Answering Questions

In this post I am going to answer questions from friends and family about Malachi and CIs.

Do you know why Malachi is deaf or when he became deaf? At this point we don't know. Malachi failed his left ear and passed his right ear at the newborn screening test at the hospital. Then he failed two tests at an a hearing clinic at 1 and 2 months old. They referred us to an otolaryngology office who gave him an ABR while he was awake and restless which they hesitantly passed. She said he "barely" passed and that if something seemed off around 12 months to bring him back and they would test him again. When Malachi wasn't sitting or making sounds at 9 months we were sent to MUSC and saw a developmental doctor who suggested we go to pediatric audiology to test him since he had failed tests in the past....and the rest is already documented here on our blog. We have done some genetic testing and are waiting back for the results. His two brain MRIs are normal and don't show any structural deformities. We suspect it's congenital and it doesn't appear that I had a virus or anything to have caused it.

How does he react to hearing loud sounds with his hearing aids? After we first put on the hearing aids Malachi just stopping moving and looked around, like, "what is all that?" It likely is just static type noise to him. That is until there is something loud like a cowbell. When the speech pathologist rang it on his left side (the ear that actually hears a little something) he would turn to his left with a slightly confused face...."what the heck is that" and then he smiles.

Jenny asked, "I've heard that with cochlear implants they don't hear the same as we hear, that's its more electronic? I'm sure you know more about it, can you explain it a little? I'm just curious as to how it all works." I'm glad Jenny asked because I didn't even think about explaining how CIs work. Basically cochlear implants bypass the ear drum. The picture below is helpful in trying to explain what the implant actually is:

On the outside (what we see) looks similar to a hearing aid, which is the processor that receives the sound, with an another piece behind the ear which is held onto the head by a magnet on the receiver/stimulator inside the skull. The receiver wire is fed through the cochlea. Normally, your ear drum takes sound and sends it through the cochlea, to the cochlear nerve which sends it to your brain. With CIs the processor on the persons ear takes in the sound which is transferred to the receiver and then put into the cochlea using electrodes on the wire. Impulses are sent through the cochlea to the cochlear nerve to the brain. From what I've read, some have described it as sounding robotic. Which makes sense because the sound is being converted by a machine essentially. It also seems like there isn't much tone difference either. So what he'll be hearing will not be what we hear. Now, I'm not a scientist so I'm sure I missed a bunch of things or didn't explain 100% correctly, but that's basically how I understand it. Google "cochlear implants" and you can find tons of information from the FDA and other reliable sources.

Where are you learning ASL? I've actually been wanting to learn for a long time so I was just wondering if you have found a great website or videos that help? If you are serious about learning ASL, I would definitely suggest taking a college type course. However, since that's not an option for us we've found a book that we like along with a couple of websites that are pretty good. The most important part is having someone to practice with (Brian and I have to rely on each other). See if there is a local deaf community get together near you. Those often meet at a coffee shop once a week or so, that would be great practice. At this point we are using www.aslpro.com, a basic pictured ASL/English dictionary and this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Signing-Kids-Revised-Mickey-Flodin/dp/0399533206/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313506377&sr=1-1

(We love this book, it's not just for kids, it's our go to book for ASL)