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February 24, 2007
Hearing impaired student captures International Performance Award
Yew Choong Cheong, a West Virginia University student who plays and studies classical piano despite a loss of hearing, recently won the 2007 International Young Soloists Award given by VSA arts.
The international, nonprofit organization was founded in 1974 by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to create a society where all people with disabilities learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts.
Posted @ 5:58 AM
Early stages of hearing loss not always easily noticed
Hearing, like vision, which was covered in my last column, diminishes as we grow older. When our hearing goes, we don't hear pleasant sounds such as birdsong, and, more seriously, we may not hear things that can harm us. Social relationships may suffer because conversations become tedious, and conflicts may result from misunderstandings of what is being said.
Posted @ 5:57 AM
Aging nation faces growing hearing loss
An aging U.S. population faces a looming crisis in hearing loss, researchers said Saturday. Some research holds promise, but much is in the early stages.
By 2050, there could be as many as 50 million people in the United States with impaired hearing, Steven Greenberg of Silicon Speech in Santa Venetia, Calif., told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Posted @ 5:56 AM
Steroids usually fix sudden hearing loss
A combination of time and treatment with oral corticosteroids can help people with sudden sensorineural hearing loss regain full hearing, Korean researchers show.
People with sudden sensorineural hearing loss suffer the loss of 30 decibels or more of hearing over several hours to three days. The condition affects about 4,000 Americans each year. About 30 percent to 60 percent of patients will experience spontaneous recovery within two weeks.
Posted @ 5:55 AM
Car airbags will cause permanent hearing Loss in 17 percent
A researcher at a national hearing conference will present data that predict 17 percent of people exposed to deployed airbags in American cars will suffer from permanent hearing loss. His data also show, contrary to what experts have previously thought, airbag deployment is more hazardous to the ear when a car's windows are rolled down.
These are among the results that will be presented by auditory physiologist Richard Price at the National Hearing Conservation Association's 32nd Annual Conference. The conference, titled, "A Passion to Preserve," will be held Feb. 15-17 at the Hyatt Regency in Savannah, Ga.
Posted @ 5:54 AM
Hard-of-hearing girl makes history in spelling bee
Anna Brnak sat at a table in the center of the multipurpose room surrounded by 80 other middle schoolers, each staring at a sheet in front of them. Pencil in hand, Anna got ready to write word after word -- 50 in all -- on the sheet as each was read by the man with the microphone.
Another adult stood in the room, a red-headed college student, who hand signaled what the microphone man was saying. She gestured the quips made by Paul Kirkpatrick, middle school principal at University Schools, such as, "If someone looks at your paper, slap them. Do the best you can to make sure your word stays yours."
Posted @ 5:52 AM
When baby cannot hear
Tatia Granger remembers being "shell shocked" when she first learned her daughter couldn't hear.
Granger and her husband first began to suspect Rheis didn't hear normally months before. But still, when the doctor told them their 13-month-old girl had "permanent, profound hearing loss," they weren't sure how to react.
Posted @ 5:51 AM
Deaf woman could face death in dismemberment case
A deaf woman could be sentenced to death by lethal injection if convicted of kidnapping or murdering another deaf woman, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Daphne Wright, 43, is accused of abducting, killing and dismembering Darlene VanderGiesen, 42, in Sioux Falls one year ago.
Posted @ 5:50 AM
Religion today
Brian Sims was sitting in traffic when a car with a booming stereo pulled up next to him.
Feeling vibrations from the pulsating vehicle, the Baptist pastor who ministers to the deaf got an idea: creating a one-of-kind church exclusively for deaf people.
Today, the Brentwood Baptist Deaf Church has more than 30 speakers beneath the floor so congregants can feel the vibration of the music.
Posted @ 5:48 AM
University for the deaf could lose accreditation
The nation's only liberal arts university for the deaf could lose its accreditation unless it addresses concerns about weak academic standards, ineffective governance and a lack of tolerance for diverse views, an education oversight group warned.
Gallaudet University was rocked by student demonstrations last fall that shut down the university for several days and forced the board to revoke the new president's appointment.
Posted @ 5:47 AM
School Board settles suit with deaf woman
Merrie Paul fell in love with motorcycles at age 12 when her parents bought her a Yamaha.
She put her passion on hold for most of her adult years, until she married a man with a penchant for Harley-Davidsons.
But when Paul, who is deaf, tried to sign up for a motorcycle safety course in April 2005, the Hillsborough County school district wouldn't provide her with a sign language interpreter.
Posted @ 5:47 AM
Talk, talk, talking ... with their hands
The deaf community has its own culture even though it’s not assigned to a particular geographic area, a local educator says.
“The deaf community has a culture that goes along with it,” said Joe Moore, director of the International Cultural Center that’s housed at Tiffin Middle School. “The deaf culture exists in small communities and small pockets around the world.”
Posted @ 5:46 AM
Dog taken from deaf woman
An assisted living facility owner stole a deaf resident's service dog and told her it died, deputies said Tuesday.
Geoffrey W. Kinne, owner of the McIntosh Manor Assisted Living Facility, didn't want the animal in the building. So he sneaked into Joan B. Gurland's room one night in November and took the dog, Sarasota Sheriff's Office reports say.
Posted @ 5:45 AM
Group home fills a need for mentally ill deaf people
Celine Dreher cannot hear you, but sometimes she can hear Sarah, a creation of her malfunctioning brain who "speaks" to her from inside her head.
This medical double whammy - deafness and schizophrenia - has left Dreher, 44, feeling doubly isolated for much of her life. She was the only deaf person in her group home, the only deaf person at the psychiatric hospital.
Posted @ 5:44 AM
Deaf audience to hear guitar, many for first time
Think back to the first time you heard Eddie Van Halen wail on his guitar. The musician’s clean and strong sound made the band famous.
But for those with hearing loss, the sound of a guitar may not be so memorable.
Posted @ 5:43 AM
Deaf boy robbed at gunpoint
A CALLOUS thug robbed a deaf boy and his teenaged brother at gunpoint in Stretford.
The deaf 12-year-old boy and his older brother were attacked as they walked home along Barton Road, near to the junction of Winster Avenue, at about 9.30pm on Tuesday.
Posted @ 5:42 AM
Healing Gallaudet
Months after student protests resulted in the ouster of its president-elect, Gallaudet University is looking to turn the page under interim president Robert Davila.
Dr. Robert R. Davila became interim president of Gallaudet University on Jan. 1, after a prolonged campus protest resulted in the removal of president-designate Dr. Jane K. Fernandes (see Diverse, Nov. 16, 2006).
Davila, the son of Mexican parents, lost his hearing at age eight after contracting spinal meningitis. He is a 1953 alumnus of Gallaudet and was a faculty member and administrator there. He has also served as vice president of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and has been assistant secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the U.S. Department of Education. Davila, who holds a doctorate in educational technology from Syracuse University, came out of retirement to accept the two-year interim appointment at Gallaudet. Davila recently spoke with Diverse about healing the fractured campus and improving its financial standing and low graduation rates.
Posted @ 5:41 AM
Deaf film festival returns to town in March
The Second Deaf Rochester Film Festival will be held from March 23 to 25. Headlining the event will be Hear and Now, a documentary that won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Posted @ 5:40 AM
Symposium explores improving interactions with deaf patients
When asked if one would choose deafness over blindness, most people would choose blindness, said Norbert Myslinski, PhD, associate professor of neuroscience in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Dental School, when he opened a conference about how health care workers can improve their relationships with hearing-impaired patients. "People usually say they'd prefer to be blind, but fail to understand how the lack of sound can isolate people from others and the intellectual human world of ideas," he added.
Posted @ 5:39 AM
No sight, no sound, nowhere to turn
Alex speaks to his mom with his whole body, sitting in her lap and rocking his small frame forward and back so hard his head crashes into her breastbone with each swing.
When he is happiest, when they sit with their legs tangled up on the carpet in the living room, he opens his eyes and stops moving his bony frame just long enough to smash a sloppy, wet kiss onto his mother's lips.
Posted @ 5:38 AM
Deaf tot given gift of sound
A TODDLER left profoundly deaf after contracting a deadly form of meningitis is set to start hearing sounds again today for the first time in nine months.
The Worcester News reported last year how Cole Forse, who is now two, nearly died last year after contracting pneumococcal meningitis, which leaves half of survivors with permanent disabilities that can be as severe as brain damage, deafness, and cerebral palsy.
Posted @ 5:37 AM
Tributes to sports fanatic who loved life
FRIENDS and family have paid tribute to a fun-loving sportsman who collapsed and died after playing in a football match.
Martyn Burton, aged 31, who was deaf, had been playing in a cup match for Manchester Deaf FC at Bridgend near Cardiff on February 4. But 90 minutes after the game ended, he collapsed.
Posted @ 5:36 AM
Signing row lands deaf man in court
A DEAF man arrested after police mistook sign language for an obscene gesture has lost his court battle for compensation.
Shaun Phuprate, of Town End Farm, was handcuffed and hauled before magistrates for making a two-finger salute at officers in Sunderland.
The now 26-year-old insisted he was making the sign for "I am deaf" and had not been rude.
Posted @ 5:35 AM
Creating a community: Mixing deaf and hearing to benefit both
High school is a cacophony of sound -- whispered secrets, teachers' lectures, the roar of a football crowd or the thunder of rock music.
But for a cadre of students at Durham High School, education -- like the rest of life -- is almost silent.
For two years the Durham Unified School District has housed the deaf and hard-of-hearing program for almost all such students in Butte County.
Posted @ 5:34 AM
Deaf teacher helps students, faculty learn
Shane Molaison brings an extensive education and a profound desire to teach to his classroom, but it is who he is and what he knows that are of primary importance to his students.
Molaison is a deaf and hard-of-hearing specialist for the Butte County Office of Education, and works full time with the program that is housed in the Durham Unified School District.
Posted @ 5:33 AM
Mrs. Bombaci’s Hogan: Apt Pupil, TV Star, Inspiration
One evening not long ago, a group of college students clustered around an old, deaf Dalmatian.
“Bow,” his owner told him with a sweep of her hand. The dog, named Hogan, slid his legs forward, slowly because of his arthritis, and bowed.
“Sleep,” the owner told him by making another gesture in sign language.
Posted @ 5:32 AM
Southeastern deaf academic bowl teams compete at Berkmar High
Berkmar High School’s library was quiet as teams of high school students from throughout the Southeast participated in an academic competition, answering questions about geography, literature, math, history, science, culture and more.
Posted @ 5:28 AM
Sign language on mobile phones could help the deaf
Washington state researchers harness Windows Mobile Platform phones with open source video encoders to send sign language over the airwaves
While text messaging has helped give deaf people access to mobile communications, those who rely primarily on American sign language (ASL) have been left behind by cell phone technology. That could change, thanks to the MobileASL project at the University of Washington.
Posted @ 5:27 AM
Seminar celebrates godsend for the deaf
It wasn't exactly "'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." But when Rod Saunders stood and saluted to a few notes of "God Save the Queen," another inventor knew he was onto something.
It was 1978, and Saunders, who had lost all hearing in a car wreck a few years earlier, was the first patient to receive a surgically implanted "bionic ear," a device that eventually would be known as the cochlear implant. Some 120,000 people worldwide with profound hearing loss have gotten them.
Posted @ 5:27 AM
Churches spreading God’s word through sign language
Cindy Collins wanted her daughter to have a Christian upbringing, but it wasn’t as simple as going to worship on Sundays.
Sunday school lessons, worship music and weekly sermons required the ability to hear, something her daughter, Jordan, couldn’t do. Jordan is deaf.
Posted @ 5:26 AM
New bill could Limit the deaf community’s ability to communicate
Deaf students rely on highly trained interpreters to communicate with their teachers through sign language. But supporters of the deaf say a new bill would let people with little to no sign language skills work as interpreters. News on 6 reporter Steve Berg reports advocates for deaf and hearing-impaired students say it's a terrible idea, and they say the students will suffer.
Posted @ 5:25 AM
Big Brother’s a big bully says deaf man
A DEAF man has claimed he was unfairly discriminated against because of his disability at a Big Brother audition on Saturday.
Paul Cripps, 25, of Baker's Arms, Leyton, queued for more than four hours with thousands of other people at the ExCel Centre, in the Docklands, hoping to take part in the Channel 4 show.
Posted @ 5:25 AM
Deaf community forms group to raise awareness on campus
Deaf Culture Diversity is a new group on campus attempting to not only educate about deaf culture, but also to broaden people’s entire perceptions about diversity.
“A lot of times when we talk about diversity, it’s mostly ethnic,” said Carrie Caldwell, the president and founder of DCD. “There’s a lot of physical diversity and ability diversity. That’s one thing I want to bring out to the community.”
Posted @ 5:21 AM
February 8, 2007
I can hear you now!
This column is an update to one I wrote a couple of years ago. All of what I said before is true, but the big advance in hearing aids is that almost all manufacturers have a noise-removing part like the one I talk about.
My first experience with hearing loss and an attempt to fix it was about 30 years ago. I had gone to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and got a prescription for two hearing aids. I only wanted one, but the doctor said, “If you were nearly blind in both eyes, would you use a monocle?” So I agreed to two. At that time, they did not sell aids and suggested that I buy certain specific aids locally.
Posted @ 8:24 AM
Federally funded research on hearing loss solutions
What: Current research funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health, will be featured at the 2007 Midwinter Meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO).
When: February 10-15, 2007
Where: Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO
Posted @ 8:21 AM
The deaf culture wars
OK, so there's this Deaf couple staying at a motel, and in the middle of the night the woman asks her husband to go buy her some aspirin. So he gets out of bed and drives to an all-night drugstore, and when he gets back the motel is dark and he can't remember which room is his. At first he doesn't know what to do, but then he drives to the middle of the parking lot and begins honking the horn. Pretty soon lights start going on in room after room, and people are peering out their windows to see who's making all that noise. The man waits until every room is lit up — and then drives to the one room that's still dark.
Posted @ 8:20 AM
Deaf community dropped the ball
Deaf schools do not exist to serve the deaf community.
Since when has the state of Oregon been providing a school for the deaf community? The state School for the Deaf is funded by the taxpayers of Oregon to educate hearing-impaired children -- not to provide a community for deaf people in this state. If deaf people wish to do so, they should petition legislators to fund one -- something which I can assure you will never happen.
Posted @ 8:19 AM
Films give hearing impaired chance to voice their problems
What started out as experimentation in film-making for a group of differently abled people, managed to achieve much more. Apart from ‘voicing their problems’, two films made by Vadodara-based 33-year old Rajesh Ketkar and his friends Virbahdrasinh Rathod and Kiran Kumar ‘Deaf Issues’ and `Family’_ were screened and awarded at the World Deaf Expo-2007, held in Coimbatore last month.
Posted @ 8:16 AM
Hearing aids get fashionable
Gone are the days of big and clunky hearing aids. Now, they're fashionable and almost invisible
The colorful triangular hearing aid is designed for people in their 40's and 50's who want to be hip and hear. Architect Greg Henricks wears black aids. Ryan Rossler, a certified hypnotherapist, has a silver aid. Audiologist Dr. Ronna Fisher wears two aids. One is red and the other one is beige.
Posted @ 8:15 AM
Deaf brothers get implants to hear for first time
A Beaver Dam mother said she is grateful and looking forward to experiencing a miracle with her sons -- who will hear sound for the first time on Friday.
The brothers, who are deaf, will have cochlear implants. Mother Brenda Mueller said they are anxious and excited about their new journey.
Posted @ 8:14 AM
Sudden deafness not to be ignored, doctor says
Sudden deafness is a serious condition that is often misdiagnosed because people think they only have a plugged ear from a cold. But if it is not treated immediately, it can cause permanent hearing loss, experts said.
Posted @ 8:12 AM
Corticosteroids help hearing-loss recovery
Time and oral corticosteroid therapy can help patients regain full hearing, often within a month of sudden hearing loss, say researchers in Seoul. A first-of-its-kind study into time-dependent treatments of sudden sensorineural hearing loss is published in the February issue of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery.
Posted @ 8:10 AM
Deaf woman heard tornado before home destroyed
A deaf woman in Lady Lake who lost her home when a tornado ripped through Central Florida early Friday said the sound of the twister was so loud that she heard it without her hearing aids and was able to run for cover.
At least 14 people were killed and hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed when a super cell storm moved through Central Florida and produced several possible tornadoes.
Posted @ 8:09 AM
He hears the call of the deaf
People who are deaf and hard of hearing are prisoners to their own silent world, says a member of the local Lions Club. He should know.
Barry Parquette, of Milford, was born hard of hearing and knows what it’s like to struggle to communicate.
Posted @ 8:08 AM
World's elite deaf athletes gather for 2007 Winter Deaflympics
They were once known as the Silent Games, but It is a description that does not quite fit as the Finnish hockey team practices for a game against Sweden in the 2007 Winter Deaflympics.
Pucks clang off the post and sticks slap against the ice. If anything, the noises are more jarring without the sound of shouts from the players or coaches.
Posted @ 8:07 AM
Deaf World Games in Utah
To be a Deaf snowboarder in a race with hearing competitors, says Jeff Pollock, "is, in a single word, lonely."
That's one reason why the 16th Winter Deaflympics, which open Thursday in Salt Lake City, are so appealing to Pollock and other Deaf athletes. For the next 10 days, they'll have a chance not only to shine on snow and ice but to converse with other athletes from around the world.
Posted @ 8:06 AM
Deaf studies centre launched
The country's first international centre of excellence in deaf studies is opened at the University of Central Lancashire today.
The International Centre for Sign Language and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS) will conduct research to document many global sign languages for the first time, as well as develop programmes to provide deaf students in developing countries with the same higher education opportunities as the UK deaf students it will engage with.
Posted @ 8:05 AM
Summit steers deaf toward employment goals
In New Mexico, nearly two-thirds of deaf and hard-of-hearing people are jobless or underemployed, according to the latest figures available from the Community Outreach Program for the Deaf in Albuquerque.
Posted @ 8:04 AM
Game brings deaf, hearing kids together
While playing the game duck-duck-goose, deaf and hearing students learned they have a lot in common. Students from the Indiana School for the Deaf visited second-grade students at Allisonville Elementary last week as part of the Everybody Counts program.
Posted @ 8:03 AM
State schools for deaf and blind seek to combine campuses
Students attending separate state schools for the blind and the deaf would share a campus, under a $40 million plan that school officials expect to present to lawmakers later this year.
Some older buildings would be replaced when the campuses of the Ohio State School for the Blind and the Ohio School for the Deaf are combined, according to a preliminary plan. The institutions would share expenses including maintenance, food and health services.
Posted @ 8:02 AM