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| Deaf Culture Transcripts |
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Host: Three out of every one thousand children born will experience some level of hearing loss. In the first of a three part series exploring hearing loss and the deaf culture, Utah Public Radio’s Kerry Bringhurst tells of efforts by a Utah State University Professor and Researcher to introduce early hearing loss detection technology throughout the world. Newborn Hearing Screening can make a world of difference for children who otherwise must learn to function in a world without sound.
Kerry Bringhurst: Most children are able to speak by the time they are twelve months old because they have been listening to language during the first year of life. Without verbal cues a child will not develop language in the same way. Utah State University Professor and Researcher Karl White is director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management. His research focuses on early detection of hearing loss. Dr. White says there is evidence showing that, like visual inputs, auditory input facilitates connections being made to the brain.
Dr. Karl White: If those connections are not made during those first few months of life, they actually atrophy and those connections will never be made. So, it is extremely important for language development to start as early as possible.
Kerry Bringhurst: Dr. White is recognized worldwide as a pioneer in newborn hearing screening, diagnosis, and intervention programs. Screening that began in a small community hospital in Rhode Island and Northern Utah in the 1980’s and is now conducted nationwide as part of a series of routine newborn testing.
Dr. White: People had recognized for fifty or sixty years how important it was to identify hearing loss early. At that time, the average age of which hearing loss was identified was at about two and half years of age.
Kerry Bringhurst: The screening process involves a hand held device that is used by medical personnel during the first few hours of the child’s life. A cylinder shaped probe is placed in the baby’s ear and transmits an auditory stimulus, such as a beep or a click. The screening takes less than three minutes to complete. Dr. White says, like all screening, the newborn hearing screening is not used to diagnose a hearing loss. The test is used to indicate whether or not the baby needs further diagnostic testing. About one percent of those screened will need to be checked for a hearing loss.
That was the case for Zachery, now five years old. Zach’s mother, Michelle, wasn’t aware her son’s hearing would be tested when he was born. But now, she says, parents should not take for granted the screenings conducted on a baby during those first few hours of life.
Michelle: We knew at three weeks. By six weeks he had hearing aids and we had contacted the infant program and were on our way. It has made a huge difference. For him, for his entire life, it is going to make a big difference.
(Sound of classroom discussion - “Now, are these two picture the same or different?”.)
Kerry Bringhurst: Joel Gardner’s four year old daughter Carolyn is one of nine pre-schooler's participating in a Utah State University Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education Program where therapist’s work with the child and parents of a child with a hearing loss.
I listened in on the session, through a speaker system hidden behind a one way mirror.
(Sound of classroom discussion - “This is a picture of an airplane. Are you going on an airplane to Disneyland? Can I go too?”).
Kerry Bringhurst: Observers can watch through the window without disturbing Carolyn’s therapy. Today, she is playing a matching game with her therapist and her father.
The success of infant and pre-school programs for the deaf depends on an early diagnosis. Because she was identified early, Joel’s daughter now wears a pretty pink hearing device that allows her to learn and process sounds at her young age.
Joel Gardner: We’ve had four solid years of intervention because we knew. We have had the parent/infant program, speech therapists, and occupational therapists. If we hadn’t had her tested and diagnosed we would have had years that we would not have had these services.
Kerry Bringhurst: Dr. White travels to Washing D.C. to testify before congressional committee members about the benefits of testing infants for a hearing loss. Because of federal initiatives, White says all major hospitals in the United States are providing the screening, which costs about twenty dollars for each infant tested. Now, Dr. White is taking his testimonials through the world. He says even in developed areas of the world, including Europe, South America, and the Middle East, the cost of health care and the lack of support from centralized government hospitals are prevented from providing the screening.
Dr. White: They are not as impressed by the educational savings down the road as they are the immediate cost to the health care system. For those babies that are identified early and get the proper kind of hearing technology and early intervention services the vast majority of those children will need very few ,if any, special education services. So, there are huge savings down the road, but that is somebody else’s budget.
Kerry Bringhurst: Dr. White says he will continue to lobby government and medical officials worldwide to find ways to have newborns screened for hearing loss.
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Sheri Quinn: Since newborn hearing screening tests were implemented in the 1980s more children with hearing loss are getting access to hearing aides at an earlier age. The tests helped the Liechty family from Lehi, Utah detect hearing loss in their two youngest children soon after birth. Their conventional hearing aids weren’t working. They needed a digital hearing aid called a Cochlear implant. Getting them was an uphill battle. They finally won last year and the victory changed their son Nathan’s world. Sheri Quinn has this profile.
Seven year old Nathan Lichty was born with a condition called L.V.A. In most cases, it causes progressive hearing loss. A year ago, Nathan's hearing took a turn for the worse.
Nathan: Implants, they can help people hear. I’m trying to get an implant. Both of my hearing aids, I cannot hear at all...
Sheri Quinn: Hailey and Johnaoth Lichty suffered a long fight with their insurance company to get coverage for Nathan's cochlear implant. They cost about 80,000 dollars each. Last year, they finally won and Nathan got his cochlear. It's a small electronic device implanted in the inner ear. It works by converting sound waves into electrical impulses that are then sent to the brain. the Liechty's three year-old daughter Margo has the same condition as nathan and she also has a cochlear. Nathan got his first at age six.
Family: Nathan! What? Are you ready for dinner? Dinner? Now? Are you hungry for dinner?
Sheri Quinn: Nathan's father calls him to dinner. It's obvious how well Nathan can hear now, one year later. Hailey and Jonothan Lichty have five children. Every night they eat dinner together, which usually starts out with a song. Hailey says music is a family value.
Family singing before dinner...
Hailey Liechty: A lot of people say cochlear implants are not good for children because you are making a decision for them. When they are taken off, they are deaf…It’s not something they will get over. They never will get over it.
Sound of Nathan talking into the mic, up and under...
Sheri Quinn: At the dinner table, Nathan is boisterous and confident. When I met him last year, he was quiet and apprehensive. Carel is Nathan's 12 year-old brother.
Carel Liechty: He’s a lot more playful, he was very destructive. He would draw on the walls with sharpees. He would draw on everything. He started tai kwan do and he would roll up in a ball and he would not do anything and just sit in the corner and mope. He got the implant and everything improved. One thing I didn’t like, he had this huge scar cause they had to shave that one part.
Sheri Quinn: A cochlear implant is essentially a bionic ear. A band aid size device is surgically placed under the scalp near the ear. A wire extends into the cochlea from the inner ear where the hair cells that are responsible for hearing are located. From there, the wire receives and transmits signals to the brain. It's typically a safe, outpatient procedure. Cache Pitt is an audiologist at Primary Children's Medical Center in Bountiful, Utah.
Cache Pitt: With a cochlear implant, you can have a child who can learn spoken language, who can function in a normal classroom environment, who can function in a normal hearing environment. That is probably one of the most satisfying things I’ve experienced to see a child function so well in a hearing world.
Sheri Quinn: The implantation of the cochlear is a simple process, but how it works is complex. Pitt says the closer to age one at the time of implantation, the more therapy and parental support the child receives, the easier it is for the child to develop language skills and even learn how to play musical instruments.
Cache Pitt: Learning how to listen, learning how to make the sound meaningful. It does not come naturally to learn how to listen. If you think about the anatomy of the ear, there are thousands of cells inside the ear. Taking a cochlear implant that has anywhere from 12 to 22 contact points within the cochlea as the only stimulus in the cochlea so we are really restricted on what we can stimulate so it’s nothing like what normal, natural hearing is like.
Sheri Quinn: The cochlear destroys the cochlea of the inner ear and it causes an elevated risk for meningitis. Dr. Frank Warren, on of only two physicians in Utah who implants cochlears at the University of Utah says the risk is kept at bay with vaccinations and monitoring. He says some physicians are reluctant to implant two in children because there's promising research in hair cell regeneration, and it's not clear yet if getting two implants is better than one. he says getting one can still be a challenge.
Dr. Warren: I think there is definitely some misinformation amongst physicians, that don’t perhaps have a clear awareness about what the implant does maybe because they were trained many years ago and don’t frequently get exposed to people with implants.
Sheri Quinn: Hearing loss is the most frequent birth defect in America, it affects about three children per thousand, which is five times as many children as downs syndrome. As parents of two deaf children the Lichty's say they realize the services for deaf children in Utah aren't adequate. Every week, they have to drive to several different schools and clinics around the Wasatch Front to meet all of Nathan's and Margo's needs. To combat this problem, they are starting the Journey to Hear Foundation to create a comprehensive center that includes tests, therapy, and education.
Hailey Liechty: If we could bring that all together it would make it a lot easier on us as a family and not just us but others. It’s a huge burden and if we can bring it all together the kids can progress really fast and it will be a lot easier on the families.
Sound of drums, up and under...
Sheri Quinn: Meanwhile, Nathan's brave parent's decided to enroll him in drum lessons. This is first drum lesson. I hope they don't regret it.
Banging on the symbols...
Nathan: I like it a lot so it’s really fun to do drums like this...Bang, bang, bang... I learned how to do that! One and two and three and four...good counting
Sheri Quinn: For Utah Public Radio, I'm Sheri Quinn.
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