Giving Voice to Deaf Children | Medical News and Health Information

Reported May 31, 2011
Giving Voice to Deaf Children -- Research Summary

BACKGROUND: At birth, a baby immediately begins to use the five senses to take in information about his or her new surroundings. The sense of hearing is especially important, as it is crucial to developing language skills. Unfortunately, three out of every 1000 babies are born with a hearing defect, and nearly half of those aren't screened for a hearing test until their second year of life. Therefore, it's up to the parents to detect early signs of infant hearing loss. Though babies have different responses to sound in the first stages of life, there are some guidelines for making sure your baby can hear. At birth your baby should startle or awaken at loud noises and appear to listen to voices. By three months, babies usually cry differently for different needs, turn towards interesting sounds, and smile when spoken to, and by six months, a baby should respond to his or her name, say a lot of different sounds, turn his or her head in response to different sounds, and react to changes in your tone of voice. At one year, a baby should try to imitate different speech sounds, say his or her first words, understand simple requests, and know words for common items. If your child does have permanent hearing loss, the earlier it's detected, the earlier you can get help.

COCHLEAR IMPLANTS: A cochlear implant is a device that will allow a profoundly deaf person to hear. The cochlear implant is a two part device; one part is external and another is internal, and is placed under the skin via surgery. A cochlear implant works differently from a hearing aid; while a hearing aid amplifies sounds so that the user can hear them, the cochlear implant works by stimulating the auditory nerve. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, approximately 42,600 adults and 28,400 children have received cochlear implants as of December, 2010. A cochlear implant uses a microphone to pick up sounds from the environment, which are then selected and arranged by a speech processor. The sounds are then sent from the speech processor to the transmitter and receiver/stimulator and are converted into electrical impulses that are sent to different regions of the auditory nerve via an electrode array. When the auditory nerve is stimulated, the brain recognizes it as sound, allowing the deaf person to hear.

SOURCE: http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health

Giving Voice to Deaf Children | Medical News and Health Information

Giving Voice to Deaf Children -- Research Summary | Medical News and Health Information