When I was at a party recently I asked a guy how he liked his CI. Expecting to hear reports of wonder at how well he could hear again, I was surprised when he shrugged and said, “so-so.” He went on to say that prior to getting the implant, he asked his doctor if he would be able to hear again and the doctor said, “It all depends on your attitude.. . You know what?” the guy said, “That’s bullshit! Either it works or it doesn’t work. Please don’t tell me it’s my ATTITUDE!”
I have to agree. Who in their right mind would opt for an expensive procedure like the CI, then not do what it takes to learn to hear again? Attitude?! Obviously if you want to hear badly enough to have a powerful magnet placed in your head, you’re going to work at getting some benefit out of it.
Reminds me of people who say one’s ability to fight off cancer has to do with their attitude– or worse– faith. Why not just admit the drugs don’t work all the time? It’s the same with the implant. Sometimes it works great. Other times? Not really. The success of the CI depends on a lot of variables too numerous to list here. But because it’s known CI’s aren’t 100% successful, only people who have nothing to lose get them.
Think about that.
So I’ve been reading
Jodi’s blog about implants and children, and this subject of CI success has come up once again. One commenter said,
While I am aware that there are children who cannot hear and speak as well as my (children) can with their CIs, the majority of those who are identified and implanted early and taught to learn to listen and speak will succeed. . .
Which caused another to respond. . .
One needs to be realistic about this and consider that one study found that just 4% of the CI children are fully functional through all levels in hearing school.
Asked to provide her source, she did–
Here. This is a 52 page report. On page 11 there’s a chart that explains the 4.4% statistic and how ”fully functional” is defined. 84% are ’mildly’ or ’severely’ limited–with the majority falling into the ’severely limited’ range.
I don’t know anything about Johnson, the writer of the report, but my gut tells me he’s spot on. Because the success rates seem to basically reflect what I’ve seen among my implanted late-deafened peers. And frankly because we all know that big people are simply little people who’ve grown up, there should be MANY consistent data between the two groups– baby borgs and adult borgs. I don’t know a single one who functions exactly like a hearing person with absolutely no need for any accommodations, though several adult borgs I know do have and use cell phones. The phone thing– that’s iffy. Music is another touchy subject among borgs. Some enjoy it, some don’t. Most still need captioned TV, and a lot of them prefer Captel phones, even though they can use a cell phone in a pinch. A lot of them also use hearing dogs and various other accommodations for the deaf.
Johnson was careful to point out that the need for accommodations doesn’t necessarily mean the CI was a failure. After all, we’re dealing with a population who were profoundly deaf to begin with. They would have needed accommodations without their CI’s. Someone who is ’severely limited’ may need fewer accommodations than someone who is ‘profoundly deaf’, so in my opinion, the chart illustrates an 88% sucess rate– not a 4% success rate. It all depends on how you look at it. But do most borgs function ‘exactly’ like hearing people? NO!
Yet, none of those I know who are ’severely limited’ with their CI’s have ever said they wished they hadn’t gone through with it. Even the guy who said he could hear “just so-so.” He still hears better than he did without the CI, so he considers it marginally successful– which is still sucess.
Back to Jodi’s blog– Another commenter piped up.
First of all, the editorial/analysis mentioned(it was not a study, really, as it had no data of its own) used not only extremely outdated data and equipment references, but did not separate children into success categories based on their methodology, parental involvement, age of implantation, and so on, . . . This is telling, because the sim-com and ASL popularity of the 70s, 80s and 90s would certainly create skewed stats and “failures” in data of early cochlear implants. Even today, I see lesser results from those who choose not to follow the path of best practices of CI habilitation (focusing on listening and speaking until one is on par with hearing peers). I find it humorous given that, of all the parents and kids which I’ve met with CIs (and, at this point, it’s dozens and dozens), I haven’t met anyone who didn’t actually function quite “normally,” indeed, except for a couple of children who are developmentally disabled.
*(The underlines are mine.)
REALLY!? Maybe we need to define the word “normal” then. He/she blames the lack of CI success on the wrong “habilitation” methods and lack of parental involvement. The RIGHT method (of course) is one that excludes any form of sign language and one that involves parents– the more parental involvement the better. How could anyone measure “parental” involvement anyway? And wouldn’t that be a somewhat subjective measurement in itself since any uninvolved parent’s answer would likely be a dishonest one? What parent in a study would admit he/she’s NOT doing the ‘habilitation exercises’ with his/her kid? But nevermind — the main point is that with kids it is evidently the parent’s attitude that determines how well the CI will work.
Gimme a break. Sounds like so much bullshit, doesn’t it? I mean, either it works or it doesn’t work. Couldn’t it be that one reason some parents choose TC over AVT is because they can see the dang thing ain’t working as well as they’d hoped?
Couldn’t it be that the reason doctors won’t implant people with just a severe hearing loss is because the failure rate is so high they don’t want to take the chance of someone losing even a teeny bit of good residual hearing?
Some awesome new developments are happening with hearing aids.
