Hearing & Lifespan Or Growing up with a hearing loss

How to raise a Hard of Hearing Teen (Wallace et al., 2004)  Family of a deaf child  Over 90% are not deaf, do not sign  What language to use?  Oral/Auditory  Benefit: Inclusion hearing community  Negative: Exclusion Deaf community  Mixed Oral/Sign  Benefit: Partial inclusion hearing/Deaf community  Negative: Inconsistent language use  Sign only (deaf/sign-fluent parents)  Benefit: Inclusion Deaf community  Negative: Exclusion hearing community

Language Power  Most effective  Oral/Auditory & Sign only  Better Mental health/language development  Mixed Oral/sign  Inconsistent exposure  Exclusion within schools  Difficulty in both hearing/non-hearing communities

Mainstream Schooling (Kent, 2003; Krever & Ellen, 2003)  Mainstream schooling  Less depression/loneliness  Hard of hearing, unaware boys  Greater enthusiasm for school, teachers  Level of Satisfaction  Ability to form intimate relationships  Loneliness  Level of hearing loss  Language Ability  Correlate with intelligence, coping strategy effectiveness  Teacher understanding, facilitation  ½ positive experience, 1/3 dissatisfied

Life after high school  Did you learn to read?  Close to 20% HS dropout with Hard of Hearing (US DoE)  25% read at poorer than 2 nd grade level  Healthy hearing 20% poor readers  Expectation level  Mainstream class for college prep  Little or no vocational training  Gallaudet University  Sign-language based University instruction (ASL)

Visual ability with deafness (Rettenback et al., 1999)  Is there visual compensation?  Plastic cortex: re-appropriation of cortical space to other modalities  Structural divisions  Physiological specializations  Little evidence of compensation  Improved visual attention in adulthood  Faster visual search with high attention load  Multi-feature search  Children do not show an advantage  Slowed reaction times

TLA 4 Listening to Music (LTM)  Why is music structured the way it is?  Ingredients:  Piano, multiple noise makers or drums  Activity  Play one random sound as musically as possible  Play 6 random sounds as musically as possible  Play 2 random sounds as musically as possible  Which was the most pleasing? Which sounded the least like music?

Hearing loss in middle age  Noise exposure in the workplace  8 Hours of 85 dBA (Canada, US)  Induce Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS)  Sensitivity and adaptation  Audiogram annuals  10 dB HL shift = better protection  Will cause hearing loss if repeated exposure  (Walkman up to 112 dBA)  Max allowed 90 dB SPL over 8 hours  140 dBAwith protection  High risk  Truck drivers, factory workers, military  Teachers  Fastest growing