Medical Research: Rise in Abortions of Deaf Babies

Dailymail.co.uk - Prenatal testing prompts rise in abortions of Deaf babies. Hearing loss can be a curse if it's linked to a revelation as heart-breaking as this.



According to a survey conducted by Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram hospital, a majority of would-be parents would opt for an abortion if knew they are going to have a hearing-impaired child.



The study was published in a recent issue of American Journal of Medical Genetics.



The research-based study was conducted for four years - 2005 to 2009 - on at least 51 families with a history of congenital hearing loss.



"Around 93 per cent of the couples expressed high interest in prenatal diagnosis, while 73 per cent considered termination if the foetus was affected," Dr Ishwar C Verma, chairman, department of genetics, Sir Ganga Ram hospital, said.



The result in cases of hearing couples, in whom genetic anomalies were identified, was even more disheartening.



"All of them opted for prenatal diagnosis. On testing, all the foetuses were found to be affected and the hearing parents elected to terminate the pregnancies," Dr Verma said.



In developing countries such as India, there is an increasing awareness and interest in prenatal testing because genetic disorders of all types, including hereditary deafness, which lead to significant social and economic burden on families due to poor support structure. During the study, doctors found that around 68 per cent would be parents opted for genetic testing. ... READ MORE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2280183/Prenatal-testing-prompts-rise-abortions-deaf-babies.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Medical Research: Dual Adaptation in Deaf Brains

The Scientist: Dual Adaptation in Deaf Brains.



The brains of people who cannot hear adapt to process vision-based language, in addition to brain changes associated with the loss of auditory input.



The brains of Deaf people reorganize not only to compensate for the loss of hearing, but also to process language from visual stimuli sign language, according to a study published today (February 12) in Nature Communications. Despite this reorganization for interpreting visual language, however, language processing is still completed in the same brain region.



“The new paper really dissected the difference between hand movements being a visual stimulus, and cognitive components of language,” said Alex Meredith, a neurobiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, who was not involved in the study.



The brain devotes different areas to interpreting various sensory stimuli, such as visual or auditory. When one sense is lost, the brain compensates by adapting to other stimuli, explained study author Velia Cardin of University College London and Linköping University in Sweden. In Deaf people, for example, “the part of the brain that before was doing audition adapts to be doing something else, which is vision and somatosensation,” she said. However, Deaf humans “don’t just have sensory deprivation,” she added they also have to learn to process a visual, rather than oral, language.



To untangle brain changes due to loss of auditory input from adaptations prompted by vision-based language, the researchers used functional MRI to look at brain activation in three groups of people: Deaf people who communicate through sign language, Deaf people who read lips but don’t understand sign language, and hearing people with no sign language experience.



The researchers showed the three groups videos of sign language and videos that held no linguistic content. The signing videos were designed to allow Cardin’s team to pinpoint which areas had reorganized to process vision-based language, as these areas would only activate in Deaf signers. In contrast, the language-free videos would allow the researchers to identify areas in Deaf brains that had adapted to the loss of auditory input, as these brain areas would activate in both Deaf groups, but not in the brains of hearing volunteers. ... Read more: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34363/title/Dual-Adaptation-in-Deaf-Brains/

Short Film: 'Mr Deaf'

'Mr Deaf' is a short film in english subtitles that follows a day in the life of Mr Deaf goes to doctor.



It is about man with profoundly Deaf wear like old fashion suit to shows that the film is talking in past, he went on to say the medical receptionist failed to understand that he was Deaf... Suddenly, a verbally abusive by the receptionist discriminated him and told to get his mother for sign language interpreter, as a result of his mother was Deaf too. This all smacks discrimination including discrimination against Deaf individuals.



Enjoy watch the comedy video.

Video by Adeel Asif

Life Changing Surgery To Help Deaf Boy In Limbo

WSBTV - Life-changing surgery to help Deaf boy in limbo.



Monroe, Ga. - Life-changing surgery to help a Walton County boy who is considered legally Deaf is in limbo. The family’s insurance company denied coverage for cochlear implants, leaving the family few options.



“If he wants to be able to read, write and learn, and have friends; be a kid, he needs to have the surgery,” Brian Rubin told Channel 2’s Rachel Stockman.



Carson Rubin, 5, suffers from auditory neuropathy. He has tried several hearing aids, but so far, nothing has worked. Doctors say the best opportunity for him to live a “hearing” life, would be if he got the implants.



“We pay for insurance. We have coverage and you expect the thing you need will be covered,” Shay Rubin said.

The Rubin’s insurance, Coventry Health Insurance of Georgia, said that the surgery was excluded under their small group plan. The surgery costs about $250,000 for both ears.... Read more: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/life-changing-surgery-help-deaf-boy-limbo/nT8p3/

One Deaf Child: Presentation By Rachel Coleman

Video: One Deaf Child: Presentation by Rachel Coleman in captioned.



In this presentation for Deaf Awareness Week, Signing Time's Rachel Coleman talks about her compelling journey that began when she learned that her daughter, Leah, was Deaf.



This video was produced by the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management (NCHAM – pronounced “en-cham”) at Utah State University.

Video by SigningTime



The goal of NCHAM is to ensure that all infants and toddlers with hearing loss are identified as early as possible and provided with timely and appropriate audiological, educational, and medical intervention... Read more: https://www.signingtime.com/blog/2012/11/one-deaf-child-presentation-by-rachel-coleman-video/



Visit www.signingtime.com for more informations.

io9 - A Drug That Restores Hearing In Deaf Mice

A drug that restores hearing in Deaf mice.



Advances in regenerative medicine are coming in fast and furious these days, and a remarkable new breakthrough can be added to the list. Scientists at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School have restored partial hearing in mice suffering from sensorineural hearing loss a condition that happens after prolonged exposure to noise.



Given the rise of an aging population not to mention a preponderance of people who blast their ears with portable MP3 players it's an important bit of scientific insight that could someday help millions of people get their hearing back.



To learn more about this important breakthrough, we contacted lead researcher Dr. Albert Edge, whose study appears in the January 10 issue of Neuron.



Edge agreed that sensorineural hearing loss is a growing concern.



"The National Institute of Deafness and Communications Disorders of the NIH estimates that approximately 15 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 69 have hearing loss due to exposure to loud sounds or noise at work or in leisure activities," he told io9. "So this is a very serious problem with little that can be done to treat it."



No doubt, it's a problem that currently affects 250 million people worldwide.



Edge says that hearing aids can help, but his team is hoping to develop a treatment that goes all the way one that can actually replace the lost cells.... Read more: http://io9.com/5974633/a-drug-that-restores-hearing-in-deaf-mice



Related: Deaf Gerbils 'Hear Again' After Stem Cell Cure

Deaf People May Have Trouble Reading: Health Report

Video: A new reason for why the Deaf may have trouble reading, Health Report.



Deaf people may have no trouble communicating words through American Sign Language, or ASL. But studies of ASL users show that the average Deaf adult reads at the level of a nine-year-old.



The explanation has always been that this is because they never learned to connect letters with sounds. But a recent study shows that Deaf readers are just like other people learning to read in a second language. Linguist Jill Morford led the study. She says: "The assumption has always been that the problems with reading were educational issues with what's the right way to teach reading when you can't associate sounds with letters. But what we're finding is that all this time we've been ignoring the fact that they're actually learning a new language."



Ms. Morford is a professor at the University of New Mexico and part of a research center at Gallaudet University in Washington. Most students at Gallaudet are Deaf, the center studies how Deaf people learn and use language. Professor Morford says signers are like English learners whose first language uses a different alphabet. She says: "Anyone who has a first language that has a written system that's very different than English, like Arabic or Chinese or Russian, knows that learning to recognize and understand words in English is much more challenging than if you already speak a language that uses the same orthography. "The orthography is the written system and spelling of a language. Of course, with signers, their first language has no written system at all, just hand gestures.

Gallaudet professor Thomas Allen explains what effect this has on reading. He says: "There's a silent hearing going on ... when a hearing person reads a word. When a deaf person reads a word, there's not. They see the word and there's some kind of an orthographic representation. And some of the research in our center has shown that when Deaf readers read an English word, it activates their sign representations of those words." Signers can face the same problems as other bilingual people. Their brains have to choose between two languages all the time. Take the words "paper" and "movie." Their spelling and meaning are not at all similar. But, as Professor Allen points out, the signs for them are. To make the sign for paper," he says, "you hold one hand flat and you just lightly tap it with a flat palm on the other hand, and you do that a couple times and that means paper." Movie is very similar, except the other hand "lightly moves back and forth as if it were a flickering image on a screen."



The study appears in the journal Cognition. For VOA Special English, I'm Alex Villareal. This is the VOA Special English Health Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com.

Video by VOALearningEnglish

The Father of Neurotology Dies at 89

LOS ANGELES (LATIMES) - Dr. William F. House dies at 89; championed cochlear implant. Dr. William F. House also developed a successful surgery for an ear disease that had prevented astronaut Alan Shepard from returning to space.



Dr. William F. House, a dentist turned ear specialist who 50 years ago defied the medical establishment and many advocates for the hearing impaired to champion an implantable device, now widely accepted, that made everyday sounds audible to the profoundly deaf, has died. He was 89.



House, who led the venerable House Ear Institute in Los Angeles during much of the 1980s, died Friday of metastatic melanoma at his home in Aurora, Oregon, said his daughter, Karen House.



An innovator who seemed to relish bucking convention, House was responsible for a number of major medical advances, helping to pioneer microsurgery techniques and a new approach to removing acoustic tumors. He also developed a successful surgery for an ear disease that had prevented astronaut Alan Shepard from returning to space.



But House was best known for his early and vigorous advocacy of the cochlear implant, an electronic device that stimulated the auditory nerve and helped the user recognize sounds.



He began to develop the device in the late 1950s after hearing of successful experiments by two European scientists. After publishing his initial results in 1961, he encountered heavy criticism from physicians who said the device was crude and could damage the ear. Representatives of the Deaf community also were opposed, arguing that Deaf people did not need to hear to be considered normal.



But House persevered and in 1984, 25 years after he first implanted a device in a patient, won crucial validation. That year the Food and Drug Administration approved the House cochlear implant for use in Deaf adults, calling it the first device to replace a human sense organ.



Today, more than 200,000 people around the world have cochlear implants, according to the FDA. Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-me-william-house-20121212,0,271457.story

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William F. House, D.D.S., M.D. Documentary Film Part 1 to 4

Video by dawnbreaker1844



Dr. House is called "the Father of Neurotology" - the treatment of inner ear disorders. His surgical treatment for Meniere's disease enabled astronaut Alan Shepard to fly to the moon. His great achievement was the first cochlear implant, allowing the deaf to hear. "Dr. House ... has developed more new concepts in otology than almost any other single person in history..." [American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation 1995 Distinguished Award for Contributions in Clinical Otology]



Dr. House's book is The Struggles of a Medical Innovator - Cochlear Implants and Other Ear Surgeries.

Deaf Culture and Community Will Likely Disappear

Prediction 30 years from now, Deaf culture and community will disappear! As seen on article: Deaf Gerbils 'Hear Again' After Stem Cell Cure



BSL Zone: The End

A drama envisaging a terminal decline of Deaf culture.

We are therefore currently only showing this film with subtitles.

Here's the linked to watch video: http://www.bslzone.co.uk/bsl-zone/zoom-focus-the-end/



Whether you are hearing or Deaf, it is recommended to watch this film with subtitles. There is spoken content which Deaf people will struggle to understand without subtitles, and there is British Sign Language which many hearing people will not understand.



This film was written and made with Deaf and hearing people in mind, and the film-makers really wanted to make a crossover film from the perspective of Deaf people and Deaf culture.



Ted Evans (Writer/Director) and the team behind The End quite rightly want the film to be accessible for everyone - However watching the film without subtitles would prove to be very difficult.



We are therefore currently only showing this film with subtitles.

Here's the linked to watch video: http://www.bslzone.co.uk/bsl-zone/zoom-focus-the-end/



Sources: http://www.bslzone.co.uk/

Subscribe: BSLZoneOfficial

Marlee Matlin Fears For Deaf Stem-Cell Treatment

Marlee Matlin tweets concerns about a possible stem cell cure for deafness.



British researchers have been able to rebuild nerves in the ears of gerbils, and it is believed the same technique could one day be applicable to Deaf humans. However, Oscar-winning actress Matlin, who has been Deaf since she was 18 months old, is worried about the implications of the development. Matlin has been tweeting her mixed feelings about the recently announced “stem cell cure” for deafness.



Matlin commented that millions of Deaf Americans who communicate in sign language do not regard deafness as a "handicap" or a "'disease' to cure." She posted these comments on Twitter: “Imagine how I must feel with my children with me at the grocery store and someone says "I heard there's a cure for your deafness!" Think.”



"Deafness cure" is trending. My concern is that it's bigger than a "trend." It involves people and not as simple as the 4 letters in "cure." According to The Telegraph, some Deaf people feel that they don’t need to be fixed by medical intervention. The National Association of the Deaf says that many profoundly Deaf people who sign consider themselves to be part of a unique linguistic group through sign language and a unique Deaf culture.



Matlin's comments reflect the views of many members of the Deaf community...

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/marlee-matlin-tweets-concerns-about-a-possible-stem-cell-cure-for-deafness

ADA Effective Communication - Title III in ASL

Video with Captions - ADA Effective Communication: Title III in American Sign Language.



ADA Effective Communication using Title III and ASL from the Disability and Communication Access Board - Honolulu, Hawaii.



Communication Access Provisions Title III of the Americans with Disability Act for Public Accommodations: http://hawaii.gov/health/dcab/docs/fact_sheets/ca_pa.pdf



Lack of effective communication. ADA effective communication systems tool in the ongoing battle against disability discrimination. In a recent in-depth article assessing the impact of the ADA in Hawaii. http://dredf.org/international/paper_y-g.html



Legal Resources - Disability Rights: The ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act): Questions and Answers, visit http://www.davislevin.com/facts_adaqa2.html for more information.



Video source lauleonard

Deaf Gerbils 'Hear Again' After Stem Cell Cure

Media Video: Deaf gerbils 'hear again' after stem cell cure.



Health and science reporter, BBC News



UK researchers say they have taken a huge step forward in treating deafness after stem cells were used to restore hearing in animals for the first time.



Hearing partially improved when nerves in the ear, which pass sounds into the brain, were rebuilt in gerbils - a UK study in the journal Nature reports.



Getting the same improvement in people would be a shift from being unable to hear traffic to hearing a conversation.

Video by Beanyman62News



However, treating humans is still a distant prospect. Fergus Walsh reports.



However, in about one in 10 people with profound hearing loss, nerve cells which should pick up the signal are damaged. It is like dropping the baton after the first leg of a relay race...Read more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19570024.



Watch BBC video http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19580117

Amplification and Cochlear Implants Are Simply A Hoax!

Amplification and Cochlear Implants Are Simply A Hoax! Vlog in American sign language.



The amplification and cochlear implants are artificial and man-made. They are for awareness, not acquisition, of the world of sounds, and they are therefore as individualistic as playing piano, trombone or flute. There is no guarantee to the benefit of them. To me as a native signer, amplification and cochlear implants are sumply a hoax, pumping hot balloons for many innocent people, figuratively speaking, into creating numerous unthinkable hostilities toward ASL, Deaf Education and, above all, the Deaf.

Subscribe Carl Schroeder

Video source by Carl Schroeder

Cochlear Implants Is NOT A Cure !

Video: My experience with people telling me there is a "cure" for deafness American Sign Language.

Video by Elise Melito



Worthwhile to watch a video clip of poem in ASL: I Don't Need Your Cure

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Cochlear Implants are a Form of Child Abusing

On the surface, cochlear implants sound like a promising medical solution to the problems surrounding hearing loss or total deafness. A cochlear implant uses existing nerves and electronic signals to override damaged auditory nerves, thus restoring a sense of hearing to the recipient. However, this technology has also caused serious divisions within the Deaf community concerning the hearing society's position on deafness in general.



A number of members of the hearing impaired community choose to view their Deaf status as a subculture of society, in the same sense as a Hispanic person would embrace his or her Hispanic culture. Deafness is not a handicap person, but a shared experience which gives the hearing impaired its unique cultural identity. To members of this Deaf subculture, cochlear implants are considered disrespectful and insulting, since the medical community views deafness as a handicap which must be treated or corrected. As seen on article: http://www.cochlearwar.com/myths_and_facts.html



Certain factions of the hearing loss also believe a deaf person's ability to live a full and meaningful life is not compromised by his or her deafness, so the suggestion that cochlear implants provide advantages over a Deaf lifestyle is shortsighted and insensitive. Many Deaf people cope very well with their deafness, learning sign language and lip reading and adapting their work and home environments to accommodate their loss of hearing. Perhaps the cochlear implant is only for the MONEY as the dirty business? As seen on Cochlear Business Is Dirty Business! with closed captioned.



Another controversy surrounding cochlear implants is the safety and effectiveness of the procedure. Cochlear implantation involves major surgery in an area of the body filled with delicate nerves which control facial movements. One mistake during surgery could cause long-term facial paralysis, also and it is might be a risk to cochlear implant users where the thunderstorms approaching as seen on: Cochlear Implant User Struck By Lightning



Cochlear implants can also destroy any remaining healthy auditory nerves, which means a Deaf person could lose all remnants of natural hearing which may have helped them adjust to a Deaf lifestyle. Cochlear implants require the recipient to undergo significant fine-tuning sessions, and success can vary widely from recipient to recipient.



The controversy over cochlear implants often pits hearing parents against Deaf parents when it comes to raising their Deaf children in a hearing world. Many Deaf parents would prefer to raise their Deaf child in a Deaf culture, including the use of sign language and lip reading. Hearing parents who are not familiar with the Deaf community may opt for the cochlear implant surgery to correct their Deaf child's perceived handicap as seen on article: Cochlear Implant Cruelty -deafness.about.com



The result may be a Deaf child who can partially hear, or a hearing child with a Deaf cultural heritage. Either way, the child may face social ostracism from both communities if the parents do not consider the long-term effects of cochlear implant surgery. Not all members of the Deaf community view cochlear implants as an unnecessary procedure, but hearing parents facing a difficult decision concerning a Deaf child may want to research both sides of the controversy before committing to cochlear implant surgery. Hearing impairment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_impairment

What Is the Leading Cause of Child Abandonment?

History of Abandonment/Abuse



History tends to repeat itself and this is especially true of abuse and neglect patterns. Parents who experienced abuse, neglect or abandonment at the hands of someone when they were a child are more likely to repeat the pattern and abuse, neglect or abandon their own children. UNICEF estimates that 13 million children worldwide have been abandoned by both parents for various reasons, abuse and neglect among them. Watch the video in behavioral problems for not learning in sign language and oppression as seen on YouTube: Alone In A Hearing World



Handicap/Illness of Child



A child born with a handicap, birth defect or chronic illness has a higher chance of being abandoned by their parents. Since infants and children are needy to begin with, parents living with a child with a chronic condition may not be able to cope with the increased demands of their child. Like parents who live in poverty, these parents believe their child will be better off without them and abandon these child to the foster care system or to live with other relatives.



Behavioral Problems



All children experience behavior problems as they grow and learn about the world around them. For some parents, their child's misbehavior is a source of extreme stress they are unable to handle. Other parents have children with extreme, even criminal, behavior that they are unable or unwilling to control. These children are at an increased risk of being removed from their parent's care or having their parents find alternative placement situations for them. Watch the video in behavioral problems as seen on YouTube: Alone In A Hearing World



Have A Nice Day!

DYV Administaff.

Deaf People Hear Touch ?

Video: Deaf People Hear Touch ?



Deaf People Hear Touch? Heightened Senses for the Deaf People. Scientists determine that people born Deaf process the sense of touch differently than people not born Deaf.

Video by sourcefed



Hosts: @leenewtonsays @elliottcmorgan. Music: @Hagemeister.



Go to SourceFed for our 5 daily videos or anything else we've ever done: http://www.youtube.com/sourcefed

The Language in Space of the Cochlea Implantation

Video: 'The Language in Space' is a play written by Herbert Gantschacher.



The scene "The Cochlea Implantation" (performed by the Deaf actors Horst Dittrich as the father and Reinhard Grobbauer as the son and Werner Mössler as the doctor" shows a cochlea implantation real ironically. It is a real question, the cochlea implantation could be helpful.



On the way of an operation the return to the "hearing world" is technically possible. But the way of operation is not helpful for the Deaf society.

Video by arbos6



What happens to operated Deaf people, which are living now with a cochlea implantation but without a better result of hearing? They are not integrated in the "hearing world" and the Deaf world, they damaged psychological and physical. In such a situation the cochlea implantation destroys Deaf society.



ARBOS-Company for Music and Theatre.

Director & Producer: Herbert Gantschacher.

Camera: Bidpai.

Little Deaf Girl HEARS For The First Time

Video: Little Deaf girl hears for the first time.



This is the video of them turning it on and her hearing herself for the first time! After her cochlear implant, a little girl (Sammie) is surrounded by family as she hears the world for the first time.

Video by 1SammyKleege



The original video here: Sammie's CI Activation.MOV

Little Deaf Girl HEARS Her for the First Time! on HLN (CNN)

A litte Deaf girl (Sammie) hears own voice in dramatic video in the CNN News on Courtesy of HLNtv.com

Video by kinglewey17



Similar CI activation story as seen on article: Deaf For 29 Years Hears Herself For The First Time



The video with closed captioned as Sarah Churman first appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show: Sarah Churman on The Ellen Degeneres Show



Here is Sloan Churman's original video has attracted some media attention too, including an interview with Sarah feels when hears her own voice in dramatic video as seen on: 29 Year Old Deaf Woman Hears Herself For The First Time

Deaf Babies Need Your HELP Stop FDA & Stem Cells

Video: Deaf babies need your help stop FDA and Stem Cells in American Sign Language.



Deaf Babies need your help with this online petition:

http://signon.org/sign/stop-stem-cells-experiment.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=1970141

Video by PopeMistress



Congrats AFA in world public news released on January 16, 2012:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/1/prweb9108761.htm



AFA blog: http://audismfreeamerica.blogspot.com/2012/01/afa-denounces-fdas-approval-of-newborn.html



Thank you for signing on petition for Deaf Babies.



We:

1. Deaf community

2. FDA

3. Doctors

4. Audism

5. Pimp of Prostitute rings

5. Stem Cells

6. Teachers

7. Parents with wrong choice

8. Gov't

9. Church

10. Etc...



We don't own Deaf babies but we owe Deaf babies BIG time for many many many years.



Deaf babies need our help. Thank you for signing petition online.

Deaf 'Signers' Quick to Interpret Body Language

Deaf 'Signers' quick to interpret body language.

USA TODAY - Deaf people who use sign language recognize and interpret body language quicker than hearing people who don't use sign language, researchers have found.



"There are a lot of anecdotes about Deaf people being better able to pick up on body language, but this is the first evidence of that," David Corina, a professor in the department of linguistics and Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis, said in a university news release... Read more: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2012-01-16/Study-Deaf-signers-quick-to-interpret-body-language/52591902/1

Medical VS Culture & ASL

Video: Medical VS. Culture & American Sign Language.



How to overcome the practice of deafness and promote Culture and ASL. Parents are very important for us to focus on through various activities such as movement. Reference video 'Deaf' as seen on: What is 'Deaf' ?

Video by DeafChipmunk



Visit David Kerr's site: www.DeafChipmunk.com for more details.