CONTENTSForeword by Nickola Wolf Nelson, Ph.D. The Social, Political, and Educational Context for Implant Technology. A Child-Centered Approach to Cochlear Implant Process. History, Development, and Current Technology. Pediatric Cochlear Implant Candidacy. Supporting Parents Who Choose Implantation. Designing a Management Program for Children with Implants. Premises That Drive Auditory Learning for Children with Cochlear Implants. The Young Implant Recipient. The School-Aged Child with an Implant. Rehabilitation Strategies for the Adolescent Implant User. Performance of Children with Cochlear Implants. Mainstreaming and Children with Cochlear Implants. Glossary. Index.
Offers a guide to cochlear implanation for parents, including discussion of the evaluation process, device options, surgical procedure, and device maintenance.
Millions of Americans experience some degree of hearing loss. The Social Security Administration (SSA) operates programs that provide cash disability benefits to people with permanent impairments like hearing loss, if they can show that their impairments meet stringent SSA criteria and their earnings are below an SSA threshold. The National Research Council convened an expert committee at the request of the SSA to study the issues related to disability determination for people with hearing loss. This volume is the product of that study. Hearing Loss: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits reviews current knowledge about hearing loss and its measurement and treatment, and provides an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes and criteria. It recommends changes to strengthen the disability determination process and ensure its reliability and fairness. The book addresses criteria for selection of pure tone and speech tests, guidelines for test administration, testing of hearing in noise, special issues related to testing children, and the difficulty of predicting work capacity from clinical hearing test results. It should be useful to audiologists, otolaryngologists, disability advocates, and others who are concerned with people who have hearing loss.
Contributors present the latest information on both the new world evolving for deaf & hard-of-hearing children & the improved expectations for their acquisition of spoken language.
A mother whose child has had a cochlear implant tells Laura Mauldin why enrollment in the sign language program at her daughter’s school is plummeting: “The majority of parents want their kids to talk.” Some parents, however, feel very differently, because “curing” deafness with cochlear implants is uncertain, difficult, and freighted with judgment about what is normal, acceptable, and right. Made to Hear sensitively and thoroughly considers the structure and culture of the systems we have built to make deaf children hear. Based on accounts of and interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with the professionals who work with them, and the influence of neuroscience on the process. Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation. Her study provides a nuanced view of a social context in which science, technology, and medicine are trusted to vanquish disability—and in which mothers are expected to use these tools. Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child’s brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center. Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, Made to Hear shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology.
This book will move the field of pediatric cochlear implantation forward by educating clinicians in the field as to current and emerging best practices and inspiring research in new areas of importance, including the relationship between cognitive processing and pediatric cochlear implant outcomes. The book discusses communication practices, including sign language for deaf children with cochlear implants and the role of augmentative/alternative communication for children with multiple disabilities. Focusing exclusively on cochlear implantation as it applies to the pediatric population, this book also discusses music therapy, minimizing the risk of meningitis in pediatric implant recipients, recognizing device malfunction and failure in children, perioperative anesthesia and analgesia considerations in children, and much more. Cochlear Implants in Children is aimed at clinicians, including neurotologists, pediatric otolaryngologists, audiologists and speech-language pathologists, as well as clinical scientists and educators of the deaf. The book is also appropriate for pre-and postdoctoral students, including otolaryngology residents and fellows in Neurotology and Pediatric Otolaryngology.
Thoroughly updated for its Second Edition, this book provides an in-depth discussion on prosthetic restoration of hearing via implantation. The text succinctly discusses the scientific principles behind cochlear implants, examines the latest technology, and offers practical advice on how to assess candidates, how to implant the devices, and what rehabilitation is most effective. The authors thoroughly examine the outcomes of cochlear implantation, the impact on the patient's quality of life, the benefits in relation to the costs, and the implications of cochlear implants for language and speech acquisition and childhood education.
Cochlear implants have instigated a popular but controversial revolution in the treatment of deafness. This book discusses the physiological bases of using artificial devices to electrically stimulate the brain to interpret sounds. As the first successful device to restore neural function, the cochlear implant serves as a model for research in neuroscience and biomedical engineering. These and other auditory prostheses are discussed in the context of historical treatments, engineering, psychophysics and clinical issues as well as implications for speech, behavior, cognition and long-term effects on people.
