I have the Clarion Platinum Series, by Advanced Bionics. It has eight electrodes. I elected to have the simulatenous input, where all eight electrodes would fire simulatenously.
Sidebar: Not many could handle the simulatenous mode. It made me sick for a day, but then I could notice the improvement it made on my hearing.
The microphone is on my head, directly behind my left ear. I'm positive that it's located on my head. I'm somewhat a technological geek and I immediately located the microphone and turning my head does intensify/diminish the sound I'm hearing, if it wasn't ambient noise.
I'm currently fighting with the insurance company since they don't cover speech therapy. They do, however, cover physical therapy and that's how I'm trying to change their classification of `auditory training' so that it would be covered. At $280 per session, it's hard not to watch my wallet become the interest of physicists all over (ie it's becoming inverted into negative space.)
``A true native language'' is the language the person is born into, not whatever his skin color/disability/political nature is. If that were the case, then every race would just have one native language, instead of experiencing all these wonderful and rich languages.
The ``Denied his rightful place'' in the [...] community comment smacks of bigotry. It is the self's sole right to be wherever he wants to be. Getting the cochlear implant was a decision that only I was the utmost qualified to make; not the so-called experts, not the Deaf community, not my family nor my siblings. The decision was mine, and mine only.
There are two major views on deafness; 1) Deafness is a cultural trait and, 2) Deafness is a disability to be overcome through, but not limited to, social and technological means. I don't oppose either views. People are free to choose either opinion or entirely make up their own.
Getting a cochlear implant does not, in any way, diminish my stature within society in any way. It does send out the message that I'm less of a person without the cochlear implant. It is unfortunate, however incorrect the assumption by society that may be. But, as a person, I don't give one fig about what the society thought about what I thought. Every person's decision about his life has immediate impact upon his own life, regardless of the impact upon society. A raindrop in the vast ocean may not disturb it any, but it will change the path of that little fish the raindrop fell on.
Before you go on to say that I've never truly tasted what it was like to know ASL inside out, I have been there. I have been a part of the Deaf community. While I was in the Deaf community, I was very lonely since there was not many people within, who could relate to the world the way I do. When I was in the hearing world, I was lonely in a different way, but that was the way I was accustomed to. Having the cochlear implant alleviated this loneliness somewhat, but not wholly.
Your opinion, somewhat bigoted, about the Deaf community is valued as much as the next person's. Thank you.
Yes, I read lips at 85% comprehension. The other 15% is blamed on English and its similar-looking words. Try saying `big' and `pig' in front of the mirror and you'll see what I mean.
Too soon to tell. I rely on experience to infer where the sound is coming from. If I hear something I couldn't identify and I don't immediately see anything that could be causing the sound, I look behind me.
Yes. Music isn't `sound' to me; whenever I feel elated, uplifted, that's music. Sound, on the other hand, sound like, pardon the pun, sounds to me.
I wear the implant all day long and take it off at bedtime. It's way too uncomfortable to sleep with the speech processor on my belt. It doesn't hurt. There are high-pitched sounds that would hurt if I listened to them too long.
The cochlear implant relies on two components; the internal and the external components.
The internal component was surgically embedded into my head, behind my ear. The group of electrodes is inserted into my shell-like cochlea, to lie next to the cochlear nerve. I'll get to that in a moment.
The external component consists of a microphone and a speech processor. The speech processor is worn at the belt and the microphone is magnetically attached to my scalp, connected to the internal magnet inside my head.
The speech processor is responsible for translating analog sounds into digital pulses. The microphone captures the sounds and passes them down to the processor through a thin cord, usually worn under my shirt. The digital pulses travel back up the same cord to the microphone which then transmits, via low-powered radio frequency, the pulses through my skin. The pulses direct the electrodes to stimulate the cochlear nerve and in essence, mimic the process of hearing.
I should have mentioned it in the article; I did, in fact, ask the professionals before turning to the slashdot crowd. Most of their implant users fit in several categories:
1. children born deaf or lost their hearing soon after birth (within 6 years) 2. Adults who were able to use hearing aids until their hearing progessed to the point where HAs no longer worked. They have a basis on which to train themselves on hearing with a cochlear implant.
Since my background, as a profoundly deaf man, statistically would have put me right into the Deaf (notice the capital `D') community, and then I wouldn't even preceive a need for an implant. However, since I'm a fluke to the statisticians, I grew up completely in the hearing world; hearing parents, hearing siblings, and so on.
But I digress; the professionals were at a loss on how to advise a deaf man who's never, nor could, remembered hearing per se. So here I am.
Indeed, I do that nowadays. I find that using the subtitles (instead of the closed captions) generally leaves out the sound effects and that has helped me consciously identify environmental sounds.
Alas, not all subtitles are in sync with what was being spoken in the movie.
Slashdot Mirror
I have the Clarion Platinum Series, by Advanced Bionics. It has eight electrodes. I elected to have the simulatenous input, where all eight electrodes would fire simulatenously.
Sidebar: Not many could handle the simulatenous mode. It made me sick for a day, but then I could notice the improvement it made on my hearing.
The microphone is on my head, directly behind my left ear. I'm positive that it's located on my head. I'm somewhat a technological geek and I immediately located the microphone and turning my head does intensify/diminish the sound I'm hearing, if it wasn't ambient noise.
I'm currently fighting with the insurance company since they don't cover speech therapy. They do, however, cover physical therapy and that's how I'm trying to change their classification of `auditory training' so that it would be covered. At $280 per session, it's hard not to watch my wallet become the interest of physicists all over (ie it's becoming inverted into negative space.)
The cochlear implant relies on two components; the internal and the external components.
The internal component was surgically embedded into my head, behind my ear. The group of electrodes is inserted into my shell-like cochlea, to lie next to the cochlear nerve. I'll get to that in a moment.
The external component consists of a microphone and a speech processor. The speech processor is worn at the belt and the microphone is magnetically attached to my scalp, connected to the internal magnet inside my head.
The speech processor is responsible for translating analog sounds into digital pulses. The microphone captures the sounds and passes them down to the processor through a thin cord, usually worn under my shirt. The digital pulses travel back up the same cord to the microphone which then transmits, via low-powered radio frequency, the pulses through my skin. The pulses direct the electrodes to stimulate the cochlear nerve and in essence, mimic the process of hearing.
I should have mentioned it in the article; I did, in fact, ask the professionals before turning to the slashdot crowd. Most of their implant users fit in several categories:
1. children born deaf or lost their hearing soon after birth (within 6 years)
2. Adults who were able to use hearing aids until their hearing progessed to the point where HAs no longer worked. They have a basis on which to train themselves on hearing with a cochlear implant.
Since my background, as a profoundly deaf man, statistically would have put me right into the Deaf (notice the capital `D') community, and then I wouldn't even preceive a need for an implant. However, since I'm a fluke to the statisticians, I grew up completely in the hearing world; hearing parents, hearing siblings, and so on.
But I digress; the professionals were at a loss on how to advise a deaf man who's never, nor could, remembered hearing per se. So here I am.
Indeed, I do that nowadays. I find that using the subtitles (instead of the closed captions) generally leaves out the sound effects and that has helped me consciously identify environmental sounds.
Alas, not all subtitles are in sync with what was being spoken in the movie.