Building Bridges....?

Cochlear implants and hearing aids really do act as "bridges" between two worlds from one end to the next. Meaning that such devices help connect people with hearing loss with that of the hearing world. And not that they are per se "bridge builders" sounding much like some goodwill peace building effort. They are not. And they are certainly not "quick fixes" in the immediate sense because connecting with the hearing world can be a gradual process allowing time for adaptation to take place. The range of hearing loss is varied from mild to profound and hearing loss can occur while in the womb, as a young child or as an adult dealing with high frequency hearing loss (mild hearing loss) requiring a hearing aid that will certainly help quickly fix the problem to a good degree and re-establish the connection with the hearing world.

There are major differences when talking about connecting or bridging with the hearing world and that would be access to communication only versus access to communication and sound. An ASL interpreter or CART transcriber can help bridge the communication gap between deaf and hearing people (and to some extent the hearing world). But for a hearing aid or cochlear implant (and other soon to be advanced technological hearing devices) user it helps connect with hearing people and the hearing world of environmental sounds, music, and the verbal communication with the ability to understand and enjoy the melodious quality of other people’s voices. Yes, a melodious quality. These things have intrinsic value for the most of us. Most people cherish them more than others while others may simply not care for them for whatever reasons.

Here below is a video of the famous Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse in 1940 in Washington state. This bridge could be seen as representative of a "bridge to the hearing world" during a time throughout the 1950s, 60s, 70s or even 80s when hearing aid technology and oral education were somtime seen as "failures" by the Deaf community. And thus they are constantly "traumatized" thinking the engineering constructs of the past they've experienced are the same as today but they are not.



But as time moves forward better technology (digital hearing aids with artificial intelligence, cochlear implants, auditory neural implants, NanoEAR cochlea replacement, auditory brainstem implant, internet, cell phones, video phone, etc) coupled with better educational understanding and improved social services (e.g. relay services, interpreters, translitorators, CART, cued speech, etc) you get better and stronger bridges with the hearing world as time goes by, especially by those who are immersed in the world of sound who take advantages of such hearing technologies. The pace of technology is speeding up and has become more and more reliant.

This bridge of today has become increasingly more solid, increasingly longer and increasingly dependable where we get to see more interaction with more people nowadays. Larger gaps that effectively separate people from each other they are effectively being bridged with longer and more dependable bridges. There is no telling where technology and services will take us in the next 10 or 20 years. Bridging that large gap is something like having the world's longest bridge that's over a mile long. A time when a gap that wide once that impossible to close.



But we are just beginning to get better at building better access. Pretty soon we'll be building a bridge that's 18 miles long and that the separation from other people would no longer be a problem. Technology moves fast. Ideas move even faster. Choose wisely.