My CI-related Questions

deafbajagal

deafbajagal

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1. What kind of rehabilitation training and support do you get in order to have the best use of your CI?

Examples:

* Auditory training? If so, how is it done? Where? When?

* Speech recognition and auditory comprehension?

2. If you had or currently is using a CI while in school, what can the teacher do to make sure your CI is beneficial to your learning?

3. Describe the relationship between using your CI and your social life.

4. What is your preferred mode of communication with a CI? Is it the same mode of communication you use when your CI is not being used?

5. What advice do you have for a deaf person who may be considering getting a CI for himself/herself?

6. Do you feel accepted by the deaf community? Are you a part of the deaf community or do you feel more comfortable being a part of the hearing community.

:ty:
 
Don't feel that you need to answer ALL of the questions (of course, if you do, it would be great). These are the kinds of questions I want to ask people with using CIs.

I'm currently proposing auditory training and auditory comprehension training for kids with digital hearing aids and cochlear implants, because I do feel that they might as well get the fullest benefit from using the devices. My proposition is the basis for my questions on this forum.
 
Wirelessly posted

i can not answer most of those questions since i do not myself have an implant, but i will share what we did with my daughter.

when she was activated she had a few words in spoken english, but her language of communication was ASL. Because her hearing loss was progressive, she never had a profound loss and was able, very quickly, to adapt to the input from her CI. Within 24 hours of activation she had regained the ability to recognize her name (which she had lost with hearing aids). She also began to ask for the English words for objects and her signs.

when she was first activated, she had aural rehab (listening therapy) twice a week outside of school. She also had 20 minutes of old fashioned "make this sound in isolation" speech therapy at school. (it was the only therapy the school offered, with the only therapist the had. I quickly chose to end it and have no therapy at school.)

also, her kindergarten teacher worked on some beginning phonemic awareness in class. She would voice a little...
 
Mod: To be honest, I thought I was posting this thread in the HA/CI section...I guess I hang out in the Deaf Ed thread too much. So this is probably in the wrong place- sorry! Please move it to the right section if you think that's where it should be.

Oopsy Daisy!
 
faire_jour said:
Wirelessly posted

i can not answer most of those questions since i do not myself have an implant, but i will share what we did with my daughter.

when she was activated she had a few words in spoken english, but her language of communication was ASL. Because her hearing loss was progressive, she never had a profound loss and was able, very quickly, to adapt to the input from her CI. Within 24 hours of activation she had regained the ability to recognize her name (which she had lost with hearing aids). She also began to ask for the English words for objects and her signs.

when she was first activated, she had aural rehab (listening therapy) twice a week outside of school. She also had 20 minutes of old fashioned "make this sound in isolation" speech therapy at school. (it was the only therapy the school offered, with the only therapist the had. I quickly chose to end it and have no therapy at school.)

also, her kindergarten teacher worked on some beginning phonemic awareness in class. She would voice a little...
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm marking down the answers on my paper. What kinds of things did they do during aural therapy? Can you elaborate?
 
Wirelessly posted

(on the phone, ran out of room)

one on one, working on things like rhyming, in conjunction with the grade material.

within a few months, my daughter's spoken language skills had expanded beyond the peers in her class and what the school was willing to provide. (we wanted to actually build her language. Have her use and understand spoken english the same way she would ASL.) The school could not support that, so we changed programs.

today, she is in a spoken language program. There are no pull outs. Listening and language is built directly into the day. Obviously during science you are learning the new vocabulary of the lesson, that is building language. You are listening to your teacher on the playground, that is building your ability to hear in competing background noise. You are answering your teacher in spoken language, that is working on your expressive language.

we don't do any therapy outside of school anymore.
 
Wirelessly posted

the therapy was mostly games. We started very easy, with just the difference between suprasegemental patterns (hearing the difference between "uh oh, those boots are dirty!" and "sit down" WITHOUT comprehension, just hearing the difference.) after that we moved on to comprehension of simple words and phrases. Once her vocabulary was big enough, we could do more actual discrimination. Like hearing the difference between "gum" and "gun" or "pat" and "sat".

then once she could do that, we added "critical elements". So, now she can hear that we said "shoes", can she expand that to "white shoes" and then "the white shoes next to the girl" and then "the shoes that are not white" and then "all the shoes except the white ones". So it slowly builds in complexity.
 
Fab questions!!

. What kind of rehabilitation training and support do you get in order to have the best use of your CI?

Erm, i think i had training for the first month or so, I can't remember, I'll have to ask my mum, then i remember i had to go to a language session where i had to listen and do tasks, eg put the person in the box on top of the table.


3. Describe the relationship between using your CI and your social life.

Well, erm I can be quite lazy, so if i'm with deaf friends I wont wear it at all, plus I hardly have a social life, but if im with colleagues or family i'll wear it
so i can hear them etc, they cant sign

4. What is your preferred mode of communication with a CI? Is it the same mode of communication you use when your CI is not being used?

I talk either way

5. What advice do you have for a deaf person who may be considering getting a CI for himself/herself?

6. Do you feel accepted by the deaf community? Are you a part of the deaf community or do you feel more comfortable being a part of the hearing community.

None.... I feel that i am too deaf for the hearing community, and i am not that fluent in sign, i know all signs, it's just puttin them in BSL word order that's hard. Plus I can hear well with my implant.



A bit of extra information, I only wear my implant for work so say around 10 hours a day then it's off, cos i enjoy the quiet, but because I've done it for many months now, my family have adapted to shouting my name or waving their arms to get me to see them(my hearing aid doesnt give me much but i wear it all waking hours) It's hardly on at weekend, unless I want to hear or if it's somewhere special/important
 
Lissa said:
Fab questions!!

. What kind of rehabilitation training and support do you get in order to have the best use of your CI?

Erm, i think i had training for the first month or so, I can't remember, I'll have to ask my mum, then i remember i had to go to a language session where i had to listen and do tasks, eg put the person in the box on top of the table.


3. Describe the relationship between using your CI and your social life.

Well, erm I can be quite lazy, so if i'm with deaf friends I wont wear it at all, plus I hardly have a social life, but if im with colleagues or family i'll wear it
so i can hear them etc, they cant sign

4. What is your preferred mode of communication with a CI? Is it the same mode of communication you use when your CI is not being used?

I talk either way

5. What advice do you have for a deaf person who may be considering getting a CI for himself/herself?

6. Do you feel accepted by the deaf community? Are you a part of the deaf community or do you feel more comfortable being a part of the hearing community.

None.... I feel that i am too deaf for the hearing community, and i am not that fluent in sign, i know all signs, it's just puttin them in BSL word order that's hard. Plus I can hear well with my implant.



A bit of extra information, I only wear my implant for work so say around 10 hours a day then it's off, cos i enjoy the quiet, but because I've done it for many months now, my family have adapted to shouting my name or waving their arms to get me to see them(my hearing aid doesnt give me much but i wear it all waking hours) It's hardly on at weekend, unless I want to hear or if it's somewhere special/important
Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing.
 
Lissa said:
Fab questions!!

. What kind of rehabilitation training and support do you get in order to have the best use of your CI?

Erm, i think i had training for the first month or so, I can't remember, I'll have to ask my mum, then i remember i had to go to a language session where i had to listen and do tasks, eg put the person in the box on top of the table.


3. Describe the relationship between using your CI and your social life.

Well, erm I can be quite lazy, so if i'm with deaf friends I wont wear it at all, plus I hardly have a social life, but if im with colleagues or family i'll wear it
so i can hear them etc, they cant sign

4. What is your preferred mode of communication with a CI? Is it the same mode of communication you use when your CI is not being used?

I talk either way

5. What advice do you have for a deaf person who may be considering getting a CI for himself/herself?

6. Do you feel accepted by the deaf community? Are you a part of the deaf community or do you feel more comfortable being a part of the hearing community.

None.... I feel that i am too deaf for the hearing community, and i am not that fluent in sign, i know all signs, it's just puttin them in BSL word order that's hard. Plus I can hear well with my implant.



A bit of extra information, I only wear my implant for work so say around 10 hours a day then it's off, cos i enjoy the quiet, but because I've done it for many months now, my family have adapted to shouting my name or waving their arms to get me to see them(my hearing aid doesnt give me much but i wear it all waking hours) It's hardly on at weekend, unless I want to hear or if it's somewhere special/important
Click to expand...

Do you sign with your deaf friends? Are you taking formal BSL classes? I thought it was interesting what you said about liking the quiet...I'm the same way with my digital hearing aid. :)
 
What is this for? I'll do my best to answer the questions. A little background on me: Born deaf, wore HAs until I was 26. That's when I got the implant.

1. What kind of rehabilitation training and support do you get in order to have the best use of your CI?

I go to CI therapy once a week for an hour. It's actually done at a children's clinic. How embarrassing, but most implantees in Huntsville are little kids. The clinic is part of the Huntsville Hospital.

Half of the time, we work on specific problem sounds for that particular map. So in this particular mapping, I am having difficulty telling the difference between /l/ and /w/. So we work with words or babble with those sounds. The other half is more like sentence recognition. This can be in the form of asking me questions about my life, grabbing cards with random sentences or reading a book.

2. If you had or currently is using a CI while in school, what can the teacher do to make sure your CI is beneficial to your learning?

Not Applicable. Got the implant after I finished school.

3. Describe the relationship between using your CI and your social life.

Hmm.. well none really. My social life has been about the same as before implantation. However, I do notice that during my days of not wearing the CI, I say huh? and get tired of lipreading a lot more often during social situations. Even though I still rely on lipreading heavily while using the CI, I just didn't know how much I also rely on the CI.

4. What is your preferred mode of communication with a CI? Is it the same mode of communication you use when your CI is not being used?

Yes, talk and lipread, with or without the CI. Although, I try to sign with my girlfriend during the times without the CI. For both ease and practice for her.

5. What advice do you have for a deaf person who may be considering getting a CI for himself/herself?

I'd tell them to make sure that they aren't doing it for others, not to expect a miracle, expect some hard work at CI therapy, don't let other people expect more out of you. I'd warn them that many people will constantly ask them a variation of "So are you hearing better now? What progress have you made?" etc. And sometimes it feels like there is no progress because it's been so slow, so you get irritated when they ask you about progress.

6. Do you feel accepted by the deaf community? Are you a part of the deaf community or do you feel more comfortable being a part of the hearing community.

Well, I started hanging out with deaf people/community about the same time I received an implant. So I can't judge whether I've been accepted compared to without an implant. I never tell them that I have an implant or talk about me having an implant unless they asked me. So some were aware of me having an implant and have stated to me that they are very happy without any implants and a few have somewhat complained or stated their concerns about implants. However, they haven't been MEAN to me about it or anything like that. I am not quite comfortable with the deaf community here in Huntsville, not because of the deaf/ASL thing, but rather there seems to be a lot of drama and sometimes immaturity. Hanging out with them is a completely different experience from when I hung out with ADers in NYC a few years ago. I love group conversations in the deaf community, which I obviously can't have (successfully) in the hearing world. However, overall, I'd say that I'm more comfortable in the hearing world.

Hope that explains things.
 
Interesting!! I'm impressed with what you're doing for therapy...it seems appropriate and beneficial. Thanks for your input...as for what I'm doing is this:
"I'm currently proposing auditory training and auditory comprehension training for kids with digital hearing aids and cochlear implants, because I do feel that they might as well get the fullest benefit from using the devices. My proposition is the basis for my questions on this forum."
 
deafbajagal said:
What should already be in place...auditory training including auditory comprehension...right now there's nothing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I mean i thought that kids really didn't need intense auditory training past first grade. I mean I think there should be a program available for kids who need or want it.
 
deafbajagal said:
Do you wish you had it when you were in school?
Click to expand...

Not sure if you were talking to me but.... it's not so much that I wish for it because I did fine without it. It's more like "It most likely would have been easier if I had it in school." I most likely would have adjusted to it faster at a younger age.
 
deafdyke said:
Yeah, but I mean i thought that kids really didn't need intense auditory training past first grade. I mean I think there should be a program available for kids who need or want it.
Click to expand...

Auditory training is not for training the ears, it is for training the brain. Each time a map changes, it is believed that auditory training is needed to get the brain to process and utilize that particular map. Auditory training in conjunction with CI is meant to take advantage of the brain's natural plasticity. Under those premises, it is not age dependent.
 
Daredevel7 said:
Not sure if you were talking to me but.... it's not so much that I wish for it because I did fine without it. It's more like "It most likely would have been easier if I had it in school." I most likely would have adjusted to it faster at a younger age.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. You said you were 28? Your brain was still young.
 
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