VOICE ONE:
Anne Shigley is a college student with neurofibromatosis type two. She began to lose her hearing at the age of six. Doctors found growths on her auditory nerves and on her spinal cord.
They removed some of the growths. But in her senior year of high school, Anne went deaf. That was two years ago. Last year, she received an auditory brainstem implant. This device is placed on the nerve center at the base of the brain. Experts say it is the only device that can restore limited hearing to
More about Anne a little later.
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VOICE TWO:
People with hearing loss may wear hearing aids inside their ears to increase the loudness of sounds. People who are deaf may have cochlear implants. These require an operation. A cochlear implant can provide what the experts call a sense of sound. The device changes sounds into electrical signals and sends them to different areas of the cochlear nerve in the ear.
Cochlear implants do not create normal hearing. But experts say they can give deaf people a useful representation of sounds. This can help them in understanding speech. It may take months, though, to be able to make sense of the sounds that they are now able to hear.
VOICE ONE:
Trena Shank is deaf. She teaches American Sign Language at Ohio State University. She says the use of cochlear implants has been much discussed lately in the deaf community. This is partly because doctors are now able to offer them for babies.
Trena Shank says cochlear implants work best in people who have some hearing and in those who lost their hearing later in life. But she is against the use of cochlear implants in very young children or those who are completely deaf. She believes that having an implant can damage feelings of self-worth in children. The children are not accepted in the deaf world, nor are they part of the hearing one either, she says.
VOICE TWO:
Some critics of cochlear implants in babies go so far as to say that supporters are disrespecting deaf culture, or even trying to destroy it. They say they understand that people who became deaf later in life would want technology to help them hear again. But many people who have always been deaf do not consider themselves disabled. They say they are just different and in no need of a cure.
Some people, though, say deaf people should be well informed about the technology available before they make any decisions. This is the position of a group in California called the Let Them Hear Foundation.
VOICE ONE:
Spokeswoman Caitlin Roberson says the group respects whatever decision a deaf person makes, for themselves or family members. She says the goal of the foundation is to bring hearing to those who want it.
Representatives travel internationally to teach doctors and others about cochlear implants and other hearing devices. Some of the companies that support the Let Them Hear Foundation make cochlear implants.
The group is active in efforts in the United States to get insurance companies to pay for the implants. They cost between eighty thousand and more than one hundred thousand dollars each.
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