How would we know what "clear" sounds are like? What I hear sounds normal to me since birth, I always heard that way. Even the speech I hear sounds normal to me and any speech I don't understand sounds like the person isn't pronouncing the words correctly. I never had to relay on anyone for environmental sounds, but I did have a note taker in school. The teachers talked fast and not clear so id miss some of what theyd say. CI technology back then was only for those who had no residual hearing left.
Id rather at least hear things, even if I don't always understand them. What if there's a dog barking a block away or a siren? I would never hear it without enough gain. Same for walking into a store and hearing music, something id miss out if I turn the volume down on my HAs.
Well, I never heard alot of environmental sounds with the volume turned down, if you were happy hearing at 60-70db, your choice. You still got a CI for speech reasons. I would be getting it for speech and to hear more sounds. I would easily qualify for a CI if I heard no better than 60db aided with HAs and got less than 40% speech.
I had to be no more than 3 feet away from dad and he had to hiss out the "S" sound louder than normal, but at least I could still hear it so I know the hissing sound an "S" makes is no more than 2000Hz. Both you and my dad have a moderate high frequency loss, yet you both can hear the "S" as well.
I have a new post on my blog about this man who has a 95db+ profound HL, yet he understands over 90% of speech in noise! I am now thinking that most people have the potental to achieve a high % of speech despite being profoundly deaf with the best HAs programmed by an expert audiologist. One of the ladies I know has a moderate HL that slopes down to profound and she scored a 95% speech comphrension on the online test. For those reasons, I am impressed by HA technology and what it can achieve.
Just a few years ago, people with my unaided audiogram would never be CI candidates. They should have never relaxed their audiogram requirements.(especially when many profoundly deaf people can score high on speech recognition with proper HAs, see my blog for proof.) Many CI centers still require a 90db to 110db+ HL but now people are just seeking a 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinion and shopping at different centers till they find one that has lax requirements. My dad says it's so they can do more CIs and earn more money.
Please point out the errors in my math on the blog. I will read your comments and respond to those. Any mistakes would be due to my sources being wrong, I only repeat what information I find. Ok for example if someone is aided to 20db with HAs, what would a CI person need to be aided to in order to have equal speech comphrension? I had added 5db for CIs, meaning CI is 5db better than HAs due to better quality sound and less distortion from what ive been told and confirmed as true.
I spent an hour searching Google and found a case study of a guy with profound hearing loss(no better than 95db) being able to understand even more speech than me, he scores over 90%! He did get CI in the worse ear but it only raised his speech score a few percent. I commented alot in my blog about this case study. I now am a firm believer that if a person is given a chance with the best HAs and the audiologist is an expert and you train that person for 6 months, his speech will be well above the 40% cutoff required for CI candidacy. Honestly, everyone considering CI should be doing that first with HAs and speech training, I bet a large majority(even including the profoundly deaf) will have way too much speech recognition for CIs.
Then I respect your choice. I am very frank and blunt in my blog and some people might get offended but I have the right to freedom of speech in my blog. I do point out numerous times in my blog that im not against CI, only that people should be realistic, forget all the CI hype and try proper HAs and I bet they will be surprised what HAs are capable of for anyone with measurable residual hearing that can be amplified. If they still insist on CI, fine that is their choice, I just want them to be fully informed and understand the risks.
