Sarah on Ricki Lake show

Has anyone seen this episode?
Sarah Churman was talking about her cochlear experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIrT_oTvd3I

Also, there was this pretty deaf lady who was presenting POV of Deaf community,
however I can not find her name online, I am so sorry.
If anybody knows who she is, I would be grateful for information.

Fuzzy

Audiofuzzy said:

Has anyone seen this episode?
Sarah Churman was talking about her cochlear experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIrT_oTvd3I

Also, there was this pretty deaf lady who was presenting POV of Deaf community,
however I can not find her name online, I am so sorry.
If anybody knows who she is, I would be grateful for information.

Fuzzy

Click to expand...

Your link went to a very short one about cannabis on her show with no option for captions.

she doesn't have a cochlear implant, she has the Esteem implantable hearing aid if I remember that right. An implanted hearing aid, not a CI. There's a difference.

She is at the end of the trailer, and thanks for clarification.

Does anyone know Sarah? what's her story?

In her blog she says she was born deaf, but she seems to be speaking very well,
also after turning on her device, she seems to understand sounds very well, too.

She hear and recognize so many sounds- birds, rain, wind - it's weird to me..

Fuzzy

her first implant being activated video went viral on youtube, and I believe The Ellen Show gave her a check so Sarah could get the 2nd implant for her other ear. Other than that, I don't know any more about her.

Well...she says she was wearing hearing aids at 2 years old, so clearly she benefited from them. She had severe to profound which can be helped significantly by hearing aids, got by on lip reading which is how many hoh get by. She doesn't indicate that she even knows Sign language, and admits that she loves to talk.

The more you practice anything, the better you get; don't forget she's stated that she was an avid reader and loves English. The more you read, the better you write and speak too because you see how language works. It sounds logical to me. I still hear the significant deaf speech and she's not losing that. I'm legally deaf but I can function through lip reading and with my hearing aids, so I'm sure she could as well, but obviously not on the level she now does...which is delightful to see. There's nothing weird about it. If you dedicate yourself to doing something, which in her case is speaking, you will improve. It would be odd if she immersed herself in language all these years, and didn't talk as well as she does....


Laura

They are just trying to Push the Latest Technology. There's no debate.
This was a reintroduction of an existing product. They tried to hype it up, so that they could make money off of it. The product has been around for years...it was even mentioned on the Listen-Up site.
Nothing to see here folks....move along.

BTW, think about it.........if this product already existed before, why wasn't it a blockbuster treatment thing before?

I wouldn't necessarily say "they try to push for" - because for hearing pple the story like Sarah
is an "oh, awwwww" kind of story, if you get my meaning.

They see something like that and instantly melt in their chairs.

They (the hearing pple w/o connection to DeafWorld whatsoever) don't understand the implication of these things, so... they just-and-only go bonkers over somebody who's having a total meltdown for they can hear for the first time.
Why? because they are a hearing people, they identify with someone who experience the joy of hearing - something they experience and understand very well,
that's why.
It's not necessarily because they "push for" -no, just being able to sympathize and empathize with this.

Lau2046
- Thank you for your explanation. yes, that makes a lot of sense.
I don't know why but I was so thrown off by her statement of "being born deaf".

Somehow it strongly appeared to me like she was born totally, completely unable to hear,
w/o ability to hear thru HAs at all, and I was confused how was she using HA in the first place - maybe just the loudest noise?, and how she learned to speak so well? - I just couldn't make the heads and tails of it all.

Now I understand - it comes down to verbalizing it properly. with precision.
-she wasn't really "born deaf". She was HoH.
She was like me, born with serious hearing impairment
but not that bad as to prevent her from hearing and learning speech.
To me, a person "born deaf" is someone who can not hear a sound, period.
HAs won't help to this degree. period.


And yeah, I too was pissed nobody asked her if she knows ASL.
Neither she volunteered. sad.

Fuzzy

Somehow it strongly appeared to me like she was born totally, completely unable to hear,
w/o ability to hear thru HAs at all, and I was confused how was she using HA in the first place - maybe just the loudest noise?, and how she learned to speak so well? - I just couldn't make the heads and tails of it all.

Now I understand - it comes down to verbalizing it properly. with precision.
-she wasn't really "born deaf". She was HoH.
She was like me, born with serious hearing impairment
but not that bad as to prevent her from hearing and learning speech.
To me, a person "born deaf" is someone who can not hear a sound, period.
HAs won't help to this degree. period.


And yeah, I too was pissed nobody asked her if she knows ASL.
Neither she volunteered. sad.

Click to expand...

Yes, I find it very sad that she was so immersed into the hearing world that she felt like she needed to be as hearing as possible.
That really does indicate a lot of non acceptance issues. Like if she had grown up with ASL and Deaf culture, she most likely would have been all " I have enough tools in my toolbox. I can hear with hearing aids, and I can Sign and speechread. I have the best of both worlds.

Oh and I just wanted to say. Every single time that a New Amazing Technology comes out there's all this excitement...and then stuff comes out saying it's not all that great.
They were hyping this on a certain Hearing Health 101 board.....They're now saying its not as good as was hyped.

Sarah had the esteem implant.
The indications for that device are stable moderate to severe SNHL with good speech understanding (Indications).
I'm not doubting that this lady had a wonderful expierence but I am bothered that all the videos describe her as "born deaf".
She likely has moderate to severe hearing loss.
The videos also describe her "hearing voices for the first time".
I have progressive SNHL that is now profound but back when I had moderate to severe hearing loss I could hear sound and even my own voice. I made no sense but I could hear it.

This may be a really great thing for some people with hearing loss but the general public (and many medical professionals) think all hearing loss is the same.
They think purely conductive hearing loss (which by definition can be helped by bone conduction since purely conductive hearing loss doesn't have a neural component) is the same as sensioroneural hearing loss (which can not be ameliorated by bone conduction or air conduction since the nerves that transmit signals are damaged) are the same.

ecp said:

The videos also describe her "hearing voices for the first time".

Click to expand...

That's exactly what is so fricking confusing, apart from underlying how she was "born deaf".


Little by little it turns out it is not quite so, and so.

First of all, if she was born truly deaf, she would not have use of HAs at all.
Since she used HAs, acquired speech, this means she did heard some sounds
at least to the degree she was able to learn speech.

And looks like she talks pretty good.

Fuzzy

This may be a really great thing for some people with hearing loss but the general public (and many medical professionals) think all hearing loss is the same.

Click to expand...

Yes, I kinda think this is a Very Specialized Thing that may help people with certain strict criteria.

deafdyke said:

Yes, I find it very sad that she was so immersed into the hearing world that she felt like she needed to be as hearing as possible.
That really does indicate a lot of non acceptance issues. Like if she had grown up with ASL and Deaf culture, she most likely would have been all " I have enough tools in my toolbox. I can hear with hearing aids, and I can Sign and speechread. I have the best of both worlds.

Click to expand...

There are people with hearing loss who are comfortable in the hearing world and function well, and do not need sign language to communicate. She functions fine, even better now with her two new Esteem implants. If she is comfortable with who she interact with on a daily basis then who are you to judge? I deal with the hearing world on a daily basis. I prefer to speak and listen, always have. I just find it easier to communicate with them in many instances. I love listening to talk shows on the radio while driving simply because I can understand what they are saying and enjoy the bantering and op eds. Does that make me trying to be "hearing as possible"? *smh*

How about simply be happy for Sarah seeing the success she has gotten out of her implants instead of being Debbie Downer? Pretty sad to see people who act like that.

kokonut said:

There are people with hearing loss who are comfortable in the hearing world and function well, and do not need sign language to communicate. She functions fine, even better now with her two new Esteem implants. If she is comfortable with who she interact with on a daily basis then who are you to judge? I deal with the hearing world on a daily basis. I prefer to speak and listen, always have. I just find it easier to communicate with them in many instances. I love listening to talk shows on the radio while driving simply because I can understand what they are saying and enjoy the bantering and op eds. Does that make me trying to be "hearing as possible"? *smh*

How about simply be happy for Sarah seeing the success she has gotten out of her implants instead of being Debbie Downer? Pretty sad to see people who act like that.

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Good for you. If you are so happy in the hearing world, then why do you put negative stuff about the Deaf community and its cultural values on your blog?

shel90 said:

Good for you. If you are so happy in the hearing world, then why do you put negative stuff about the Deaf community and its cultural values on your blog?

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Provide an example, please.

As for the hearing world, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with deaf people, too. Soooo.....

No example? No proof? Figures. I have not witten any blogs negatively about the deaf community or its cultural values. In fact, } have blogged about successful deaf people. What I do is blog about certain issues, concerns , and even about certain people and critique it. It would be entirely unrealistic to expect people to be happy for Sarah Churman because sometimes people are either jealous or do not like seeing people succeed for some reason.

shel90 said:

Good for you. If you are so happy in the hearing world, then why do you put negative stuff about the Deaf community and its cultural values on your blog?

Click to expand...

I agree you, good point!