Information about CI as an adult

[sr171soars]

I am not assuming that they provide equal input at all. But when you talk about the way that either one work, you are discussing mechanics. The variable I am speaking of is the indiviudal response to either one. Not all individuals respond the same way to the input from the CI, and not all individuals respond the same way to the input from HAs. If individuals all responded the same way, you would not see such a variance in the way that individuals respond and adapt to both HAs and CIs. And I think you will have admit that, in HA users, there are individual variances in benefit, and in CI users, there are individual variances in benefit. I wasn;t comparing the two devises at all, but I was saying that there are variances in both populations of devise users.l

If we are just talking about variances, then I concur and that uniformity isn't always going to happen (obviously not). Where I differ in opinion is how DD tries to make it out that some do better with a CI and some do better with a HA. From what basis is DD making that assumption? If one is doing well with a HA, then the whole issue of a CI is a moot point as it is not needed. Maybe it is the crossover threshold that is causing angst among everybody. I do think that should be a whole lot clearer than it is currently.

I've been on both sides of the fence and there is no comparison between the two and the nod goes to a CI hands down. I speak from what I hear in terms of information or input however one wants to put it. It is not necessarily how well one understands speech as that is just an added bonus in my opinion.

I will make this observation, the better one utilizes HA, then almost invariably one will be able to better utilize a CI. They basically go hand in hand. Why? Simply because the person has a natural ability to use what hearing they have and get maximum benefit from it.

 

[jillio]

You have to understand - it doesn't matter jillio. regardless of an individual input, or "variances" as you call it,
the same person will always hear better with CI than HAs,
simply because of the way the CI works - it stimulates nerves that aren't working with HAs. and that is what matters.

The variable of how one person can hear and speak better with HAs than someone with CI depends on one particular instance (not only on the devices itself) - on how was that individual growing up - was he/ she able to acquire language before she/he lost the hearing, was that person well trained to hear and speak with HAs, was that person prelingually or postlingually deaf and so on.

In THAT instance, it is possible that someone with HAs may hear and understand speech better than someone who was born deaf, raised deaf and late implanted. But that same person- late deaf, late implanted- will always hear more with CI than with HAs.

I would bet both my hads that if we had identical babies at birth with identical hearing loss, identical therapy afterwards and identical motivation to work - the one implanted would develop hearing and speech far better than the one with HAs.


Even our small private AD's lovely bunch of implantees shows clearly CI beats HAs - hands down. Alomost, if not fully everyone was able to hear better with CI.

Even those who said they didn't like CI, reported hearing sounds they haven't heard before (and thus couldn't understand them).
Even if they did not like it- they heard what they did NOT heard with HAs prior to implanting.


Fuzzy

No Fuzzy, someone will not always respond better to CI than to HA. There are examples on this forum of just that. You may not choose to recognize them, but they are there.

 

[jillio]

If we are just talking about variances, then I concur and that uniformity isn't always going to happen (obviously not). Where I differ in opinion is how DD tries to make it out that some do better with a CI and some do better with a HA. From what basis is DD making that assumption? If one is doing well with a HA, then the whole issue of a CI is a moot point as it is not needed. Maybe it is the crossover threshold that is causing angst among everybody. I do think that should be a whole lot clearer than it is currently.

I've been on both sides of the fence and there is no comparison between the two and the nod goes to a CI hands down. I speak from what I hear in terms of information or input however one wants to put it. It is not necessarily how well one understands speech as that is just an added bonus in my opinion.

I will make this observation, the better one utilizes HA, then almost invariably one will be able to better utilize a CI. They basically go hand in hand. Why? Simply because the person has a natural ability to use what hearing they have and get maximum benefit from it.

And variances is just what I was talking about.

 

[deafdyke]

n HA users, there are individual variances in benefit, and in CI users, there are individual variances in benefit. I wasn;t comparing the two devises at all, but I was saying that there are variances in both populations of devise users.l

Exactly! Not all implantees are functionally hoh. Benifit and sucesses vary tremendously. Some people with HAs (even with severe and profound losses) are pretty much functionally hoh. Others can only hear enviromental sounds with HAs. That is the same with CI.
It does seem that most people here were "last resort" implantees.

 

[Audiofuzzy]

Exactly! Not all implantees are functionally hoh. Benifit and sucesses vary tremendously. Some people with HAs (even with severe and profound losses) are pretty much functionally hoh. Others can only hear enviromental sounds with HAs. That is the same with CI.
It does seem that most people here were "last resort" implantees.

yes I agree some, but it depends on many other factors that are independent of how HAs and CI work. The ability to utilize either HAs or CI depends mainly on what sound input was available in those first three years of life. Those who had less hearing loss, and/or grew up orally usually have better sound recognizance and oral skills than those who were born profounly deaf and grew up signing. that corresponds with receiving level of CI benefits - for the same reason.


Fuzzy

 

[jillio]

And the mechanics is what makes all the difference - you either travel via car or by plane.

Fuzzy

Fallicious comparison.....and if you reach the same destination, your goal has been accomplished.

 

[jillio]

yes I agree some, but it depends on many other factors that are independent of how HAs and CI work. The ability to utilize either HAs or CI depends mainly on what sound input was available in those first three years of life. Those who had less hearing loss, and/or grew up orally usually have better sound recognizance and oral skills than those who were born profounly deaf and grew up signing. that corresponds with receiving level of CI benefits - for the same reason.


Fuzzy

I thought you said that mechanics was the issue. Now you are bringing in other variables that you are claiming in other posts have no importance.

 

[Bear]

You have to understand - it doesn't matter jillio. regardless of an individual input, or "variances" as you call it,
the same person will always hear better with CI than HAs,
simply because of the way the CI works - it stimulates nerves that aren't working with HAs. and that is what matters.

The variable of how one person can hear and speak better with HAs than someone with CI depends on one particular instance (not only on the devices itself) - on how was that individual growing up - was he/ she able to acquire language before she/he lost the hearing, was that person well trained to hear and speak with HAs, was that person prelingually or postlingually deaf and so on.

In THAT instance, it is possible that someone with HAs may hear and understand speech better than someone who was born deaf, raised deaf and late implanted. But that same person- late deaf, late implanted- will always hear more with CI than with HAs.

I would bet both my hads that if we had identical babies at birth with identical hearing loss, identical therapy afterwards and identical motivation to work - the one implanted would develop hearing and speech far better than the one with HAs.


Even our small private AD's lovely bunch of implantees shows clearly CI beats HAs - hands down. Alomost, if not fully everyone was able to hear better with CI.

Even those who said they didn't like CI, reported hearing sounds they haven't heard before (and thus couldn't understand them).
Even if they did not like it- they heard what they did NOT heard with HAs prior to implanting.


Fuzzy

Fuzzy,

I can definitely say that is not always the case. I am currently a year post activation and can definitely say that I heard better with the hearing aid than I do with the CI.

That is not to say that the CI is invalid and does not work, that too would be a false statement.

But to automatically say that someone WOULD hear better with a CI than a HA is also false.

When I had my hearing aid, I could hear voices clearer, music was much clearer, I could talk on a phone-something I cant do now. I can still hear all of that with a CI except for the phone. But if given a choice, I would prefer my hearing aid. Unfortunately, that was no longer a choice for me as I needed something more powerful to hear again. Thus the CI.

The only arguement that is definitely valid is that a CI is more powerful and utilizes areas of the ear that still work.


As far as your theory on hearing and speech go. Yes an early implanted baby MAY hear better than the one who wasnt. But not necessarily have better speech skills.

You are focusing on voice skills. While yes an implanted child may have a clearer voice and more easily understood, it does not necessarily mean that that child has the better speech skills.

Speech involves alot more than just a *voice*.

 

[deafskeptic]

Fuzzy,

I can definitely say that is not always the case. I am currently a year post activation and can definitely say that I heard better with the hearing aid than I do with the CI.

I must say when DD said that, I was skeptical but I figured I'd wait and see if some poster would say they heard better with HAs. It seems that DD is right after all.

It also certainly convinces me that those with mild losses shouldn't be implanted.

 

[vallee]

Fuzzy,

I can definitely say that is not always the case. I am currently a year post activation and can definitely say that I heard better with the hearing aid than I do with the CI.

That is not to say that the CI is invalid and does not work, that too would be a false statement.

But to automatically say that someone WOULD hear better with a CI than a HA is also false.

When I had my hearing aid, I could hear voices clearer, music was much clearer, I could talk on a phone-something I cant do now. I can still hear all of that with a CI except for the phone. But if given a choice, I would prefer my hearing aid. Unfortunately, that was no longer a choice for me as I needed something more powerful to hear again. Thus the CI.

The only arguement that is definitely valid is that a CI is more powerful and utilizes areas of the ear that still work.


As far as your theory on hearing and speech go. Yes an early implanted baby MAY hear better than the one who wasnt. But not necessarily have better speech skills.

You are focusing on voice skills. While yes an implanted child may have a clearer voice and more easily understood, it does not necessarily mean that that child has the better speech skills.

Speech involves alot more than just a *voice*.

I am opposite, I hear so much better with my CIs then with my HA. Voices and music are so clear and crisp.

I do believe in the parents right to chose. I do believe early implanting of children. I also respect the parents who chose not to implant.

I do not respect parents who do not try and provide what there children need. I have a student who is visually impaired. We found that we could get him free glasses. We set up an appointment for the parents. The parents broken the appointment 4 times. The stepmom's comments are that the student is faking visual problems. So this student is without something as common as glasses because his parents will not put the effort to take him to an appointment. How many parents just don't care or want to provide HA, CI, ASL or anything because they don't want to do anything?

 

[Audiofuzzy]

I thought you said that mechanics was the issue. Now you are bringing in other variables that you are claiming in other posts have no importance.

No, it's you who don't understand - mechanic IS the issue. The other variables depend exactly on THAT.
While the brain is still developing language, precisely because of the mechanics it will develop hearing and speech better with CI because the CI is able to stimulate nerves that HAs is not.

Fuzzy

 

[Audiofuzzy]

Fuzzy,

I can definitely say that is not always the case. I am currently a year post activation and can definitely say that I heard better with the hearing aid than I do with the CI.

That is not to say that the CI is invalid and does not work, that too would be a false statement.

But to automatically say that someone WOULD hear better with a CI than a HA is also false.

When I had my hearing aid, I could hear voices clearer, music was much clearer, I could talk on a phone-something I cant do now. I can still hear all of that with a CI except for the phone. But if given a choice, I would prefer my hearing aid. Unfortunately, that was no longer a choice for me as I needed something more powerful to hear again. Thus the CI.

The only arguement that is definitely valid is that a CI is more powerful and utilizes areas of the ear that still work.


As far as your theory on hearing and speech go. Yes an early implanted baby MAY hear better than the one who wasnt. But not necessarily have better speech skills.

You are focusing on voice skills. While yes an implanted child may have a clearer voice and more easily understood, it does not necessarily mean that that child has the better speech skills.

Speech involves alot more than just a *voice*.

Perhaps I am not clear - I am focusing rather on hearing ability, not speech but with young kids the better they hear the better speech they develop. I am aware it is not an ironclad rule, and I am aware of the fact that hearing with CI is different from hearing with HAs - this is what Beverly Biderman wrote in her book - that she had a hard time hearing because so many sounds sounded differently than before. she even had a time when she thought she won't be able to work so hard anymore, but she eventually succeeded. btw this why I think it's best to implant early - because our brain learns to recognize sounds certain way early, and later changes might be difficult to accept.

However I think even you are able to hear things you have never been able to hear with your HAs before? and your HAs were not enabling you to hear anymore but CI does?
And that is what I mean CI will always be more efficient that HAs.
I am sorry it is not working as well as your old HAs did for you, but I hope with practice they will with passing time. Hopefully not too long.

Fuzzy

 

[contradica]

While I will agree with the fact that the mechanics of a HA and CI are totally on the opposite sides of the spectrum, it is the individual. You never know how one person will react to the CI because it is such a complicated and iffy device. The CI lets me hear all sorts of environmental sounds that I could never hear clearly with a HA, it is going to take me a while to acquire speech because the HA was feeding distorted speech into my brain for a long time. HA can only work if it has something to work with and it barely has anything to work with in my case! Can't expect the ride to be a smooth one with no air in the tires!

I can see why there is several research papers that shows promising results of a cochlear implant on late deafened adults or early implantation and I can think of a good reason why late deafened adults fair far better then most is that they have been subjected to the range of proper speech most of their lives. For those who have not, it is tough to start to relearn to hear all over again. At 27 years old my left ear is similar to a two-month old baby. It takes time. Babies don’t exactly pop out of the womb talking on the cell phone or texting 

When I think of the ability to hear, speech is a large part of it. Hearing to me is being able to communicate and being able to communicate is being able to listen to others. I would be so distressed if I could hear the knock at the door but not the person on the other side of it say “Congratulations! You have won a million dollars!” Where is the fun in that?!

 

[deafskeptic]

Perhaps I am not clear - I am focusing rather on hearing ability, not speech but with young kids the better they hear the better speech they develop.

And that is why you keep missing the big picture. There's more to the deaf child than his speech. Yes, I agree that early implantation is better for the ability to hear. But if the child's hearing is the only thing you focus on, that child may not have good language skills. A CI doesn't automatly translate to good hearing or good language skills. If CIs always meant good hearing, how do you explain Shel's students? While the CI is a marked improvement over HAs, there are still gaps with the CI.

If I were to implant my child, I'd be more concerned about the child's ability to understand what the hearing is saying and I'd be much more concerned about developing language skills on the child's part. Yes, good speech is important but that's not all there is to the deaf child. A deaf child has an innate need to commincate with others; too many hearing people ignore that. I see endless posts on how parents don't know signs and how hard it is to understand hearing especially in groups. This is where so many hearing parents go wrong. They're so focused on the child's speech and the ability to hear that they don't realize how important language skills are for school and how important it is for the child to interact with those around him. Communication is vital for the deaf child.

Once language delays start and becomes severe, it's difficult to overcome. It's not one of those things that goes away with time. You have to address it with remedial work. I'd much rather prevent delays in the first place. I've seen far too much of the aftermath of those who were language delayed to risk raising my child the oral way only.

 

[Audiofuzzy]

And that is why you keep missing the big picture. There's more to the deaf child than his speech. Yes, I agree that early implantation is better for the ability to hear. But if the child's hearing is the only thing you focus on, that child may not have good language skills. A CI doesn't automatly translate to good hearing or good language skills. If CIs always meant good hearing, how do you explain Shel's students? While the CI is a marked improvement over HAs, there are still gaps with the CI.

If I were to implant my child, I'd be more concerned about the child's ability to understand what the hearing is saying and I'd be much more concerned about developing language skills on the child's part. Yes, good speech is important but that's not all there is to the deaf child. A deaf child has an innate need to commincate with others; too many hearing people ignore that. I see endless posts on how parents don't know signs and how hard it is to understand hearing especially in groups. This is where so many hearing parents go wrong. They're so focused on the child's speech and the ability to hear that they don't realize how important language skills are for school and how important it is for the child to interact with those around him. Communication is vital for the deaf child.

Once language delays start and becomes severe, it's difficult to overcome. It's not one of those things that goes away with time. You have to address it with remedial work. I'd much rather prevent delays in the first place. I've seen far too much of the aftermath of those who were language delayed to risk raising my child the oral way only.

No I am not missing "the big picture" - I am saying IF you implant you MUST focus on the learning to hear and speak, otherwise why implant?
But that does not mean it should become the ONLY focus.
It would be prefferable to go by "first thing first". If the child is deaf and implanted then it's most important to focus attention on developing hearing and oral skills first because of the time quickly passing. The signing may come later with no plm.



Fuzzy

 

[deafskeptic]

No I am not missing "the big picture" - I am saying IF you implant you MUST focus on the learning to hear and speak, otherwise why implant?
But that does not mean it should become the ONLY focus.
It would be prefferable to go by "first thing first". If the child is deaf and implanted then it's most important to focus attention on developing hearing and oral skills first because of the time quickly passing. The signing may come later with no plm.



Fuzzy

Sign won't keep a person from speaking. I see you've bought into the myth that sign keeps a person from speaking. That's my only disagreement with your post. If I thought speaking wasn't important, I wouldn't be in favor of bi-bi ed. However, I consider language skills more important. I pefer both at the same time to prevent any language delays. What good is speech if you can't compete in school?

I remember when I first went to VSDB, my parents were afraid I'd lose my speech skills. I speak well enough to pass for hearing about 95 percent of the time.

 

[Bear]

I remember when my kids were little and they were learning to talk. Sure they could babble, they could hear themselves, but in the end even though they had a *voice* and they could hear that *voice*. What taught them what each word meant?

What taught them how to put those words together in a sentence? Who taught them to understand that the words they were putting together made sense?

When you focus on speech, ie:speech therapy. Normally they only focus on how your sounding out each word.

This is really not language development. The is focusing on the *voice* part of speech only.

That's my opinion.

 

[GarnetTigerMom]

Actually no person can say how you would do with a CI. That's why you have to decide if you are willing to take the risks associated with the implant procedure. Many of us are happy we did and there are some who aren't. It mostly comes down to how badly do you really want to hear? And are you willing to except that your brain may not be able to process the sounds so the most you may get is enviromental sounds?

THe number of actual implant failures is itself low. (the actual implant) But if you think that being able to not understand speech is a failure then the numbers increase, and in most cases the failure has alot to do with not having had access to sound before. But even people who have a good speech memory can fail to hear clearly with a CI. I know that for me what I hear depends on the speed of the processor. For me slow is better.

I have to agree with Jag, I myself have CI implant for almost 3 years now. I am happy with it so far. I have heard too many rumors from deafies saying that having CI limited my activies, and I could die from it. They don't have all the facts right. I have nothing to lose to get CI and I went for it and it was all worth it that I hear more sounds then I ever did with a hearing aid.

 

[shel90]

I remember when my kids were little and they were learning to talk. Sure they could babble, they could hear themselves, but in the end even though they had a *voice* and they could hear that *voice*. What taught them what each word meant?

What taught them how to put those words together in a sentence? Who taught them to understand that the words they were putting together made sense?

When you focus on speech, ie:speech therapy. Normally they only focus on how your sounding out each word.

This is really not language development. The is focusing on the *voice* part of speech only.

That's my opinion.

I couldnt agree with u and deafskeptic more.

 

[Audiofuzzy]

Sign won't keep a person from speaking. I see you've bought into the myth that sign keeps a person from speaking. That's my only disagreement with your post. If I thought speaking wasn't important, I wouldn't be in favor of bi-bi ed. However, I consider language skills more important. I pefer both at the same time to prevent any language delays. What good is speech if you can't compete in school?

I remember when I first went to VSDB, my parents were afraid I'd lose my speech skills. I speak well enough to pass for hearing about 95 percent of the time.

No, I didn't "bought" into the "myth" - I thought about it, considered it, came to my own conclusion,
and it's my personal opinion that learning to hear and speak for a deaf child is much harder than learning to sign - as some pple said here themselves signing is "natural" for a deaf person whereas speaking is difficult,
so I figured a child who must work harder to recognize sounds and especially repeat those sounds will focus less and work less perfecting oral language if given an easier way - signing. That is why I think for the sake of best benefits from CI, it's better to postpone signing for a while. The signing can always be returned to later on. Especially in the light of how those first three years after birth are best for developing hearing and speech.

A child who achieved good oral skills, can then be taught signing at anytime.

Fuzzy