cochlear implants

[CristinaTheAstonishing]

Kokeshi - how are you doing with the CI? How is your hearing of music? DS seems to get a lot of rhythm and can make a good guess at what kind of instruments are played. His singing, though, is almost as bad as mine. DD (2.8 and hearing) has now learnt a song after him. I have no idea what the original sounds like (something about Jesus being water of life).

Hi Cristina...thanks so much for asking after me, it's loevly to hear from you again. I'm surprised at how quickly I've become used to the CI - even to the extent that I often forget I am deafened! I wouldn't have imagined that if you'd told me last year.

So much so that we've just come back from a 7 weeks trip to Australia, something I wouldn't have considered had I still been deaf. It's been a fantastic success all round I think, and has also had a huge positive impact on my relationships with my family and friends. I did feel pretty isolated for those 8 months.

Specifically music you asked about? Well, I can discern beats, rhythms, and even simple melodies. I can probably guess songs that I've heard before after a chorus or a verse, but unfortunately it doesn't sound much like it used to. It isn't a huge deal, granted, and proves to me if this is one of the only problems I have then it's pretty much been a success.

The only other problems are those of background noise and locating sound, which I've been told is more of a problem because I don't have bilateral hearing than the implant itself. If I were to have two implants, I would be pretty much functioning as a hearing person.

You must see so much difference in DS? I think the testimony to the success of mine is that I'm spending very little time thinking about it and have pretty much re-established my previous routines. I still haven't been back to filmmaking, but that's a personal choice, and I'm not ruling it out forever. It's quite a frantic and stressful environment to be in and I want to be totally comfortable with it before I venture back there.

How are things with you? Did I read that you were pg? Sorry if I have this wrong, I haven't been on MN much since I went way, but best wishes to you and your family, and thanks again for asking!

Hi Kokeshi - thanks for replying. We were looking on the internet for samples of music as they sound through a CI for my SIL when she was visiting, and it was distressing. Pop music sounded OK but classical music unrecognisable and quite ugly in fact.

DS is 8 now and he is doing v well with the CI although some of the old problems are reappearing: totally ignoring you, not making you aware that he's heard you etc. I think we need to trust that he can really hear us and not panic over everything. I still find myself needing to get his eye contact before i speak to him, although he can hear me while he's doing something else. Habits we've grown into over the years. He's doing French at an after-school club, his choice, unthinkable years ago. He can hear the rice crispies crackling and hundreds of other tiny things.

I've had another daughter, Heidi. She's 8 weeks old and wears hearing aids and will get a CI around her first birthday. She doesn't get to wear the aids for long because she still sleeps most of the time. She's had them for one week, no response yet. The ABR showed she's just as profoundly deaf as Dominic.

You sound very happy after your Australian journey. Did you noitice any difference in people's attitudes towards deafness there? Did you have any trouble travelling, did you need to show your card at the airport? Did you get through the detectors? (Sorry for all the questions.) We've only been to Paris since Dom's implant, I asked for him to be hand searched when passing customs.

Are you starting to manage telephone conversations? We are thinking of getting DS a mobile phone for Christmas, he's wanted one for so long. He'll probably only use it for games.

Hi Christina, I'd be really interested to hear those music samples, can you link them for me? It's quite difficult to explain how different music sounds now, I guess because I had a pretty established appreciation of music that I find it so different...and pretty unbearable to be honest. Maybe if I'd never heard it, it would be more compelling?

How do you feel about DD's deafness? I guess you know all about it now, and the fact that she will be implanted early gives her a great advantage?

REgarding people's attitudes towards deafness in Australia. I can't say many people made a great deal of it, or even noticed actually. I think it does have a lot to do with my own confidence, and venturing out on my own and actively trying to communicate with people means I'm getting more and more practice. Funnily enough, I did find the Aussie accent actually very easy to understand.

Travelling was fine, although I did need DP to tell me what was being said on the tannoys at the airports, which even DP found hard to understand!! I didn't bother taking off my implant going through the metal detector and even though I beeped, not one security person made a big deal of it. I didn't have to show my card, in fact I don't even know where that is! Wow, what a difference in my own attitudes, I definitely feel more relaxed about it.

It was a bit awkward trying to watch the movies on the plane as the earphone jack is different to the attachment I can plug directly into the CI, so I had the earphones positioned kinda awkwardly on my head and over the mic on the speech processor. I got some of the dialogue, but they don't offer english subtitles on the english language movies, only the Asian ones. It was two 12 hour flights so I did persevere!

Telephone conversations: yes, I can manage short, simple exchanges but I actually don't like using the phone anyway (even pre-deafness) so it's not something I've practised much of. I use the textphone when I have to (for speaking and listening) because that has a built in telecoil, which is much easier to understand. Again, the ease of understanding a mobile phone conversation very much depends on a) the person on the other end b) the strength of signal on the phone itself.

Hope that's answered some of it for you. Anything else, I'd be happy to help with!

Very interested to read about a CI user from a deafened adults point of view. I teach deaf kids in a UHI and have 3 in my group of 5 who have an implant. Would be very interested to hear what sounds are like through the implant. Where can I find this?

Hey welliemum, how are you getting on with yours? I've had no trouble with it - even been to Oz and back - and it's still in perfect working order.

I heart my bionic ear!

Oh fab! What amazing progress! Is she an FBer K-Frau?

I just googled the one designed by the neuroimaging labs at Harvard Medical - it says "The test is purposefully made very hard, so excellent musicians rarely score above 80% correct".

That's astonishing! Well done welliemum, tell us how you did it.

I though it might have been one of the Facebook application quizzes - I can't keep up with them.

Just found this!

I heart my bionic ear too kokeshi!

It's going well. I'm now nearly 6 months from switch-on.

KtF, it was 72% actually. But I was walking on air all day!

Cristina, the test is quite a good illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of CI for listening to music.

You listen to a pair of music segments, then you click on a button to say whether they're the same or different. There are 36 pairs in all.

My test result was good - but the music doesn't sound like music to me. I can't hear the pitches very well, and I can only guess at some of the instruments. So I'm really comparing 2 abstract series of sounds when I do the test, not 2 pieces of music.

What makes me able to do the test is that I was born with a fairly freakishly accurate sense of pitch and music memory. If I'd done this test at the age of 20, I'd have expected to get pretty much all of it correct.

So what the test is truly measuring isn't my music ability, but the ability of the implant to transmit the nuances of sound to me.

And big pats on the back to the implant - it's obviously got good potential for fine discrimination. Really amazing when you think that it's artificial hearing.

The challenge for me now, is to align what I now hear with my memory of music.

Dominic will never have this problem: he'll only have one set of sounds to deal with, and I think that makes it much easier for him. However he might not notice some subtleties which I will be more aware of, having been able to hear them previously.

Swings and roundabouts....

And I don't think I said before, but congratulations on your little girl!

tteny bump for kokeshi,a s I see she's around...

tteny bump for kokeshi,a s I see she's around...

tteny bump for kokeshi,a s I see she's around...

Yikes!

Sorry!

And that should have read "teeny" anyway!