When a Cochlear Implant Works

From the Post Gazette:

Six years ago, Bonnie Russo was in Erie to attend a soccer tournament for her son, Marco.
Along for the ride was her younger son Nino, who was 11. He has a cochlear implant, a device that helps profoundly deaf people hear.

The family stopped at a fast-food restaurant and encountered students from a New York school for the deaf. They took one look at Nino's implant and started signing feverishly with the help of their interpreter. They assailed Russo for choosing the implant for her son. But Russo was having difficulty conversing with them because of the signing.

"They were telling me how wrong I was,'' she said. "And there was Nino, ordering at the counter what he wanted, all by himself.

"When the interpreter got up to go to the rest room, we were lost. I couldn't sign; they couldn't speak.''

That encounter erased any doubt that Bonnie and Jerry Russo may have had about pursuing an implant for Nino, who was born deaf.

The devices, which are surgically implanted into the skull to stimulate the natural mechanism by which the brain receives and recognizes sound, were approved by the Food and Drug Administration for young children in 1990.

So when Nino was 3 1/2 in 1991, he became one of the first young children in the region to receive the implant, in his right ear. The decision put the boy and his family into uncharted territory. Nobody really knew how effective this device would be in helping deaf children develop language. How could it be most effective? Would it help children fit better into a hearing world?

Now at 17, Nino says he's doing just fine. He's a junior at Peters Township High School. He plays on three soccer teams, has friends and makes good grades. He recently got his driver's license and chats on a cell phone like any other teen. And he's been named twice by teachers as Student of the Month, a rare honor in the district.

The world's only liberal arts college for the deaf is Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. But Nino is exploring plans to attend what the deaf community calls a "hearing college" -- University of Miami, more than 1,000 miles away in Florida.

Nino's progress and that of other teens who received implants when they were very young are being watched closely by educators, researchers and parents.

"He would have been a deaf-mute had he not gotten a cochlear implant," said Dr. Douglas Chen, an ear specialist at Allegheny General Hospital who implanted Nino's device. "He represents what the potential of cochlear implantation is in children. ... It is literally a life-changing device.''

Bonnie Russo, a physician's assistant, agreed. "He completely interacts with the oral world and does not sign. I left that option up to him. At this point he has no desire to learn. He doesn't find a deficit anywhere in the ways of communicating."

Strangers who meet him and learn that he's deaf "walk away in awe,'' she said.
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"The implants have changed the whole landscape of deaf education," said Apryl Eshelman, DePaul's director of institutional advancement. Years ago, students weren't mainstreamed until high school; now, with implants, digital hearing aids and newborn hearing tests, children are heading to regular schools by kindergarten or first grade -- many with no trace of deaf speech.
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If you put a cochlear implant in a child, probably an oral school is best suited to that child's educational needs," he said.

"Not everybody is going to be a Nino Russo. Some kids will do better even with a cochlear implant by signing. There is a place for a Total Communication school, but you'd like to at least give the cochlear implant its maximum opportunity right up front."

Researchers of a National Institutes of Health study who have followed 180 children who received implants in the 1990s are coming to that same conclusion.

At a gathering last summer in St. Louis of 30 of those children, including Nino, researcher Ann Geers observed dramatic differences in speech quality and academic performance between those who had been educated in all-oral programs vs. Total Communication.

"On average, these kids in oral settings are doing significantly better,'' said Geers, a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School who has worked with deaf children since the 1960s.

Her biggest surprise was the reading level that these children had achieved.

"I did not expect for half of the kids to be reading at grade level, that's atypical of profoundly deaf kids. The highest level kids are seen at are eighth-grade level. We have half of these kids at 10th and 11th."
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Interesting article. Read the whole thing. But here's what Bienvenu said:

What's wrong with being deaf?'' asked M.J. Bienvenu, chair of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University who was born deaf to deaf
parents. "We've got a culture. We're bilingual. We're not half a person. We're
actually double."

Oohh..."double" ? Ok. What's wrong with being able to hear? And what makes Bienvenu think that cochlear implantees are unable to learn and speak another language? Or for that matter, learn sign language? As a choice?

Both Long and Bienvenu believe the benefits of implants are oversold. They're concerned that parents don't hear the full story and don't understand how much work is involved in training students to use them.

"We're getting the false myth that, 'Hey, you get a cochlear implant and boom! You're normal,''' said Bienvenu, adding that only a small percentage come close to this vision.

Just about as much work for hearing parents to learn sign language? In a day an age when kids are using and operating computers? Carry text pagers? Text phones? Please, spare the "techno" excuse. Now, all Gallaudet University need to do is show a study on deaf kids without cochlear implants and those who sign are reading >>at<< grade level and they'll have something to show for. Still waiting on that. Meanwhile, too bad that Bienvenu thinks that parents think that getting a cochlear implant means "normalcy" when they already know better prior to any cochlear implant operation. It's a serious decision. I think Bienvenu is just a bit uptight and feeling a bit threatened by some of the cochlear implant successes at the moment.

Be sure to watch out for more long term studies coming out regarding kids with cochlear implants who are now in their teens.

Thank God for hearing aids on my part. Silence isn't exactly golden.