Bebonang

A bartender recently told me a story: "I dated this Latvian girl when my Mexican accent was still heavy. I told her parents I was planning to go back to Mexico. They kept saying they were so proud of me."

“I was confused. Later, they asked me: ‘So, what made you decide to go to medical school?’" Talk about an embarrassing and costly error.

This is a prelude to why hearing aids don't solve everything for the deaf and hard of hearing. For one, even hearing people can’t always untangle foreign accents.



Living in the 21st Century means technological advances have raised our expectations and assumptions. One of these assumptions: Wearing glasses or contact lenses will restore one’s vision 100%. The same must be true for hearing aids, right?

False. In reality, hearing aids are very conditional, in that “I can hear sounds, but still have no idea what these sounds mean.”

Background noise: Nature abhors a vacuum, but don’t communicate in vacuums. This means signal to noise ratio (S/R) can make or break how much you get out of your hearing aid. In a bar, restaurant, and most *social gatherings, you can’t control S/R just by flipping a switch. *Last time we checked, Deaf people don’t party in tombs and crypts.

Absence of lip-reading: Try having a conversation, using hearing aids, on the phone. If your hearing threshold is above a certain number of decibels (the average person can hear below 5-10 decibels), it’s going to be a very frustrating call.

Even in the days of amped-up technology, hearing aids aren’t that silver bullet. deafREVIEW wants to know: Have your friends and family ever assumed that your hearing aids “solved” your hearing loss?


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Bebonang

That would include CI, too. No matter how doctors and scientists try to fix hearing loss. It still does not make our hearing better, no matter what. That is why hearing people need to learn to write down on paper so that we can be able to understand what they say. If they refuse, then they don't understand anything about how we can not pick up the words. That is reason why we struggle trying to understand them when they want us to go oral only without ASL. That is a difficult thing to do that to us, d/Deafies and to Hard Of Hearing (HOH). This is important that we need the accommodations to help us deal with the hearing society.

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Mimsy

Before I started reading here at AD, I thought CIs created 100% hearing. Even if they DO make 100% hearing, I didn't realize how difficult it was for CI people to learn how to interpret what the sounds mean. For communicating with hearing people, I think writing on paper would be less stressful for the Deaf. There's no mistakes with "accents".

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lovezebras

Correct but the CI doesn't work the same as a hearig aid. Hearin Aida amplify the bad hearig you have already which is usually very distorted and not clear..where as a CI bypasses the damage in your ear and creates hearing, even though it's mechanical it's creating sound rather than just making it louder. It is true that many CI users still struggle with the phone and music but I've talked to many people who use the phone with ease and no trouble at all and some that love to listen to music with their CI. It's different for every person and you do have the few that don't benefit from the CI at all as well but on the whole most people I've talked to..and I've talked to a lotttt..they love the CI 10x Better than their hearing aids ..

Again not saying a CI is for everyone but not everyone has the same results and I dont think it's really fair to compare a hearing aid and CI as they work completely in different ways.

BleedingPurist

You don't "interpret" what the sounds mean unless you have been profoundly deaf since birth and are learning new sounds that you couldn't hear with a hearing aid. The brain has to learn to interpret and recognize the signal it receives as the sound it expects, but this isn't done consciously by the CI-user and it varies widely. There was no difficulty involved in my case. Other than having a tinny quality initially at activation, sound was experienced as sound and everything was easily identifiable.. even sounds I hadn't heard in 25 years due to being out of my frequency range with a hearing aid.

drphil

Having an Implant for 5 years I am interpreting "electronic signals" as "sound" which seems the point of the exercise in the first place.

I have mentioned many times re: Cochlear Implant "exercise"- dances. The rationale: loud music to people speaking DOES help the brain "get used to the device". aside: This fact was "discovered" at Sunnybrook/Toronto when they were trying to "figure out how I seemed to grasped-so quickly". My answer- all the singles dances I went to. Their advice- Carry on!

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deafdyke

But Alicia, the end result is the same. People with ci and aids function as if they're hoh . And the hoh functioning varies tremendously from almost hearing, to severe hoh .

TXgolfer

I know several people with CIs that hear quite clearly. One has a job that requires him to be on the phone all day.

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deafdyke

Txgolfer, even the best user of a ci or a hearing aid is still very much hoh. Some people are almost hearing yes, but they are still hoh.

Angel1989

I was hearing my whole life. I have to say at this point my CI is no where near to what my hearing was before I went deaf. As pointed out by my audiologist I am not the "norm" so I am speaking for myself.

I have a lot of feed back with my CI. Most times it is unbearable. People around me do act like my CI has cured me and it has definitely not. For me, going out some place that is loud, is brutal and causes me to become light headed and nauseous.

I guess I am not going to be a spokes person for the CI and I will definitely not be getting a 2nd one.

For you who have had great success with your CI I am really happy for you. To be honest for me so far it has been pretty much a nightmare. This could be because I have brain issues and has nothing to do with the CI at all.

I am just giving my opinion so don't get mad, OK?

TXgolfer

Sorry, but When friends tell me they can hear well, I take their word for it. Another friend with a CI actually goes to concerts and enjoys them.

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Sometimes at night, I see their faces. I feel the traces they've left on my soul

TXgolfer

You had your CI put in recently didn't you? I may have you mixed up with someone else. I hope it improves for you.

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Sometimes at night, I see their faces. I feel the traces they've left on my soul

Jiro

good for them and I'm happy it worked out well for them!

and my friend with a CI can't hear as well as before. he was born hearing and went deaf several years ago. what he's going thru is same as angel.

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deafdyke

Txgolfer, you're missing that while they may have really good speech and sound perception, it is not hearing person hearing by a mile. I hear very well with my hearing aids, but it's not at all like what a hearing person hears. That goes for cis too. They may be able to get really good speech perception or function as a mildly hoh person, but they're still functioning as a hoh person....not a naturally fully hearing person

deafdyke

Jiro, yeah. Even late deafened people can have mixed results with cis. Not everyone is mildly hoh or almost hearing with a ci.

lovezebras

No where did I say that you'd be hearing with the CI. *For the most part* people who get CI's are generally much better off with their CI compared to their ha...You can't get implanted unless you don't benefit from ha's anymore ..I'd personally rather be "functionally hoh" than struggle everyday, not be able to use the phone, and not be able to enjoy family get togethers.

TXgolfer

Like I said, I am going to take their word for it.

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. - Romans 12:21


Sometimes at night, I see their faces. I feel the traces they've left on my soul

Jane B.

deafdyke
Why do you always emphasize what it is not? Also, based on the way my hearing friends talk (what they say not how they sound) and act I think you are attributing powers to them that they don't have.

BleedingPurist

Agreed. There are hearing people that I hear better over and those that hear better than me. Frankly, CI hearing can be a LOT like normal hearing, moreso than the declaration that it is "nothing at all like normal hearing." There is simply no single broad stroke one can use to paint the picture as is being attempted.

Until you are a CI-user, you are really in no position to comment on how similar it is to anything else you believe it is comparable to. There is a reason most CI-users declare it nothing like their hearing aid was... for the better. The way it works is more natural than something that screams sound into your ear. I get to say this because I've been all three: hearing, hearing-aid user, and CI-user.

There are a wide variety of results. That is true. That means that User A's results do not speak for User B's results or CI's in general. There are those that struggle just as there are those that are experiencing the restoration of our hearing to undreamt-of levels in our lifetime.

Sometimes I think that people have the impression that because you have to hit rock bottom with your hearing to get a CI that it is a last-resort, low-level, hearing solution. The reality is for most.. it's a soluton that takes you from rock bottom and catapults you past all of those sitting there in the middle struggling along with unnaturally amplified hearing. It's mind boggling, but true. My hearing isn't amplified, it's delivered. There is very little that I cannot hear that a hearing person hears.

deafdyke

I wasn't talking to you. I was addressing Txgolfer. Unfortunatly, the implantation criteria is a lot looser in the States.......Ten years ago, yes the implantation criteria was a LOT stricter. But I've heard of people getting an implant b/c they can't hear well in noise (that my dear is simply part of being HOH) or using low powered hearing aids to qualify.
And please stop acting like I'm one of those completely and totally against CI people. I have strongly reccomended people opt for CI, if they've totally maxed out on their aids.

deafdyke

I would also assume that Txgolfer's friends are mostly late deafened.
That's a population that tends to be very good CI users. And then again, even with that population there can be differences in how good they can hear.... I did say that a CI can make a person "almost hearing" (which is pretty damn good hearing) But almost hearing, is not hearing.

NaidaUP

My CI centre makes sure you are wearing the right HA for your loss. If I would come in with only a power aid, they would figure out straight away and wouldn't access me.
My friend was not approved because the CI Audi believe there was a better HA for her to try and the Audi was correct.

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sonocativo

Im not sure how to put this, and I agree with 100% of what is said about understanding the sounds. Here is what I have read and learned by professionals recently...
If 2 babies are born completely healthy and you keep one in a pitch black room and the other in a soundproof room for several years, then expose both babies to the environment , these would be the results.
The baby kept in the dark would be blind, even though it can see, the brain cannot understand and convert the sight signals to actually see so the baby will remain legally blind the rest of its life since the learning process is already damaged. The same goes for the other baby kept in the soundproof room as the brain cannot understand the signals for the hearing.
I know it is an odd thing to ponder but it was some sort of scientific study done and from what I have read and heard it is true to the best of my knowledge.
I have a very difficult time understanding sounds, yet I cannot hear alot of sounds to begin with.

NaidaUP

That's why with a CI qualify tests etc. you get tested to see actually how much speech you understand and you can't get a CI unless you speech discrimination is poor.

My left is only 7% speech discrimination altho it feels like 0% but I pick up a huge amount of awareness sounds.

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deafdyke

Again, that's awesome!!!!

deafdyke

Yeah, but qualifying for an implant in your country is a LOT harder then here.
If I recall correctly, you can get a CI if you test 60% on the speech discrimation test. I've also heard of people taking advantage of the system by claming they deserve an implant b/c their speech discrimination in noise is low.......I can understand how that could be a pain for late deaf people, but a)difficulty hearing in noise is just a HOH thing. and b) even unilateral loss folks have trouble in noise.

deafdyke

I've also heard of really unsavory marketing practices by the CI companies.
All I can say is that I think the CI companies are really taking advantage of our capitalist health care system. But the bubble is going to break soon.

Lau2046

No, and no audi ever led me to believe they did. That was the assumption of people outside of audiology. My parents, family, always understood the limitations of hearing aids, but the general public is probably clueless.

Laura

Angel1989

Yes I had the CI surgery May 2, 2012 and activation end of June.

It has been a challenge but I am very grateful I was able to get one. Maybe if I had hearing aids first, and they maxed out, I might appreciate my CI even more.

I am not giving up tho and I am considering changing audiologist to see if that might help.

TXgolfer

Good for you! And good luck!

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. - Romans 12:21


Sometimes at night, I see their faces. I feel the traces they've left on my soul