So they do better with the different hearing aids....then they still do better with the CI!
You don't know this till they try every HA as well as have their HAs programmed properly. This guy went from 20% speech to 80% with proper HAs!
A deaf dude's life: Try every HA before CI! This guy now scores 80% speech with HA!
<Shaking my head>
AlleyCat did indicate that this was during a standardized hearing test where sentences are spoken at a moderate speed (not too slow nor too fast). Obviously, the hearing tests have been refined over the years to where they are essentially as good as one gets.
So.....going.....slower.....isn't.....gonna.....help. Nobody speaks that slow. Apparently, there are some auditory processing issues going on for AlleyCat.
Then she should train her brain to score higher in sentences. Maybe she can tell her brain that a sentence is simply a series of words and process each sentence as one word at a time. But yea a CI won't help her if the problem is her brain.
Well actually the study points out that for people with remarkable residual hearing before implantation and good performance with HAs, there is an adaptation time during which they show worse performance than when they were amplified. After this decrease of performance, all of them show better results with CI than with HAs.
Id like to see how much improvement they would get with a newer HA in their nonimplanted ear. Wouldn't be surprised if they can get to 80% speech which would make their CI a waste.
Another important result is that being able to hear reasonably well before implantation does not give any advantage over being completely deaf for the final result of CI.
A CI would be worth it to go from 0% speech to 80% speech but not when you are getting 50% speech with the wrong HAs and can get to at least 70% with proper HAs, who cares about another 10%, insurance will never approve and if you can find a surgeon, you pay over $50,000 and take a huge risk. I actually know one guy who did just that to go from 70% speech to 85% speech. His money, his ear, his choice. Ill be happy to spend 25% of that cost($30,000 or so. CI is over $50,000 for
one ear) to get stem cells in
both of my ears and match his CI speech score of 85% with proper HAs. Should be about a 3 year wait for stem cells to be advanced enough.
Of course if you are in the 20% of good performers you are biased to think HAs can do great.
We cannot think everybody using HAs and not getting good results are stupid people, their audi are not able to fit their devices and they are not able to train themselves!!
This is just a representation of the situation. For somebody probably it would be possible to get better results, for other not. That's it.
For the 25% who got CI, better HAs could have given them enough speech not to qualify for CI in the first place. I posted this example of this guy who went from 20% speech with wrong HAs to 80% with high end HAs(Phonak Naida, same as what I wear)
The question is, will you be comfortable if he doesn't learn to use spoken language if you only use hearing aids?
Anyone with residual hearing can learn how to speak clearly and read lips. They may not score 80% in speech understanding but they can be like me where I communicate with others and they don't even know im deaf unless I tell them.
What will you say if your child grows up and askd you why you DIDN'T give him the CI, and the opportunities that go with it? And what will you say if he comes and asks why you DID "force" the CI on him? Which answer can you live with?
No child who wasn't given a CI has ever been upset because they can always decide themselves to get a CI. It's never too late! I would tell the child that I never decided for him, I never said yes or no but simply waited for him to be older and left the decision up to him. Every child has been thankful for this. Lots of unhappy children who were forced or made to get CI before they could decide. Ill take my chances and let him decide himself on CI(or stem cells)
Again, ref74, I would tell you to ask your child's audi and SLP and teacher of the Deaf, what percentage of severe-profound children perform *worse* with their CI's than they did with their hearing aids. I would wager that number would be (at least close to) zero.
Ill believe the 0% hearing worse with CI if it can be shown they have tried all the best HAs out there. You mentioned you are letting Miss Kat try better HAs. Will be interesting to see how much better she hears!
Also ask them to be honest about the number of children that are successful with that level of loss with becoming age appropriate with their spoken language, and ask about the amount of time it takes and the amount of therapy and work, and then ask them the same about early implanted children. The difference will be huge. Many hearing aid users continue through middle school, while today's early implanted children are often finished before kindergarten. That is a huge difference.
I was able to speak clearly before kindergarten. All I needed was proper HAs and training/education. We all know that the deaf are perfectly capable if given a chance! Even the old analog HAs did fine and there was no complicated programming. It was great out of the box. I simply turned the volume as high as it would go without feedback. I bet my old analogs were better than today's improperly programmed, improperly amplified digitals. I speak from experience as I was improperly fitted in 2005 and I heard worse than my old digital HAs from 1998. Not every audiologist is an "expert" as you make out.
Personally I think children should be asked if they want to hear better and of course you have the final say. I was implanted at 10 years old, even though I didnt understand most of the things, I was still involved in the decision making and very much involved and told what the next step was. But for babies you would have to make the decision for them and explain you was trying to make their life easier.
Ill wait for the baby to turn 10, fair enough. He will have at least a basic understanding of CI and stem cells as well as the risks.
