Bringing a ray of hope for those children who are born deaf, the
department of ENT at Government Medical College & Hospital, Sector
32 has recently performed a state of the art cochlear implant surgery on
a three-year-old deaf child. Using the high-tech and safe 20 Channel
Digisonic Cochlear Implant System, the surgery was performed on the
International Ear and Hearing Care Day. After recovery, the implant
was switched-on and has responded very well.
The child is now getting speech therapy and help for cognitive development.

Link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/gmch32-docs-restore-hearing-of-child/936326/

The Miracle-Ear Franchise of Southeast Missouri will be hosting a
coloring contest for school children under the age of 10 to kick off their
campaign for Better Hearing Month in May. The coloring contest will
educate school children on how to practice healthy hearing in a fun
and rewarding way.
Miracle-Ear works hand in hand with the Miracle-Ear Children’s
Foundation to provide no-cost hearing aids and hearing support services
to children whose families have incomes that are significantly limited
and who are unable to afford the high costs of hearing instruments.
Miracle-Ear’s aim is to promote better hearing for children and make
hearing health a childhood priority.

Link: http://www.semissourian.com/story/1837201.html

A few days ago, a two-half-year old girl walked into a clinic with
her parents. She was smiling and playful. Her parents were worried after
she displayed signs of delayed hearing. An oral examination
revealed that she had congenital bilateral deafness. This invisible
condition was the cause of her delayed speech. Thirty out of every 1000
children have mild to severe hearing impairment (30-70 dB loss) that
affects growth and progress of life in infants. One child out of every
1000 suffers from profound deafness. Read more to learn about the causes and effects of hearing impairment.

Link: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/241826/is-your-child-taking-too.html

Montreal-For several years Dr. Hema Patel and a coalition of medical experts have
lobbied for universal screening of all newborns for hearing impairment and their efforts are starting to pay off with a government promise to test the hearing of all newborn children finally inching forward after years of planning. The procedure, which is standard in many other Canadian provinces, would help
medical authorities equip hearing-impaired newborns with hearing aids
immediately upon detection of their condition. Detection is considered urgent because every day that a young child
suffers a lack of auditory stimulus puts a roadblock to that child’s
development.

Link: http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120405/mtl_on_your_side_120405/20120405/?hub=MontrealHome

A five week old named Grace swaddled in her mother’s arms at a hospital in Redding had failed two hearing tests in her first two days of life, with a follow up exam a week later indicating trouble in one ear. Evaluating her hearing within the first three months of her life was essential. If follow up tests indicated a permanent problem, she would need to be fitted with a hearing aid to have the best chance of developing normal speech and other important skills later in life. Another problem was that Grace needed a pediatric audiologist to perform the necessary tests, but they lived in a more rural area where such specialists are hard to find. Read more to learn about how tele-intervention or video conferencing technology is helping pediatric audiologists reach more children in need of these important evaluations.

Link: http://www.baycitizen.org/environmental-health/story/doctor-will-see-you-now-screen/

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has launched a new website that
provides resources for parents, providers and other professionals about
Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) for infants and
children. The site is www.improveehdi.org/mn. Parents of children who may develop hearing loss or who have confirmed
hearing loss will be able to learn about the EHDI process, find
materials that will guide them through identification and intervention,
and find hearing specialists and education resources in their area. In
addition, the site contains information to help link parents with family
and community resources available locally.

Minnesota’s EHDI website, www.improveehdi.org/mn,
was presented with the 2012 EHDI Website of the Year award at the
Eleventh Annual EHDI Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. All state EHDI
websites were reviewed by a panel of parents, EHDI coordinators, chapter
champions, and others to select the best website based on quality
content, user friendliness, and accessibility.

Link: http://www.echopress.com/event/article/id/93514/group/News/

There was a time when a child born deaf had few choices. For more
than a century, the only option for parents was to send their son or
daughter away to a boarding school for the deaf. There, the children and
the schools thrived in the shadows, embracing a distinct culture of
silent communication. Recent advances in
medicine and technology are now reshaping what it means to be deaf in
America. Children who could never hear a sound are now adults who can
hear everything. That’s having a dramatic impact on the nation’s
historic deaf schools as well as the lives of people. Read more from this NPR article that highlights the dramatic changes occuring in deaf culture due to Cochlear Implantation.

Link: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/08/150245885/cochlear-implants-redefine-what-it-means-to-be-deaf

Today is the last day to register for the
AG Bell 2012 Convention at reduced rates. The AG Bell 2012 Convention will

offer many opportunities for attendees to meet, connect and network with each other. Don’t delay in registering and having the opportunity to save some money! 

Link: http://nc.agbell.org/page.aspx?pid=1338&srctid=1&erid=2138791&trid=f8588eb5-6426-4321-8d64-19399709c6f9

If there were a poster child for cochlear implants,
Grant Phillips would be it. When Phillips was born, he was completely
deaf. After exploring several options, his parents heard about a new
procedure that had been shown to restore hearing loss at a very
successful rate. The first surgeries and FDA studies for cochlear implants,
a device that aid hearing by stimulating the cochlea in the inner ear,
were taking place right in their hometown of Indianapolis at Riley
Hospital. The problem was that the FDA had only approved the surgery for
children more than two years old. After consulting with the lead
doctor, Dr. Richard Miyamoto, the Philips’ and hospital agreed to perform
surgery on Grant when he was just 16 months old. The surgery was a success. After the recovery process, Grant began to hear and, soon after, speak.

Link: http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/04/02/deaf-student-uses-cochlear-implants-to-hear-learn/

Gesture-sign mismatches made while explaining a math problem suggest a
deaf child is experiencing a teachable moment, a finding that could help
their instructors become better teachers. Through a series of experiments with 40 deaf children, ages nine through
12, all of whom were fluent in American Sign Language, researchers were
able to distinguish between ASL signs and gestures that look like the
gestures hearing children produce when explaining the same math
problems. In previous work, it has been shown that gesture-speech mismatch is a clue to teachable moments in hearing children. This is a great read and a very interesting article for teachers of the deaf that in particular focus on ASL.

Link: http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/deaf-kids-learn-from-gesture-sign-misses/