Here here

It’s called selective rage.

Does anyone know who Conor salt is on twitter?

Correction: “The Best Hearing Ever Made”…

Hi John Bosco, if you met the parents and children from Happy New Ear, you would see that signing and cochlear implants are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe that a lot more families are signing now than ever. I have met a lot of deaf people who explained, because of direction at the time, that their families never learned to sign and still can’t. Contrast this to my daughter who’s parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, care givers and friends are all delighted to have the chance to learn. Don’t worry- we know the important thing for our kids is to communicate, not the method. We just want the very best for them.

We are fully aware of ISL and the importance of it in our families. We incorporate it as best we can but at the end of the day it will be up to our children how they communicate. I myself sign to my daughter all the time however, she chooses not to sign back.

Hi John Bosco, have been reading your comment all day and was not sure if I have read it right so I am just going to reply. Are you saying that parents should be Forced to teach there deaf children to learn sigh language? I believe the word “compel” means to fource? I as a deaf mother of a deaf child would be shocked at this statment. You cannot force any parent or child for that matter to learn any language never mind ISL. The state should be aware of deaf diversity. Not all deaf people choose to use ISL. Yes the word is choose. It about accepting that deaf people have a right to use different methods and pick what method they want to use. No deaf person deserves to be discriminated against and told that they must learn ISL. I hope that the state is aware that you do not need to have ISL to be deaf. Its about the right to choose whatever method works best for you and your child. For my son and I we are both Verbal deaf. But non the less we are still deaf. My son has made the choice himself that he wants to communicate orally and he works hard at it and he deserves credit and praise. He does not deserve to be put down because he does not use ISL or that his mother does not use ISL. My son will grow up to be a strong voice for the deaf community and will demand equal oppunity and equal access. He will insure that people are aware that deaf people have different needs and these needs should be respected.

Some saddos believe that cochlear implants are a threat to the deaf community.

It is rare in this country because of funding. It is standard in other countries because it is a better way to do it. Why should a deaf person have to go through such a time consuming, life changing procedure twice? It takes years to get used to the change and they are being asked to then spend another few years getting used to another easily avoidable change. It makes no sense.

All the tests would have to be repeated anyway so it’s hardly cost effective.

Finally what about deaf adults? They deserve this too.

Peter Gerry Adams addressed this in the Dail when he said “The big problem as the child grows is that the nerves to which the implant should be connected die if they are not being used, which means the hope of a further implant is lost. These children are in a race against time.” So I think that it is not so much a question of resources that is the issue but more the the ability to actually implant the CI successfully in the future.

I understand that those who require two CI’s will have to go through the procedure twice ( eg: over a two year period ) as normally only one implant is provided at any one time, particularly in adults as one is faced with the challenge of learning a new range of sounds, in effect a new ” language”.
When one CI is fitted it may or may not be successful. As a result of this precaution there is an option to retain the residual hearing in the other ear without a CI.
This may be different for infants where this is not so much of an issue as the patient has less/limited aural memory hence the earlier the better.

Hi Peter I take it that you dont have much experience of Implants? Just to help everyone be more aware time is nerves. By this I mean that our children’s nerves are dying off as we speak, they are not being simulated as the strongest hearing aids on the market does not work for our profoundly deaf children. Waiting is not an option. By a few years the second implant may not be as sucessful. The government have accepted in there AudiologyReview report that sooner is better yet they still did not set up a bilateral system for our children. In my own case I had the implant later in life and my sucess is not as great as my son who had one implant last year. He can hear on the phone which is something that I can only hope to acheive in time. These true examples show what happens when the nerves die off, as they will, and the implant becomes less sucessful. My son needs the second implant as do other children like him. He gets very tired very easily and is old before his time. He has no energy to run and play and to be a child because his energy goes on concentrating on hearing and listening. As he gets older and there are more demands put on him through education ect it will only get worst.