Showing posts with label Deafness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deafness. Show all posts

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Mandy Harvey Earns Golden Buzzer from Simon Cowell (VIDEO)

My sister shared this with me on Facebook.

I don't blog about it a lot, but I'm partially deaf. I lost my hearing after a head injury while seeing Charged GBH in Pasadena in 1983. Some hearing returned to my left ear. I read lips, although I never learned how to sign. I was always self-conscious of deafness, about how this somehow made me less than I was. It was an enormous personal, emotional, physical, and psychological blow. I imagine I've overcompensated for it since the injury, which is my entire life now.

So you can imagine how this moment from "America's Got Talent" makes me cry. And you can understand why my baby sister wanted me to see it.

And this woman Ms. Mandy is astounding. She's a monument to human perseverance and goodness in the world. Everyone feels at some point that they want to give up. The hardiest among us resist, but not everyone's got the strength. God gave me strength. I didn't know it at the time, but I prayed. Now I now it. I know Ms. Mandy's got God as well. She beautiful.

At the Seattle Times, "Watch: Deaf singer wows Simon Cowell, earns Golden Buzzer on ‘America’s Got Talent’."



Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Deaf Baby Boy Hears Mom's Voice for the First Time (VIDEO)

I wasn't born deaf, but I have a hearing impairment from a head injury when I was 21.

I wear a hearing aid. Most people don't realize I have an impairment when I'm talking to them. I read lips. My voice is a bit muffled, creating something of a Mr. Magoo effect, but most people never remark on it.

But because if this, I always see these "baby hears" videos with a special joy. Sometimes I used to think I'd rather be blind than deaf. You never really know how cherished are your senses until you've lost one of them, or more.

In any case, seen on Twitter just now (and this isn't the first clip like this I've posted):

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Deaf Three-Year-Old Grayson Clamp Hears for First Time

I love this story.

I tweeted it here, here, and here.


Saw it this morning at CBS News, "Deaf boy with auditory brain stem implant stunned after hearing dad for first time."

UPDATE: At NBC News, "Deaf boy, 3, hears father's voice for the first time":
Grayson was born without cochlear nerves, the “bridge” that carries auditory information from the inner ear to the brain. He’s now the among the first children in the U.S. to receive an auditory brainstem implant in a surgery done at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., led by UNC head and neck surgeon Dr. Craig Buchman.

The device is already being used in adults, but is now being tested in children at UNC as part of an FDA-approved trial. It’s similar to a cochlear implant, but instead of sending electrical stimulation to the cochlea, the electrodes are placed on the brainstem itself. Brain surgery is required to implant the device.

"Our hope is, because we're putting it into a young child, that their brain is plastic enough that they'll be able to take the information and run with it," Buchman told NBCNews.com.

Buchman says Grayson was a great candidate for the implant because other than his hearing, he's a healthy kid. Plus, Buchman adds, "he has great parents who were completely committed to the process -- the entire surgical process, the educational process. We really wanted to provide it to a child who had all the potential to do great."

And so far, Grayson really is doing great, his father says.

“Never one time did he show any fear about that new sensation,” says Clamp. He and his wife, Nicole, adopted Grayson in 2010; the couple also has a biological son, Ethan, who is 2. “It was a lot more excitement. And he’s really curious to begin with.” And he’s discovered a new love: music.

“He claps his hands, he bobs his head. At his daycare, they have a stereo, and he loves to run over and turn it on,” Clamp says.

Grayson is now working with a speech therapist, and has started babbling. He also tries to mimic the mouth movements of people when they’re talking to him. But he still has a "massive amount" of work ahead of him, Buchman cautions. "He needs intensive speech therapy -- in his mind, he has to convert this new signal into something he current knows as, basically, signs," Buchman says.