings are hours I'll never get back. I don't miss having an IEP, that's for sure.

Me, either!!!!!!!!

 

[R2D2]

No speech therapy? I didn't rebel with the drills, but it was just a lot of work articulating every single word. Were you born deaf, or did you go deaf?

I was born borderline profoundly deaf. The education authority where I grew up didn't believe in speech therapy - they practiced something called "natural auralism" or something like that where they encouraged children to learn to speak in the same way as hearing children albeit with powerful hearing aids. This meant no excessive correction of speech but encouraging the children to enjoy communicating orally through play therapy and lots of reading etc. It certainly worked for me - I'm told I have clear speech. I don't know how well it compares to formal speech training in terms of effectiveness though.

 

[fyborg]

I was born borderline profoundly deaf. The education authority where I grew up didn't believe in speech therapy - they practiced something called "natural auralism" or something like that where they encouraged children to learn to speak in the same way as hearing children albeit with powerful hearing aids. This meant no excessive correction of speech but encouraging the children to enjoy communicating orally through play therapy and lots of reading etc. It certainly worked for me - I'm told I have clear speech. I don't know how well it compares to formal speech training in terms of effectiveness though.

I don't know either! All the oral deaf people I've met had speech therapy, hence my emote--I've never heard of natural auralism.
Well, you learn something new everyday!

 

[deafdyke]

fy, i totally agree with you! i really think that special ed needs to be revamped.
mainstream ed sucks......it's too targeted towards ld/add/emoitionally distrubed kids. unless we're Superdeafs we get lumped in with the dumbasses who are really apathetic towards learning.
i do think that a lot of parents never really heard about the downside of mainstream ed, and a lot of them are pushed towards assilmulating their dhh kids into the greater hearing society, b/c it's painted as such a glorious utopia.
I don't think it's the tool itself that causes any academic delays. rather it's the methodology. i do know that something like 15 % of orally trained kids are superstars,(something i read about in an article on cis.......sorry for no cite) and there are still kids who while not totally lacking in abilty still require sign. Most kids can aquire some oral skills. Even those who do, still may require the services of a sign 'terp, in situtions like school. now, just b/c someone is halfway decent at speech skills, it doesn't mean that they are working with the best tools possible. As you probaly know, it does take a lot of energy to hear and speak. energy that could be better spent on intellectucal output. I have a mild case of hypotonia (low muscle tone, sort of like CP)My teachers used to make me manually write. I could do it.....but it took a lot of energy out of me. My intellectucal output really wasn't much. However when i learned how to type (which takes a lot less energy and effort) my intellectucal output increased. I could now concentrate on what the stories say, rather then having to go through the laboruous process of manually writing. I think many dhh kids, even those who are supposedly oral sucesses could significent benifit from traditional Deaf ed interventions.

 

[Fragmenter]

I'm excited to inform you that Kentucky is on the verge of passing a bill where disabled students has a choice in which school he/she wishes to attend. In the light of Bush's no child left behind law, this bill is a loophole in the system that will benefit my deaf children in receiving the proper services they deserve.

In KY, "normal" students are worth $3,100 and "disabled" students are worth $3,700 to public schools. The $500 - $600 increase is not enough to meet the necessary accomodations a disabled student may need. This bill raises the price up to a whopping $12,000 per disabled student that the taxpayers won't even have to pay for.

I'm just psyched about this because it doesn't really affect where we need to live so we don't have to move around the next 20 years.

:dancing banana:

 

[Lillys dad]

Interesting thread! I am happy to see that this thread has changed from an innaccurate statement about CI, to something valuable. I agree that some parents think that mainstreaming is the cure to everything. I personally want my daughter to mainstream. But only after she is ready. Not a minute sooner. In march, we will have to decide to keep her at CID (at our own cost) or move her to the SSD preschool. While I have heard awesome things about the SSD here, I think we are going to keep her where she is until they say she is ready. I would hate to move her to SSD to early just to bring her back to CID because she was not ready. That would put her behind educationally, and emotionally.

 

[jag]

If a person has problems writing then the IEP should have addressed that in the modifications part and typeing should have been used if it is a good mod, did your parents ever request the modification? Did you? Plus if a laptop is needed to take notes during class then that should be included in the modification part of the IEP. While getting such mods. into the IEP can be difficult, they can never deny it because of cost. If they start talking about cost then they have a problem.


Some IEP tips........
For those really serious about getting good adaptations/modifcations for their children a tape recorder is essential during IEP meetings. (perhaps video for those who only use sign?) You may have to let them know prior to the meeting that you will be recording, some like to record for themselves. You might be very surprised at how the 'tone' of your meetings changes when they are being recorded.

Another good tip is to type out the agenda. (you run the meeting not them) Fragmentor if you're in TN you can also print out a copy of the prior written notice from your states web site. I think...could be another state tho, i do know that MN's edu. site has one. The Prior written notice is used when you are making a request for something and they are refusing. They do have to let you know why they are refusing. again money isn't an excuse and if they actually would be stupid enough to put something like the cost is prohibitive in writing or on tape they'd be in deep crap. Take notes if possible or have someone who can. Bring the child if the child wants to participate.

Never let them present you with an already written IEP. THey may have a 'draft' but it's never the final copy. (you and your child may have some goals/objectives or mods that you'd like included) oh and for everyone never, ever sign an IEP at the IEP meeting. After all, if they have it already written up they are in violation of the law, since you (parents and child if old enough) are supposed to be part of the team.

There are parents who's children are fulling included (these kids have Down syndrome) They have to work their rears off to insure that the adaptations to curriculum are made and the agreed supports are there but their kids do good in that enviroment. One of them is actually in TN.

My daughters school couldnot provide the instruction in a way that helps my daughter learn. While we will continue to regret our decision to keep her in her home school during her elementry years we learned alot about our rights and stuff. If we had chosen to we could have put her in any of the surrounding school districts. the choice was basically ours. We chose to leave her where her sisters went.

Oh we do have open enrollment here in MN but not sure how it goes with sped kids. I do know that my district is required to transport her and that they pay for her assistants. I'm thinking of what to do about ESY next summer since she really is to old for the one she attended this past summer.......hmmm and since her home district doesn't include teachers who teach in ASL we might have to come up with some type of other option....that they'd have to pay for. Since they havent' been coming to the meetings this could be fun. Don't ya think? Of course my luck will be that now that they've consolidated with the neighboring district someone will actually come.

Anyway, if any of you parents want a copy of an agenda or other IEP organization tips I can get them from the Ds list I belong to, they are great to use as a guide when working to get what your child needs to succeed.

 

[fyborg]

Never let them present you with an already written IEP. THey may have a 'draft' but it's never the final copy. (you and your child may have some goals/objectives or mods that you'd like included) oh and for everyone never, ever sign an IEP at the IEP meeting. After all, if they have it already written up they are in violation of the law, since you (parents and child if old enough) are supposed to be part of the team.

Too right...whenever the "done" IEP was presented many times (and it was done so at both public and deaf private schools) my parents and I had to cross out so much marlarkey, it wasn't even funny. The "done" IEPs were so inaccurate and so poorly tailored for me that it took longer to recitify the "mistakes" than it did to get them to agree to a real plan.

I remember one case of a "done" IEP in seventh grade--it said that I had poor fine motor skills, all based on ONE teacher's obervation about my handwriting. Her classes were crappy, as far as I was concerned, so I hurried to finish the daily assignments so I would be able to read or do something more productive. This meant that my handwriting was a little hurried, but nothing unreadable.

Oooh. My mom took severe offense at that--"Our daughter likes to draw, and bead jewlery, and you're telling ME that she has poor fine motor skills! Change it!"

My dad fairly went nuclear after that. He was on the verge of browbeating the committee, but he convinced them to take away the "done" IEP and we had to start with a new one.

Beacuse of the "done" IEP, the normally hour-long meeting took three hours.

 

[Kalista]

Anything could happen with cochlear implants. You could get better. You could get worse.

I've had college professors tell me that my grammar and spelling is better than the rest of the class... the HEARING class. Yep, it's true. Oh, I forgot... I don't wear CI.

I knew a guy who got CI during the summer before his second year here at NTID. When he got back, he assumed that he was "like" a hearing person and no longer needed tutoring or help with his English. He also took it for granted and just went with the flow thinking that he was now "hearing". He would do his homework, quizzes, and tests without trying. Here's what he told me... "Now that I have CI, I don't have to think harder like every other deaf person. I just 'do it' and I'll be fine like every other hearing person."

Well, he ended up failing his classes and got suspended from RIT for a year.
_________________________

On the other hand, I knew a gal who got CI and still resumed her identity as being deaf. She continued to work hard on everything as she always did before she got CI. She also had to work harder on her speech part since she could now hear better.

Yeah I know, that is full of bull shit. CI would NEVER help with young children. I wish, the Parents would listen to the Deaf adults who are successful their education and careers without CI.