Miss-Delectable
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Sound Life
Tommy Salvi loves music. The sixth grader listens to everything from classical to pop. He recently loaded the soundtrack from television show "Glee" onto his iPod and wants to perform "Lean On Me" at his school’s spring talent show.
Tommy, who lives in Fairfax, started taking piano lessons in the second grade and plays the violin. He also sings in the choir at Canterbury Woods Elementary School.
Music is so important to the preteen that he worked up the courage to testify on behalf of the elementary school band and strings program at a Fairfax Board of Supervisors’ annual budget hearing last month.
"He is listening to music all the time. It is a very big part of his life," said Rosemary Salvi, Tommy’s mother.
But music may have been largely lost to Tommy had he been born just a decade earlier.
Tommy has approximately 10 percent to 20 percent of the hearing capacity of an average person. He can only hear and play music largely because of cochlear implants that were surgically installed into his ear.
THE SALVI FAMILY never had any doubts about going after an implant for Tommy.
Rosemary Salvi and her husband adopted Tommy when he was 4-months old from Korea. They started to suspect he had hearing problems when Tommy was 7-months old. He didn’t flinch when an older brother started banging on pots and pans right next to him in the kitchen.
Rosemary Salvi works as a music teacher and her husband is an engineer who works with sound. Both are musicians and Tommy’s hearing problems were identified earlier than most children’s because of his parents’ observations.
"Our family is very musical. We were more in tune with that sort of thing," she said.
Tommy’s early diagnosis directly lead to his unusually early implantation and may have given him a leg up on language development and hearing skills in general.
Johns Hopkins research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month showed that children who receive a cochlear implant before 18-months old were able to develop near-normal speech and language skills within three years of the surgery. Those whose implants are installed later don’t have the same ability to develop speech and hearing with the same acuity.
The device is a fairly new technology, rapidly developing over the last three decades.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved cochlear implants for use in adults who are deaf or have profound hearing loss in 1985. The agency then expanded approval for implants to children in 1990, according to Cochlear, the Australian company that first developed the device.
Johns Hopkins University is a leader in ear and hearing research but only started performing the surgery in 1992. Tommy, at 14-months old, was Hopkins’ youngest patient ever to receive a cochlear implant in 1998.
The Food and Drug Administration did not approve cochlear implants for children under the ago of two until two years after Tommy’s surgery in 2000.
"He is one of the oldest kids to be implanted so young. He was living with sound at one year old. Most of his peers were implanted around four, five or six years old," said Rosemary Salvi.
COCHLEAR IMPLANTS can be controversial.
Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a leader in education for the hard of hearing, reports that 600,000 people in the United States are considered "deaf." Yet only 188,500 people have opted for a cochlear implant, according to the National Institute of Health.
Some in the deaf and hard of hearing community point out that deafness is not a medical condition that needs to be fixed because people who are deaf can lead full lives without hearing.
Several medical groups and government agencies, including Hopkins and the Food and Drug Administration, have also pointed out that the benefits people receive from cochlear implants vary widely. For example, not all people with the implant hear well enough to enjoy music.
TOMMY’S COCHLEAR IMPLANT has provided him with an ability to lead a normal hearing life, especially given the fact that he was born with almost no ability to hear on his own.
According to his mother, Tommy is able to discern most of what a conversation partner is saying if the two are sitting in a quiet room with no other noise.
The sixth-grader also speaks as clearly as most normal-hearing children, reads above grade level and is able to attend mainstream classes with normal-hearing students at school.
"A lot of the time, people don’t realize he is deaf if they don’t see the processor [attached to outside of his head]," said Rosemary Salvi.
When it comes to music, Tommy is able to "match pitch" very well, though, like many hearing children, music doesn’t necessarily come naturally to him, said Rosemary Salvi.
"It is not that it comes easily to him. I use the same tools with Tommy that I use with other children who are struggling," said Rosemary Salvi.
STILL Tommy thought the benefits of the cochlear implant were important enough that he was willing to get a second device installed in his other ear last year.
The number of people with cochlear implants in both ears is growing but still relatively small, with only a few thousand opting to get a second implant, he said.
Tommy enthusiastically opted for the second implant because his doctors told him it would improve his ability to listen to and play music.
"I knew that I would be able to hear more," he said.
So far, Tommy is adjusting well to the second implant. His audiologist told him that Tommy was her first patient not to cry immediately after she activated the second device.
Tommy has also surpassed expectation for development of new speech and hearing ability. The audiologist did not expect him to be able to hear all that Tommy can hear now for another 18 months, he said.
"I have responded much more quickly to the second implant because of my background in music," said Tommy.
EVEN WITH A cochlear implant, people who are deaf do not hear sound the way people with normal hearing do.
Those who have had hearing and gotten an implant after going deaf later in life said using the device is like listening to an electronic voice or a person speaking underwater.
And though Tommy can identify what people are saying in a quiet room, he has a hard time having conversations in noisy places, like a school gym or classroom. Recently, Tommy couldn’t make out what his brothers and fathers said when they all started talking over one another at the family dinner table, said his mother.
"He doesn’t hear like a normal person. It is completely electronic," said Rosemary Salvi.
Tommy’s teachers, family and friends often used "cued speech" to help communicate what they are saying to him. When people "cue," they make hand gestures while they are speaking to emphasize what consonant or other type of sound they are using at the time.
Without the cued speech, Tommy can mix up what is being said, particularly with words that sound the same. For example, when a teacher recently asked Tommy to go get the "red shoes," he came back with a box of "tissues," said his mother.
"He doesn’t completely get the language and the communication unless he has the support visually," she said.
There are also times when Tommy has to take off part of the cochlear implant. The implant is not waterproof so he removes it when he is in the shower or the ocean at the beach.
Tommy Salvi loves music. The sixth grader listens to everything from classical to pop. He recently loaded the soundtrack from television show "Glee" onto his iPod and wants to perform "Lean On Me" at his school’s spring talent show.
Tommy, who lives in Fairfax, started taking piano lessons in the second grade and plays the violin. He also sings in the choir at Canterbury Woods Elementary School.
Music is so important to the preteen that he worked up the courage to testify on behalf of the elementary school band and strings program at a Fairfax Board of Supervisors’ annual budget hearing last month.
"He is listening to music all the time. It is a very big part of his life," said Rosemary Salvi, Tommy’s mother.
But music may have been largely lost to Tommy had he been born just a decade earlier.
Tommy has approximately 10 percent to 20 percent of the hearing capacity of an average person. He can only hear and play music largely because of cochlear implants that were surgically installed into his ear.
THE SALVI FAMILY never had any doubts about going after an implant for Tommy.
Rosemary Salvi and her husband adopted Tommy when he was 4-months old from Korea. They started to suspect he had hearing problems when Tommy was 7-months old. He didn’t flinch when an older brother started banging on pots and pans right next to him in the kitchen.
Rosemary Salvi works as a music teacher and her husband is an engineer who works with sound. Both are musicians and Tommy’s hearing problems were identified earlier than most children’s because of his parents’ observations.
"Our family is very musical. We were more in tune with that sort of thing," she said.
Tommy’s early diagnosis directly lead to his unusually early implantation and may have given him a leg up on language development and hearing skills in general.
Johns Hopkins research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month showed that children who receive a cochlear implant before 18-months old were able to develop near-normal speech and language skills within three years of the surgery. Those whose implants are installed later don’t have the same ability to develop speech and hearing with the same acuity.
The device is a fairly new technology, rapidly developing over the last three decades.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved cochlear implants for use in adults who are deaf or have profound hearing loss in 1985. The agency then expanded approval for implants to children in 1990, according to Cochlear, the Australian company that first developed the device.
Johns Hopkins University is a leader in ear and hearing research but only started performing the surgery in 1992. Tommy, at 14-months old, was Hopkins’ youngest patient ever to receive a cochlear implant in 1998.
The Food and Drug Administration did not approve cochlear implants for children under the ago of two until two years after Tommy’s surgery in 2000.
"He is one of the oldest kids to be implanted so young. He was living with sound at one year old. Most of his peers were implanted around four, five or six years old," said Rosemary Salvi.
COCHLEAR IMPLANTS can be controversial.
Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a leader in education for the hard of hearing, reports that 600,000 people in the United States are considered "deaf." Yet only 188,500 people have opted for a cochlear implant, according to the National Institute of Health.
Some in the deaf and hard of hearing community point out that deafness is not a medical condition that needs to be fixed because people who are deaf can lead full lives without hearing.
Several medical groups and government agencies, including Hopkins and the Food and Drug Administration, have also pointed out that the benefits people receive from cochlear implants vary widely. For example, not all people with the implant hear well enough to enjoy music.
TOMMY’S COCHLEAR IMPLANT has provided him with an ability to lead a normal hearing life, especially given the fact that he was born with almost no ability to hear on his own.
According to his mother, Tommy is able to discern most of what a conversation partner is saying if the two are sitting in a quiet room with no other noise.
The sixth-grader also speaks as clearly as most normal-hearing children, reads above grade level and is able to attend mainstream classes with normal-hearing students at school.
"A lot of the time, people don’t realize he is deaf if they don’t see the processor [attached to outside of his head]," said Rosemary Salvi.
When it comes to music, Tommy is able to "match pitch" very well, though, like many hearing children, music doesn’t necessarily come naturally to him, said Rosemary Salvi.
"It is not that it comes easily to him. I use the same tools with Tommy that I use with other children who are struggling," said Rosemary Salvi.
STILL Tommy thought the benefits of the cochlear implant were important enough that he was willing to get a second device installed in his other ear last year.
The number of people with cochlear implants in both ears is growing but still relatively small, with only a few thousand opting to get a second implant, he said.
Tommy enthusiastically opted for the second implant because his doctors told him it would improve his ability to listen to and play music.
"I knew that I would be able to hear more," he said.
So far, Tommy is adjusting well to the second implant. His audiologist told him that Tommy was her first patient not to cry immediately after she activated the second device.
Tommy has also surpassed expectation for development of new speech and hearing ability. The audiologist did not expect him to be able to hear all that Tommy can hear now for another 18 months, he said.
"I have responded much more quickly to the second implant because of my background in music," said Tommy.
EVEN WITH A cochlear implant, people who are deaf do not hear sound the way people with normal hearing do.
Those who have had hearing and gotten an implant after going deaf later in life said using the device is like listening to an electronic voice or a person speaking underwater.
And though Tommy can identify what people are saying in a quiet room, he has a hard time having conversations in noisy places, like a school gym or classroom. Recently, Tommy couldn’t make out what his brothers and fathers said when they all started talking over one another at the family dinner table, said his mother.
"He doesn’t hear like a normal person. It is completely electronic," said Rosemary Salvi.
Tommy’s teachers, family and friends often used "cued speech" to help communicate what they are saying to him. When people "cue," they make hand gestures while they are speaking to emphasize what consonant or other type of sound they are using at the time.
Without the cued speech, Tommy can mix up what is being said, particularly with words that sound the same. For example, when a teacher recently asked Tommy to go get the "red shoes," he came back with a box of "tissues," said his mother.
"He doesn’t completely get the language and the communication unless he has the support visually," she said.
There are also times when Tommy has to take off part of the cochlear implant. The implant is not waterproof so he removes it when he is in the shower or the ocean at the beach.