The Revenge of Sandra Fluke

really? hunh

I try to not link anything with forced pop-ups

our pop-up blockers in Canada must be powerful

Nope, i didn't get a pop-up either.

Hi soz. I hear that the cochlear implants can be quite disturbing and require "Filters" to keep out background noises which can easily confuse the wearer.

Is that so?

Hes been a pckage of mean-spirited nastiness all through his hoistory. His comments on black quarterbacks got him layed off from sports Tv, His comments on NJ Girls college basketball teams did his several clients in.
I suppose he will go the way of Glenn Beck ho has pretty much become marginalized and only seems to have sponsors that are self dealing.
Im certain that there is a sufficient cluster of yahoos that will take Limbo and Beck as "truth seekers", but for those folks, there are plenty of acres of swampland for sale.

Huh. I got no pop-ups either.

OOoh, this is one that I could answer at great, boring length, or give a short version. I'll try for the latter.

The utility of cochlear implants varies greatly. In even the best-case scenario, though, they don't work like glasses, a perfect correction to the sensory deficit. A deaf person who gets cochlear implants does not become hearing.

So, with that as a starting point, there's a wide range of how much useful hearing someone gains with a cochlear implant. And "useful" is really the rub. They're VERY good at indicating a sound has occurred, and so they tend to do great in audiograms -- click the button when you hear a sound. The problem, though, is whether that translates to being able to carry on a conversation or generally interact with the world.

I have many deaf friends with cochlear implants who continue to use ASL, interpreters, etc., but enjoy having a little more data; one friend of mine says it's great to be able to tell when a car is coming when she's about to cross the street, for example. I have met many (MANY) (MANY) people who expected to be able to hear enough to function with their cochlear implants, and who were sorely disappointed. (To the point of being clinically depressed.)

And this isn't going into all the people I know who got CIs and then had terrible side effects; one friend had terrible vertigo for over a year (still has it but less frequently), which meant she had to miss a lot of work and couldn't pick up her toddler twins.

A typical "success story" is this one from someone I met who went on at great length about how much she loved them (in ASL, at a deaf event). Her husband is hearing, and one morning she woke up, put on her CIs, and heard some incredible racket. Some sort of mechanical grating noise, super-loud, really alarming. She woke up her husband and he said he couldn't hear anything. She persisted, and they finally figured out -- oh, she could hear birds! That was the horrible, grating, awful sound.

Yay?

awww, sounds like Id go for the signing and lip reading. Thanks soz. BTW, Its great to read your "voice" again. Dont be a stranger.

If that is true, it must be like hearing aides. Been a while since I have worn any, long ago when my then boyfriend later turned husband wore them hunting...lost them. I later got some more from a vocational rehabilitation program, lost them on my own. I was always taking them out and leaving them places. I am fortunate, I am not deaf, but hard of hearing my whole life, getting worse the older I get. No doctor has ever mentioned implants since for the most part, hearing aides work ok for me.

Yeah, that's been my choice so far! Even the successiest success story hasn't convinced me that I'd have better quality of life. One guy was like "I mean I get exhausted if I have to talk to more than one person because I really, really have to concentrate, but it's the same for hearing people" -- no, I was one, hearing was just a passive thing that happened. There might be an introversion/ extroversion thing, but it's not a hearing thing. I know that for whatever combination of reasons (probably the fact that I had short periods of hearing loss from when I was really little) I can speechread unusually well, and can (not always, but can) function just fine at parties for example without any hearing at all. I get that better-than-zero hearing can be a more attractive prospect to someone who is less comfortable with speechreading.

And back atcha, good to "read" you again. Just saw something from you that made me guffaw. ("Submerged in Pa German and German-English language, Ive taken at least 50 of my 65 years to stop sounding like Yoda's nephew.")

I doubt you remember, but back in 2008, we were discussing the aggravation of youtubes not being Captioned? Now it seems most of all youtubes are closed captioned. I wonder if someone can (if there is one I don't know about it) invent some kind of app or device to where you can shut out the sound at the movie Theater and have a closed captioned run with it? The only draw back I could see would be it might be hard to look down and at the movie at the same time. The reason I bring it up is because I recently saw the Jungle Books with my kids, now they want to see Alice and the Looking Glass. I would really look forward to seeing that much more if I could shut down the sound and read it. As it is, hoping they will be content to wait and buy it when it comes out. Just saying at the theater it is way too loud for me and I still can't make out the words. Plus, it would seem something the deaf might be missing out on?

Captions are still far from universal on YouTube unfortunately -- but yes, a LOT of improvement!

"Real" captioned videos are pretty rare; automatically captioned videos are more common but the automatic captions still suck. If you're listening, they seem not-bad, but if you rely on them alone they're awful. Part of my current job is advising educators about captions, and whenever someone faces a recalcitrant admin who thinks automatic captions are "good enough," I advise that they ask the admin to watch without sound.

YouTube has a bunch of great options for people to caption their own videos now, though, and even crowdsource them!

And captions at movie theaters have shown even more improvement. This might be a function of where I live -- large deaf population -- but I can expect to just grab a captioning thingie when I go to the movies.



The bottom part goes in the cupholder, you turn it on, et voila, captions! I've gotten used to them and while captions onscreen would be nice, they're really quite effective.

Go ahead and ask for one next time you go! You can also check listings online and there should be a "cc" if it's captioned.

Huh, I had no idea they had captioned things at the movie theaters, never thought to ask. Glad I said something to you. Thanks. I really admire your work.

In the sixth grade when I lived near Henderson KY, the school was more advanced, I had a lot more help with speech classes and such so I know your work is very important for children with hearing impaired or deaf needs. Don't meant to hog this thread.

Never knew Limbaugh had a hearing problem.

I am "not so slowly" loing my hearing. Right now its motly at the high registers. So my wife an violin music and piccolos re the hqrdest to understqnd. My wife has a tweety bird register and she gets pissed cause I cant hearher when Im driving. Though I think most of my loss is due to my explosion damage.

Well, what can I say? I got one so you can believe I lied about it or that I hallucinated.

More likely it didn't detect any of its cookies in my computer and saw me as a potential convert, but that might not fit in with what you are insinuating.

if anything I suggested that the pop-up blocker I'm using is good (Kaspersky on Opera)

<shrug>

I got that same pop-up. Looks like an ad to some blog. You can just read the link I posted to start the thread if you want.

I hear deep gravely voices a lot better than high pitched voices too. Last I was tested I had a 95% hearing speech recognition loss, I can still hear sounds, but not as good.

Lol

Oh, OK...