Would Beethoven Have Wanted a Cochlear Implant?

What do you think? Since Beethoven became deaf later in his adult life (late deafened) do you think he would’ve gone for a cochlear implant? Hmm…an interesting thought for today. But Ludwig van Beethoven is not what I am going to discuss today. I brought that up only because I came across a blog internet address with the words “Baby Beethoven.” As it turns out it is a blog about a hearing parent of a deaf baby girl who was fitted with two hearing aids at the age of 7 months. She is now 13 months old. The child’s name is Marielle and she has a 60 dB loss in both ears, I believe. Marielle's hearing loss is genetic. But the story here is that the parents have been learning ASL, cued speech along with intensive speech therapy at home and away for Marielle to learn and communicate with. But Marielle’s parents have made a decision about signing in ASL.

Barry and I will keep learning ASL for now at least. I am still very interested in the language and being able to communicate with Deaf adults and children. We will use with her for another year or so until her speaking capabilities improve. She is using it expressively so much at this point I am not going to cut her off. Receptively she is responding so well to our voices. I will say "Do you want to eat?" with no visual cues and she will immediately start signing "eat." She also signs elephant, help, dog...the list is getting too long. I am losing track! I guess technically we are in total communication mode at the moment. Anyway, we will encourage her to learn ASL when she is older but will not be using it in the school setting for reasons I will go into later!

It's interesting that Marielle seems to understand what her mother was saying and responded by signing "eat" since she is only 13 months old and her vocal cords and muscle control have yet to mature at this point. Visual communication makes sense here (now for those who haven't been following my blogs all these years and in other forums, I advocate visual communications for both hearing and deaf babies).

Though Marielle's parents seemed to have already made a decision on what they would do with her once she gets a little bit older.

Barry and I decided if we had to choose this second, we would send her to the cued speech school for the first few years as her speech is really developing and she is learning proper pronunciation. Then we would move her to the aural-oral school and maybe eventually mainstreamed into her neighborhood school.

Sounds reasonable? I would think so.

This was one of the scenarios I presented before in one my blogs and in other forums that a deaf baby need to be exposed to some kind of visual communication whether it’s baby signs, homemade signs, SEE, ASL or even cued speech. And the parents may in fact end or reduce their signing and slowly switch to a more heavily speech and listening oriented environment. If Marielle's parents felt that this would be the best course of action and approach for their deaf/hh child (i.e. an informed decision) then who are we to intervene and say that their approach is wrong? But be sure to visit to their blogsite when they get the chance to blog their reasons on why they will not want to allow ASL in a school setting.

Will the Deaf community scream in protest over this parents' decision not to allow ASL in a school setting? Will they call them "heartless" parents? Will some of them try and push their ASL agenda to the extreme? Or will they simply respect these parents' decision on how their deaf/hh child will be taught in a school setting?

Now, on speech and listening skills alone, I believe this kid will do extremely well considering she has a 60 dB hearing loss and had a much, much earlier intervention than I had when I was just a toddler. I have about a 70 dB loss in my right ear (my left ear is bye-bye). I was fitted with only one hearing aid and that was for my right ear at about 3 years old (btw, I was fitted in the wrong ear at around age 2…grrr). By the time I was 10 years old I was able to do well in regular school (no mainstreaming) there on out until I graduated from high school I did well because I was able to hear quite well and talk without any problems. People wouldn’t tell if I had a hearing loss if they talked to me over the cell phone. But with today’s accommodation needs (e.g. CART, cued speech transliterators, FM loop system, sign language interpreters, and so on) along with advanced digital hearing aids and cochlear implants and better parental (loving/dedicated) involvement of their deaf/hh child will certainly give Marielle an excellent shot at life and be successful in what she will do in her adult years in a world that she will have to deal with mostly hearing people. So, if I can do it successfully with only one ear and a hearing aid, Marielle can certainly do much better with two ears and two hearings!

Speak Up! And don’t be shy to use your listening and speech skills. After all, it could reap huge dividends down the road.