Today’s Dear Abby column addresses deaf infants and testing. I agree that the sooner you detect a child’s hearing loss, the better. My parents figured it out when I was about six months old based on their experience with my two older siblings. If I could rewind time, I’d make today’s implant available when I was a baby.
The complete column follows in case the link becomes invalid in the near future.
Dear Abby
Accessibility to the Arts
Gifts For The Disabled: Accessibility To The Arts (Gotham Gazette. December, 2005) lists four ways to help New Yorkers with disabilities enjoy the arts in the city. Of course, these should be adopted by metro areas around the country and the world.
Implants Give Perception of Hearing
Implant devices can give ‘perception’ of hearing to deaf, severely hearing-impaired clearly explains how implants work and what people implanted with these devices hear. Many ask me how I am doing with the implant. I know they’re interested and all, but it just not going to change for a long, long time. I have 30 years of a lipreading habit to change. An implant doesn’t make words come through much clearer than my hearing aids.
Stem Cell Research
Would you believe my childhood pen pal found me and made contact just a few weeks ago? Amazing, how the Internet brings people together, eh? Anyway, I mentioned Eddie Killian because he brought up stem cell research. Here’s what he said (with some editing):
I heard deaf people have a problem with stem cell research that can make hair cells and cure deafness because they are afraid the deaf culture will die. However, I want to become hearing because it is important for my job. I want to get my hearing back so I can earn more money and make more hearing friends. I heard that Sweden, Denmark, and Holland are looking to solve the cancer and other problems with steam cells. I hope we will soon see miracle cures from them. I heard news from Korea that stem cells have enabled a paralyzed Korean woman to walk!
Anyway, what do you think about this stuff? I know life changes will be fine. Not everybody wants to stay deaf. If I become hearing, then I would still use sign and I will still hang out with deafies. But maybe deaf culture will disappear and I will miss it too, but I know it will be all right.
I am a strong supporter of stem cell research. It does not come from a live fetus, so those against abortion do not have an argument. This research could lead to many cures. Please write your congress person and ask to support the research.
Producing Lower Cost Hearing Devices
Hearing for Children is an organization that is working to create a low-cost cochlear implant (LCCI) to serve the majority of the world’s deaf. Present devices are too expensive, and the the organization offers one solution.
Another similar effort from Project Impact is working to develop low-cost hearing aids.
These are admirable organizations who are working to provide a product to those who can’t afford it otherwise. No doubt, the Deaf culture won’t be happy with such organizations, but it is not their business nor their choice to make. Every person should have a choice and not base their decisions on whether or not they can afford it. Instead, it should be whether or not they want it.
Letter to a Son
A letter to my deaf son shares a letter from a mother who is proud of her son’s accomplishments and making it into the ABA League. Read about the signing of Osei Morris to the L.A. Stars.
It’s not often we hear heartwarming stories from professional athletes in a day and age when greed and drugs have tkane away the integrity of the sport.
Google Is Deaf
They’re just now noticing Google is a deaf user? Actually, much of the Internet is as podasting, videos, and audio files grow by (cliche’) leaps and bounds. Between the entry and the comments that follow including a couple from Joe Clark, I think it’s all been said. What about other disabilities? I am suer they run into a few brick walls.
In past, I wrote about Viascribe, a new technology, but it isn’t going to be mainsteam anytime soon.
Reverse Discrimination
This story gives me a lot to think about. The author makes good points. Since these events are “deaf competitions,” should every athlete be on even ground by having rules that don’t allow them to wear hearing aids, cochlear implants, or any other device that helps with the hearing?
Then again when you practice, practice, practice—whatever you practice with becomes a part of your game. I played sports for my entire childhood and every little thing makes a difference. It’s no surprise many athletes are superstitious and have little things or rituals they do or wear for a game because it puts them in the right frame of mind.
Taking off a hearing aid or glasses will throw off the athlete’s game. She has been working hard wearing the device that it has become a part of her routine. It’s like Ken Jennings of Jeopardy. Once he got the hang of when to push the buzzer, he kept on winning as he beat everyone to the buzzer. He had an advantage of staying in long enough to figure it out.
Let’s say he wears contacts and loses one with no time to replace it before a show. So, he wears his glasses instead. It wouldn’t surprise me if his game is “off” as it impacts his focus and comfort.
What’s the right thing to do? [ Link: Deafnetwork ]
Finding Jobs
This story is about a teen who struggles to find a high schooler type of job. I’ve mentioned it before, but of the four jobs I have applied for while in high school, only one company didn’t hire me: Wal*Mart. I worked for Tandy, Foley’s, and Toys R Us.
It’s not necessarily her hearing loss that puts her at a disavantage. It’s the economy. Paul applied for retail jobs and they either had no openings, openings only during holiday season, or bad hours (we have three kids, y’know?). It’s the “no openings” that is the most prevalent.
Jamie Berke runs the about.com deafness / hard of hearing section and she has a forum focusing on jobs. It requires free registration and your account will work in any about.com forum.
Click on Messages and on the left, you see the forum topics in gray with a couple of discussions beneath each one. “Finding work and working” is the one covering jobs. “How did you educate co-workers / bosses?” has a good discussion happening.
CapTel Part II
In yesterday’s entry, I referred to an article on CapTel and wondered about the quality of the captioning. The writer of the article kindly referred me to two people. Mary kindly provided a detailed reply.
Let me begin to answer your question by saying that the accuracy of typing is variable, and thus it is difficult to assign a percentage to answer your question. Speakers’ voices are so different, so bearing this in mind, most errors can be attributed to people who are very soft spoken, have a muffled voice, a speech impediment, etc. Actually, it is not so much the typing that causes errors, as it is an unclear speaker. The people behind the screen who assist us with calls are specially trained, and the standards are very high.
Admittedly, some errors do occur and will show on the CapTel screen. When this happens, the person doing the ‘re-voicing’ will very often correct the error, showing up in parenthesis. Even when not corrected, (for myself), I can usually figure out what was meant from the rest of the text. If I cannot determine what was meant, I merely ask the caller to repeat. This usually solves the problem, but I am not satisfied until I understand the message.
My own experience in the past has been with TTY and with the 711 Relay system. The CapTel, in my opinion, far surpasses either of these, and I find that hearing people are more comfortable with the CapTel system.