What does a cochlear implant sound like?

What does Erin hear?

Does she hear 100%?  

She talks just fine! You worry too much.  Why does she still go to speech therapy?

She isn't deaf anymore, right?


These are questions I hear from people all the time. It is very difficult to explain that while Erin can "hear" down to 10 - 20 db, she does not hear as clearly as you and I. It is actually very hard to say exactly what she does hear.  She has never known sound in any other form so isn't able to describe how it differs from what we hear.

I came across an excellent set of Cochlear Implant Simulation Demos today that do a great job of explaining just what Erin may hear. The demos give examples of what CI users hear on 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 Channel Implants.

There are 4 Demos:

The following text is taken directly from the House Ear Institute's website. I offer the text and links for the convenience of our readers and in no way imply ownership of this information.

Decrease_Channels contains the original sentence first and then progressively degrades the spectral resolution. The order is: original, 32 channels, 16, 8, 4, 2, and 1 channel. Since the content of the sentence is known, it is possible to understand the sentences down to 4 and even 2 spectral channels. Most cochlear implant listeners are in the 4 to 8 channel range.

Increase_Channels presents the demonstration in the reverse order - starting from poor quality, so that the content of the sentence is not understood at first. As the number of channels is increased from 1 to 2 to 4 you will start to understand the words in the sentence at 4 channels. From 4 to 8 to 32 channels the words are clearer and the sound has better quality. Finally, the original sentence is played.

Music1 presents a clip of a very familiar popular song, with a single male singer. First you will hear the song with 4 channels, then 8, 16, and 32 channels. Finally you will hear the original music clip. Notice that you may understand the words of the song at 4 or 8 channels, even though you may not recognize the melody. Even at 16 and 32 channels the melody is not very good quality.

Music2 presents the opening lines of a very popular and familiar piece of instrumental music. As with previous demo, the number of channels increases from 4 to 8 to 16 to 32. The original music clip is played at the end. Note that you will probably not recognize it even with 32 channels. However if you listen to the sequence repeatedly you will notice that some melodic information is available with 16 and 32 channels, although the quality is still poor compared to the original.


Erin's Nucleus Freedom Implant has 22 channels. I am not an electronics engineer or an audiologist... but I believe this means Erin hears slightly less clearly than the 32 Channel simulation.

I noticed as I listened to the demos second, third and fourth times, that the speech and music became more apparent to me on the lower channels. I imagine this is very similar to what adult users of CIs describe when they say that at first sound is very strange... but eventually starts to become more clear. I'd love to hear what the CI adults think of these demos. I wonder what you hear when they are played?

I found these links on this page this page of the House Ear Institute's website.

Their website is an excellent source of information.

I'd like to thank Logan's mom for posting the link to the demos on her blog.

We made a snowman!

Snowman!






We even gave him implants.

Teeter Toes

Toes has never been the most coordinated kid as far as gross motor skills are concerned. She really didn't walk until she was 14 months old. She is very skittish about climbing on things and can't climb a ladder on a slide without assistance.

To compound matters, I'm a nervous mom and tend to hover too much in these situations.

I never thought much of it. It isn't as though she is way behind the other kids, so it was never a concern.

But then a friend of mine (Hi, Paula!) mentioned that deaf people often have issues with balance. I knew that fact... but I hadn't connected it to Toes's lag in gross motor skills. (OK, so yeah... I had a "Duh!" moment)

She suggested that as part of our transition to the IEP phase, that we have the school evaluate her gross motor skills.

While I was completing the evaluation the school gave me as the first step in the IEP process, I was amazed to see that I answered "No" to a vast majority of questions in the Gross Motor section.

Stands on one foot for a few seconds without support. 
No.

Hops on one foot, at least two times, without support.
Um, No. Is she supposed to??

Climbs up ladder and slides down slide without help.
Um... No.

Runs smoothly, turning corners and making sudden stops.
Huh?

Walks up stairs unassisted.
Yes! (Yay! We got one!)

Walks down stairs unassisted. 
(darn it) Yes... but not without a spotter because she usually slips once or twice.

And on and on.

I am not very concerned - I am not even sure this has anything to do with her deafness. I have friends with children the same age that aren't very much ahead of her on these things. But I am going to have the school evaluate her on Gross Motor Skills and I will keep on eye on it going forward. I am sure if she does have a delay, it will be easliy remedied with a little PT.

Every day, something new.

Explosion!

We have been going through what can only be called a Language Explosion lately. Every day Toes is using new words that she is overhearing in normal conversation. She is using her words in new ways and in sentences that she has developed on her own, instead of the phrases that we work on.

Last week on the way to therapy, she started spontaneously singing along to "Row Your Boat". I've never sang this song with her. Granted, she was only really singing the last word of each phrase "Stream!" "Dream!", but I'm giving it to her.

She is very close to counting from 1 - 10. She definitely understands the concept of "how many". She has her colors and shapes down. She is working on her alphabet.

Dad to Toes and I had a moment of amazement this past weekend. She was doodling on a restaurant placemat while we were out to dinner, pretending to write letters. "Ayyy!" "Ceeee!" "Beee!" It was all scribbles, as would be expected at 2.5.

To give her some practice (and to help keep her entertained while we waited for dinner), I wrote an "A" for her, explaining that you go "Up, then down, then across... Ayy!". She took her little crayon, held it in her hand like Mommy did, said "Up, Dow, A Toss... Ayyy!"

And sure enough... there was a perfect little "A" on the paper.

It is a good thing we were at TGIFriday's where the noise level tends to be high... otherwise we would have disturbed everyone in the place when we highfived and made a production out of her first letter.

Then she went back to happily scribbling while saying "Ayy! Ceee! Beee!..."