Completely forgot what we did in class...
I. In last week's blog I said that I wanted to do some research on deaf statistics in the United States. Here's what I found:
-1 in 20 Americans are currently deaf or hard of hearing
-10,000,000 persons are hard of hearing
-1,000,000 persons are functionally deaf
source: How Many Deaf People Are There in the United States? Estimates From the Survey of Income and Program Participation . (n.d.). Oxford Journals | Medicine | Jnl. of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/content
There are deaf communities in all of the following areas:
-Houston, Texas
-Los Angeles, California
-Michigan
-Nashville, Tennessee
-New York City
-Philadelphia
-Rochester, New York
-Washington DC
-Wyoming
(There are probably more, but this is a small list found on the following site)
source: Category. (n.d.). American Deaf Communities. Deafness and Hard of Hearing - Deaf - Sign Language - Hearing Aids - Hearing Loss - Cochlear Implants - Ear Wax. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://deafness.about.com/od/americandeafcommunities
II. This week was only a four day week, and to be completely honest, the only thing I remember doing in class was talking about Sound and Fury. Mrs. Mansfield came in a few times to collect money for the field trip that we're going on. We also watched a part 2 of the Sound and Fury documentary, which showed the family years later. We did some post discussion questions for the documentary, which included questions about the conflicting issues within the film, merits and drawbacks of cochlear implants, considerations to make before surgery, the role that family plays in the decision making, the role that the deaf community plays, and whether or not the circumstances would be different if the issue was something other than hearing. Our Heroic Imagination Stage 3 is due soon...and my group needs to get working on that. I also still need to turn in my Wikipages permission sheet.
disTHIS! - January 2008. (n.d.). April2010. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://www.disthis.org/January2008.htm
I really enjoyed the Sound and Fury documentary. Infact, I enjoyed it so much that I offered to go over to Adrienne's house and watch it with her because she hasn't seen all of it yet. I thought Heather's dad was a pretty funny guy, and Matt James and I believe that he will lead a deaf revolution. After watching part 2 of Sound and Fury, I was glad that they decided to let Heather get the cochlear implant. She seems a lot happier with her life now. I think it's awesome that the family has five of its members all successfully implanted with hearing aids. They're being offered a blessing that they lacked for the first few years of their lives. I also didn't expect Heather's mother to get implanted, so that came as a surprise to me.
TerpTopics: HEARING AIDS & ALDs: Introduction to ASL and SignLanguage Interpreting . (n.d.). TerpTopics: WELCOME - Introduction to ASL and Sign Language Interpreting . Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://www.terptopics.com/HearingAids.htm
One thing that was brought up in class but not discussed is the question about how one family pays for that many cochlear implants. They put five kids and one adult through the surgery, which must be incredibly expensive. I think Lainey shared with the class the price of each implant, which was a whole lot of money. I don't understand how they afforded that, plus the hearing tutor and what not. I guess it was worth every cent though. Giving a person his or her hearing back is a pretty incredible thing. I assume they found a way to pay for it because it was worth it.
III. What exactly is the cost of a cochlear implant? Lainey did say something about it but I don't remember what it was and I would like the know.
No comments:
Post a Comment