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Cochlear Implants
Evolving Perspectives
Raylene Paludneviciene
Gallaudet University Press, 2011

The cochlear implant debate has changed, as evidenced in this cogent collection that presents 13 chapters by 20 experts, including several who communicate through sign language but also utilize cochlear implants. The impetus for this change stems from recognition that both visual and aural input can enhance the education of deaf children.

Divided into four sections, Cochlear Implants: Evolving Perspectives first focuses on the impact of implants in the Deaf community. Chapters in this section examine the issues driving the cochlear implant debate, the ethics of genetic engineering, experiences of implanted adult deaf signers, reflections of deaf mothers who have had their children implanted, and the effects of implants on deaf identity. The second section delves into the mechanics of bimodal processing, including listening strategies that can benefit signing children with cochlear implants. The third section surveys combined aural/visual educational approaches, such as teaching implanted children in an ASL/English bilingual classroom, and applying auditory rehabilitation to a signed communication context.

The final section challenges readers to reframe the debate first by exploring sensory politics, then by envisioning an emerging world that requires the Deaf community to connect with it to secure its future. With this information, readers will reach their own conclusions about cochlear implants and auditory and visual approaches to the mastery of both spoken and signed languages.

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Cochlear Implants in Children
Ethics and Choices
John B. Christiansen
Gallaudet University Press, 2002

Cochlear Implants in Children: Ethics and Choices addresses every facet of the ongoing controversy about implanting cochlear hearing devices in children as young as 12 months old and in some cases, younger. Authors John B. Christiansen and Irene W. Leigh and contributors Jay Lucker and Patricia Elizabeth Spencer analyzed the sensitive issues connected with the procedure by reviewing 439 responses to a survey of parents with children who have cochlear implants. They followed up with interviews of the parents of children who have had a year's experience using their implants, and also the children themselves. Their findings shape the core of this useful and telling study.

       Cochlear Implants begins with a history of their development and an explanation of how implants convert sound into electric impulses that stimulate the brain. The second section focuses on pediatric implants, starting with the ways parents coped with the discovery that their child was deaf. Parents share how they learned about cochlear implants and how they chose an implant center. They also detail their children's experiences with the implants after surgery, and their progress with language acquisition and in school.

       The final part treats the controversy associated with cochlear implants, particularly the reaction of the Deaf community and the ethics of implanting young children without their consent. Cochlear Implants concludes with sage observations and recommendations for parents and professionals that complete it as the essential book on the pros and cons of this burgeoning technology.

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Communication Therapy
An Integrated Approach to Aural Rehabilitation
Mary June Moseley
Gallaudet University Press, 1996

This new book for students and professionals emphasizes a functional approach to aural rehabilitation refined during the past several years. It details the use of an integrated therapy strategy designed to meet a variety of needs for each client while simultaneously working on multiple communication skill areas. Particular care has been taken to address the different requirements of deaf and hard of hearing adolescents and adults, including information about the unique needs of the culturally Deaf population. Throughout this practical text, clinicians receive encouragement to learn American Sign Language to enhance communication with Deaf clients.

       Communication Therapy calls upon the expertise of various authorities well-versed in integrated therapy. They explain fully the state-of-the-art practices for all therapy areas, from global areas in communication therapy, to technology for aural rehabilitation, auditory skills, speechreading, speech and voice, pronunciation, and language skills, and telephone communication training. Case studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the integrated approach, making this book a significant advancement in communication therapy.

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The Handbook of Pediatric Audiology
Sanford Gerber
Gallaudet University Press, 2000
The Handbook of Pediatric Audiology presents 14 comprehensive chapters written by the preeminent expert in each discipline. Clinicians and students now can refer to specific subjects in pediatric audiology for treating children from infancy through their elementary school years.

       Practitioners will be able to rely upon this complete volume as they would a trusted consultant thoroughly knowledgeable about indications and treatments for every condition. The Handbook of Pediatric Audiology offers contributions by Yash Pal Kapur, Franklin A. Katz, Robert J. Ruben, Allan O. Diefendorf and Judith S. Gravel, Jane R. Madell, Shlomo Silman and Carol A. Silverman, and Herbert Jay Gold and Maurice Mendel. Judith A. Brimacombe and Anne L. Beiter present the latest clinical information on cochlear implants in children, including the current debate on cultural considerations. Audiology and education are discussed by E. Harris Nober, and George T. Mencher advises audiologists on counseling families of deaf and hard of hearing children. Evelyn Cherow presents several models of service delivery. These well-known authorities and the many others within make The Handbook of Pediatric Audiology an indispensable resource for clinicians and students alike.
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Hearing Happiness
Deafness Cures in History
Jaipreet Virdi
University of Chicago Press, 2020
Weaving together lyrical history and personal memoir, Virdi powerfully examines society’s—and her own—perception of life as a deaf person in America.

At the age of four, Jaipreet Virdi’s world went silent. A severe case of meningitis left her alive but deaf, suddenly treated differently by everyone. Her deafness downplayed by society and doctors, she struggled to “pass” as hearing for most of her life. Countless cures, treatments, and technologies led to dead ends. Never quite deaf enough for the Deaf community or quite hearing enough for the “normal” majority, Virdi was stuck in aural limbo for years. It wasn’t until her thirties, exasperated by problems with new digital hearing aids, that she began to actively assert her deafness and reexamine society’s—and her own—perception of life as a deaf person in America.
 
Through lyrical history and personal memoir, Hearing Happiness raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure. Taking us from the 1860s up to the present, Virdi combs archives and museums in order to understand the long history of curious cures: ear trumpets, violet ray apparatuses, vibrating massagers, electrotherapy machines, airplane diving, bloodletting, skull hammering, and many more. Hundreds of procedures and products have promised grand miracles but always failed to deliver a universal cure—a harmful legacy that is still present in contemporary biomedicine.

Weaving Virdi’s own experiences together with her exploration into the fascinating history of deafness cures, Hearing Happiness is a powerful story that America needs to hear.
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Hearing Happiness
Deafness Cures in History
Jaipreet Virdi
University of Chicago Press, 2020

This is an auto-narrated audiobook edition of this book.

Weaving together lyrical history and personal memoir, Virdi powerfully examines society’s—and her own—perception of life as a deaf person in America.

At the age of four, Jaipreet Virdi’s world went silent. A severe case of meningitis left her alive but deaf, suddenly treated differently by everyone. Her deafness downplayed by society and doctors, she struggled to “pass” as hearing for most of her life. Countless cures, treatments, and technologies led to dead ends. Never quite deaf enough for the Deaf community or quite hearing enough for the “normal” majority, Virdi was stuck in aural limbo for years. It wasn’t until her thirties, exasperated by problems with new digital hearing aids, that she began to actively assert her deafness and reexamine society’s—and her own—perception of life as a deaf person in America.
 
Through lyrical history and personal memoir, Hearing Happiness raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure. Taking us from the 1860s up to the present, Virdi combs archives and museums in order to understand the long history of curious cures: ear trumpets, violet ray apparatuses, vibrating massagers, electrotherapy machines, airplane diving, bloodletting, skull hammering, and many more. Hundreds of procedures and products have promised grand miracles but always failed to deliver a universal cure—a harmful legacy that is still present in contemporary biomedicine.

Weaving Virdi’s own experiences together with her exploration into the fascinating history of deafness cures, Hearing Happiness is a powerful story that America needs to hear.

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Made to Hear
Cochlear Implants and Raising Deaf Children
Laura Mauldin
University of Minnesota Press, 2016

A mother whose child has had a cochlear implant tells Laura Mauldin why enrollment in the sign language program at her daughter’s school is plummeting: “The majority of parents want their kids to talk.” Some parents, however, feel very differently, because “curing” deafness with cochlear implants is uncertain, difficult, and freighted with judgment about what is normal, acceptable, and right. Made to Hear sensitively and thoroughly considers the structure and culture of the systems we have built to make deaf children hear.

Based on accounts of and interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with the professionals who work with them, and the influence of neuroscience on the process. Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation. Her study provides a nuanced view of a social context in which science, technology, and medicine are trusted to vanquish disability—and in which mothers are expected to use these tools. Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child’s brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center.

Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, Made to Hear shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology.


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Missing Words
The Family Handbook on Adult Hearing Loss
Kay Thomsett
Gallaudet University Press, 1993
Written by Eve Nickerson, who is deaf, and her daughter Kay Thomsett, Missing Words lays out the practical steps families can take to adjust to a loved one’s hearing loss. This excellent guidebook shows how the exchange of information can be altered at fundamental levels, what these alterations entail, and how they can affect one’s ability to understand and interpret spoken communication. Along with the hands-on tips provided throughout, this handbook considers the potential of cochlear implants, described both by audiologist Holden and by Nickerson, who underwent implant surgery in 1985. For all families coping with a loved one’s hearing loss, Missing Words is the outstanding single resource upon which they can rely.
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The Parents' Guide to Cochlear Implants
Patricia M. Chute
Gallaudet University Press, 2002
Now, parents of deaf children have at hand a complete guide to the process of cochlear implantation. Written by two eminent professionals in deaf education, The Parents’ Guide to Cochlear Implants explains in a friendly, easy-to-follow style each stage of the process. Parents will discover how to have their child evaluated to determine her or his suitability for an implant. They’ll learn about implant device options, how to choose an implant center, and every detail of the surgical procedure. The initial “switch-on” is described along with counseling about device maintenance.

Most importantly, parents will learn their roles in helping their child adjust to and successfully use the cochlear implant. The Parents’ Guide to Cochlear Implants emphasizes such critical subjects as learning to listen through home activities, implants as tools for language development, and critical issues regarding school placement. This encouraging book considers the implications for performance in light of the whole child, including issues related to Deaf culture and cochlear implants. The authors also include brief stories by parents whose children have had implants that provide reassuring actual experiences to parents considering the procedure for their own child. With a last word on parenting perspectives and a rich source of resources in the appendices, this one-of-a-kind guide will arm parents of deaf children with complete confidence to make informed decisions about cochlear implantation.
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Sound Sense
Living and Learning with Hearing Loss
Sara Laufer Batinovich
Gallaudet University Press, 2011

One out of every eight people between the ages of 18 and 67 in the United States has a hearing loss, estimated as 12 percent of the working-age population. Sound Sense: Living and Learning with Hearing Loss addresses the acute need of these people to function at the highest level in these income-earning years, the longest phase in their lives. In nine pointed chapters, author Sara Laufer Batinovich, who also has lost her hearing, shares her experience and knowledge in turning every challenge into an opportunity to become one’s best self-advocate.

Batinovich begins in the workplace, advising on winning a job, keeping it, and developing a long-term career, plus how to reduce stress and establish fulfilling professional relationships with colleagues. She offers tips on communication ranging from having sales people face you for easier speechreading to parsing boarding announcements at airports and play-by-play at ballparks. Her practical handbook also provides step-by-step guidance for getting a hearing aid or a cochlear implant and finding one’s way through prickly insurance claim mazes.

Sound Sense features information on finding a service dog, securing legally mandated accommodations for continuing education, tips on exercise and health, and even sensitive suggestions on strengthening personal relationships. Batinovich’s vivacious style and her own anecdotes add an upbeat, genuine sensibility to her book’s value as a positive guide to living with hearing loss.

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Speechreading
A Way To Improve Understanding
Harriet Kaplan
Gallaudet University Press, 1985

Speechreading: A Way to Improve Understanding discusses the nature and process of speechreading, its benefits, and its limitations. This useful book clarifies commonly-held misconceptions about speechreading. The beginning chapters address difficult communication situations and problems related to the speaker, the speechreader, and the environment. It then offers strategies to manage them.

       Speechreading provides practical exercises illustrating the use ofthese communication strategies in actual situations. It is an excellent book for late-deafened adults, families and friends, parents of children with hearing loss, and professionals and students.

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Stuttering and What you can do About it
Wendell Johnson
University of Minnesota Press, 1961
This is a book for parents who are worried about their children’s stuttering, for teachers, doctors, friends, and relatives of those who stutter, and for stutterers themselves. It offers help, encouragement, and guidance in dealing with the problem of stuttering, which troubles more than a million persons in the United States alone.Dr. Johnson, an outstanding authority on the subject, writes in simple language so that anyone can readily understand and follow his suggestions. What he says in this book is based on many years of laboratory research and clinical observation, and his own experience as a stutterer. He tells of his early years of struggle with the handicap and his decision to devote his life to getting at the basic causes of stuttering and finding ways to prevent or alleviate it. He describes his research experiences, likening them to a detective story centered on a search for the causes of stuttering as the culprit in the case. In this account he quotes from interviews which he conducted with parents in an effort to pinpoint the exact conditions or situations in which stuttering was believed to have started. He explains how the problem develops and how it becomes a frustrating “sad-go-round.” Finally, he tells what parents and others can do for children who are threatened with the handicap of stuttering and what adult stutterers can do to help themselves.
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Stuttering in Children and Adults
Thirty Years of Research at the University of Iowa
Wendell Johnson, Editor
University of Minnesota Press, 1955

Stuttering in Children and Adults was first published in 1955. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

One of the largest groups of handicapped people in the world today is made up of the estimated fifteen million persons who stutter. Their predicament has been one of man's most baffling problems ever since it was first recorded by the ancients, but not until the present century has the mystery of stuttering showed any signs of lifting.

The studies collected in this volume represent a substantial step toward the solving of the mystery. The University of Iowa, a pioneer in research on the causes and treatment of stuttering, has carried on its work for many years. This book presents all previously unpublished papers and dissertations (a total of forty-three) that have resulted from this research program.

Much of the work centers on the onset of stuttering in children and underlies the theory that stuttering begins with the hearer rather than the speaker. Interrelationships between personality and stuttering have been investigated, a search has been made for a possible physical basis for stuttering, conditions affecting severity of stuttering have been studied, and research on therapy has been attempted.

This is an important book for psychologists, educators, social workers, physicians, parents, and others concerned with speech disorders. For those who devote their full effort to the problems discussed—the specialists in speech pathology and therapy—the book is essential.

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Surgical Consent
Bioethics and Cochlear Implantation
Linda Komesaroff
Gallaudet University Press, 2007

With the rate of cochlear implantation reaching 80% to 90% of all deaf children, some as young as five months old, Surgical Consent: Bioethics and Cochlear Implantation arrives at a critical juncture. This comprehensive collection features essays by Priscilla Alderson, Inger Lise Skog Hansen, Hilde Haualand, volume editor Linda Komesaroff, Paddy Ladd, Harlan Lane, Karen Lloyd, Eithne Mills, Paal Richard Peterson, Gunilla Preisler, Kristina Svartholm, and Michael Uniacke. These worldwide renowned ethicists, educators, and Deaf leaders express their diverse perspectives on the bioethics of childhood cochlear implantation according to their discipline and a number of themes of inquiry: human rights, medical and social ethics, psychology, education, globalization, identity, life pathways, democracy, media, law, and biotechnology.

Drawing on current research, this volume presents the varying reactions around the globe to the high rate of implantation. These views contrast sharply with the medical perspective of deafness overwhelmingly promoted through the media and by the cochlear implantation industry. At the same time, the contributors aim to disrupt the binaries that have long dominated the field of deafness — speech versus sign, instruction through speech and sign systems versus bilingual education, and medical intervention versus cultural membership in the Deaf community.

Surgical Consent begins and ends with the voices of Deaf people. Their articulate and, at times, raw insights clearly delineate the issues of power, positioning, and minority-majority group relations that are inherent in the dominant hearing culture’s understanding of diversity and globalization.

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