Michelle's Weblog

Cochlear Implants and Literacy

Michelle — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:43:47 +0000

This movie was made to complete a class assignment, shows how cochlear implants can help improve the literacy skills of children who have recieved a cochlear implant before the age of 3 years old.

Resources

Michelle — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:13:49 +0000

References:

1. Cochlear implants. (May 2007). National institute on deafness and other communication disorders. Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/coch.asp.

2. Cochlear implants. (Oct. 26, 2004). US Food and Drug Administration: Center for devices and Radiological Health. Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/cochlear/WhatAre.html.

3.Conner, C., & Zwdan, T. (June 2004). Examining multiple sources of influence on the reading comprehension skills of children who use cochlear implants [Electronic version]. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 509-526

4.Geers, A. E. (July 2002). Factors affecting the development of speech, language, and literacy in children with early cochlar implantation [Electronic version]. Language, Speech , and Hearing Services in Schools, 33, 172-183.

5. Gottfred, K. (2008, Sept. 23). On language and literacy [Electronic Version]. The ASHA Leader Online, 13(13), 24.

6. Nicholas, J. G., & Geers, A. E. (May 2008). Expected test scores for preschoolers with a cochlear implant who use spoken language [Electronic version]. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17, 121-138.

7.Shaughnessy, A., Sanger, D. Matteucci, C., & Ritzman, M. (2004, Feb. 3). Early childhood language and literacy: Survey explores kindergarten teacher’s perceptions [Electronic Version]. The ASHA Leader Online, 2, 18.

8. Speech and language developmental milestones. (April 2001). National institute on deafness and other communication disorders. Retrieved November 26, 2008, from http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/speechandlanguage.asp.

I-Search Paper

Michelle — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:55:53 +0000

Introducing/Questioning

Essential Question:

What do we know about literacy development in preschool children with cochlear implants that were implanted before the age of 3.

Support Questions:

1. What is the relationship between language and literacy?

2. What is a cochlear implant?

3. What to cochlear implants do?

4. Who we are talking about?

Why? / What I know?:

I decided that I wanted to do this question, because I am really interested in cochlear implants, and this could help me understand another way that they can help a child. I did not know much as I am starting out, but I do know a little about cochlear implants. I know that cochlear implants are placed in the cochlea and they have both external and internal components. Some are placed under the skin in the mastoid bone and in the cochlea like the electrode array, but others such as speech processor and microphone are worn on the outside of the child usually behind their ear. This allows the speech signals to bypass the damaged hair cells and be transmitted to the brain through the electrode array. I also know that being able to hear is an important part of learning language so if a child can hear with the cochlear implant it should help them become more proficient in their reading and writing. Children learn language from first listening to other people use the language. If they have limited exposure to this then can cause them to fall behind in language development. When looking at the age of implantation I know that the sooner they become implanted the more chance it is for them to learn language better so that is why I am specifically looking at children that were implanted before the age of 3. It is much easier for young children to learn language than it is for older ones because their auditory pathways in the brain are still forming so the sooner that the child gets implanted and receives auditory information to the auditory pathway the sooner they can get started learning spoken language. Since language directly affects your literacy skills this could also affect how the child will learn to read and write. If the child uses manual communication sometimes the syntax is not the same as English so when they have to learn to read and write it is totally different for them and can in turn cause them to have a harder time learning reading and writing. This is why I want to find out how the cochlear implant helps them develop better literacy skills.

Searching:

· When you are born you hear all kinds of sounds around you. One of the most important sounds that you will hear around you is your parent’s voices. This helps baby’s start to learning their language. The first three years of life baby’s brains are developing and soaking in all kinds of information. This makes this an important time for babies to be able to hear the language and sounds around them. During this crucial time period if the sounds are not received and utilized by the child it can be more difficult and less efficient for them to develop their language. If the child can not hear during this time period they are not getting enough exposure to their language which can cause them to be behind in their development or have no development of language at all. This can cause them to also be behind in their literacy skills.

By Six months of age research has shown that children can recognize most sounds of their language. If they can not hear these sounds then they have no exposure to them. This may cause them to be behind in their language development which can cause other problems later on in school like literacy problems. (Speech and Language developmental milestones.) Language is said to be the basis of literacy. Literacy has many definitions in the Encarta Dictionary. The first is the “ability to read and write to a competent level”, and the other is “knowledge of or competence in a subject or area of activity”. We are mainly talking about the first definition of reading and writing. If children do not develop language, or they have a delay in their language they may have problems with their literacy skills. (Gottfred, K) Research that has been done has shown repeatedly that there is a strong bond between the development of literacy and oral language skills.

Younger children like the ones we are talking about that are under the age of 3 with cochlear implants don’t develop their oral language skills on time or at all, because of set backs in not being able to hear. They may not receive everything that they need for support and intervention which can cause them to have problems with their literacy skills such as reading and writing later in school. That is why Audiologists and Speech Language Pathologists need to work together to make sure that the child is receiving the best intervention possible. One way that can help a child with a hearing loss is putting hearing aids on a child, but if the child can not hear well enough with the aids or they are not helping at all a cochlear implant may be suggested. If they have a severe to profound hearing loss and they are 12 months in age or older then they can be implanted with a cochlear implant.

A cochlear implant is a device that sends an electrical signal directly to the auditory nerve. Unlike the hearing aid that just amplifies the sound that is sent through the whole ear. The cochlear implant by passes the hearing pathway through the ear and send the signal directly to the auditory nerve. The cochlear implant consists of external and internal components. The external components consist of a microphone that picks up the sound, a speech processor that decodes the sound into electrical impulses, and a transmitter system. Inside there is a magnet that holds the external portion to the head, and an internal electrode array that is surgically implanted into the child’s cochlea. The signal is then sent from the external speech processor to the internal electrode array that is placed in the cochlea, and sends the signal directly to the auditory nerve which carries the signal to the brain. The brain then learns how to interpret this signal and perceives this as “hearing.” This device does not give the child normal hearing, and it will take time to learn language after the implant through intensive therapy, but it allows them to be able to hear the sounds around them, and helps them develop their language and literacy skills.

A study was done by Nicholas & Geers in 2006 on preschool children that have cochlear implants. They found that children that are profoundly deaf most of the time achieve spoken language skills closer to their peers after receiving the implant and therapy. This then can directly show that if cochlear implants helps their language skills then it will possibly help their literacy skills also making the children closer to their peers in literacy skills. The sooner that a child is implanted the more success they may be able to make with both their language and literacy skills. It stated that children who receive a CI by age 3 years have shown to close the gap between their language abilities and other children that have no hearing problems at their same chronological age.

Language skills were also shown to increase the longer that the child has their CI. These scores were showing that they have helped the children develop their language skills to a higher capacity then they had before the surgery which can in turn help them later on to develop higher literacy skills. Allowing them to be able to catch up on not only speaking and hearing other people, but it will help them later on to be able to read, write, and ultimately allow them to catch up with their peers. A school called DePaul School for the Hearing and Speech started a marketing campaign to promote the success of their students in developing language and literacy skills. When looking at this school you may not expect to see that the children that attend their school that were implanted early and are in the 8th grade are reading on 10th and 11th grade reading levels.Allowing these children to be able to hear the sounds and voices around them when they are in the first 3 years of their life allows them to learn their language. If they do have problems with their hearing, and do not receive the information from the sounds and voices around them then a cochlear implant can help them if hearing aids are not enough. This will ultimately allow them to receive this information, develop their language skills, and in turn can help them have better literacy skills like their other peers later on in their education.

Concluding/Answering:

What I found when doing this research for this project was that language and literacy are closely related to one another. If you improve one it can help you improve the other. The earlier that children are implanted with cochlear implants the easier it will be for them to catch up to their peers in language which can allow them to be the at the same level as their peers when learning literacy. Especially if they are implanted before the age of 3 years old.

Preface

Michelle — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:36:25 +0000

When looking at my research question I can see many reasons for why I picked it. From the time that I was little I have always been interested in working with deaf children. I worked in a Deaf preschool when I was in the fourth and fifth grade, and I have loved it and found it interesting ever since. When I found out about cochlear implants a few years and ago and learned more about them in class it made my interest in these spike even furher. Also being able to see the “L” has also been neat for me. Here I have been able to observe children with cochlear implants. In Aural rehab we were able to look at some of their charts and see how far that they have come and how much they are still improving. So when it was time to pick a topic I decieded that I would look further into cochlear implants and how they can help children develop their literacy skills.

Acknowledgments

Michelle — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:28:48 +0000

While working on this project I have recieved help and information from many of my teachers including Karen McComas, and Karen McNealy. I also have to thank my friends and classmates that have looked over my project and helped me to get ideas in how to narrow my topic, and thier opinion’s on my topic. All these helped me to formulate my research topic and discover the best way to present my information.

A10.4: EFN (Progress Memo)

Michelle — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:50:53 +0000

10/31/08

Content Summary:

When looking back on this unit I can see that I definalty learned about different technologies and how to use them as tools in therapy. We not only got to learn in depth about an adaptive technology in detail, but we got to look at others and learn how they can help as well. Then while putting this into a presentation on the web we learned some good ways to present our data for other people to see. Software is also another thing that we can use in our therapy that can help us accomplish goals. We learned about different software that can be used in therapy, or could help us prepare for therapy. This way we learned a little about each one when we presented them in class. We also learned that after we found and searched these softwares they were not that helpful to us. There were some that could be helpful but they mainly were not the easiest programs to work with and the things that they were accomplishing could have been done by us without the programs. I also learned about literacy and that digital literacy has many subcatagories in it. If you break it down you can see that there are many different things that you can be literate in, not only the broad subject of digital literacy but also the subcatagories included in it.

Progress Summary:

As mentioned in the first progress memo I am definately online more often then I use to. I have also learned how to operate different discussion sites such as nicenet. These discusstions have also made me get on line more often to see whtat people have written about the topic that we are talking about. It is interesting to see all the different opinions and views on the topics we have been discussing such as the different types of literacy, what digital literacy is, how we can use different technologies in therapy, ect. I have also learned how to subscribe to Google alerts and receive new information that is listed under certain subjects. This is extremely helpful when you are researching on a topic. The importance of checking the accuracy of the information on the sites that I find has also been brought to my attention through us performing different evaluation on websites. The newest thing that I have learned to do is on the Diigo account. Here I have learned how to bookmark certain sites, highlight those sites, put them in certain orders, and learned how to create notes on the sites that will be there when I return to that site through Diigo. I really like this application and am glad that it was brought to my attention.

Assessment:

The information that I have during this unit is definatly helpful to me. The Adaptive technologies and presenting them allowed me to see a few of the devices that are available for people to use and now I can see that I could possible see some of these devices when working with my clients. The Software evaluation will also allowed me to see that there are certain software programs out there that can be used, but I also think that I learned that they are still developing and that they may be better in the comming years. The discussions that we have been involved in, especially the literacy one, have also helped me see that there is definatly more to literacy then just reading and writing and it has made me wonder when we truly are literate and how we measure this. We had a discussion about this but I think we all just danced around and came up with that we really didn’t know? Software evaluations are not the most fun things to do, but I have also found myself looking more indepth at the informaiton on the websites that I go to now. I find myself looking at the dates, authors, and associations that these differnet sites are associated with. I definatly more aware of the information that I read and how accurate it is.

Reflection:

When looking at this unit I can see that the work that I have done could be seen by others. One of the evaluation I did was actually seen by the author and he wrote back to me. I never thought that people would acutally see the things that I wrote on the internet and actually care but they did. They could google the device that I made my presentation on, or they could even see the evaluation I wrote on the Software. These could potentially be seen and help someone know if this could be the device for them, but not only that I have to realize the things that I write could be seen and potentially offend someone. When I wrote the evaluation about the betterdogfood.com I wrote that the telephone company could not prepare him well for the site he opened, and he actually wrote back and corrected me by saying that it did prepare him and that I was wrong. I never thought that that would happen or that anyone would read it. It was definatly a new experience for me.

A10.2: Web Evaluation II

Michelle — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:57:40 +0000

Source:

Heavner, K. (2008). Literacy and cochlear implants. Advanced Bionics. Retrieved October 28, 2008, from http://www.bionicear.com/Support_Center/Educational_Support/eLearning_Library/Candidates,%20Recipients%20and%20Parents/Rehabilitation/Literacy_and_Cochlear_Implants.cfm?langid=1

Authorship:

The author of this page is clearly stated at the bottom of the page along with a short biography. She is a Speech-Language Pathologist and Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist, and has been working since 1999. It also says that she has been working with University of Michigan Cochlear Implant Program from 2001-2006, and is now a consultant at Advanced Bionics. It also lists her interests in research which include spoken language outcomes with the Auditory-Verbal approach, and she has presented many national cochlear implant meetings on this topic. Then it gives a little personal information about where she lives and her family. I feel that is this is sufficient information to trust what is listed on this website.

Publishing Body:

The name of the organization is listed on this site and it is called Advanced Bionics. The author is a consultant for this company. There is also a link to the company so that you can contact them if you need to. There are not any headers, footers, or a distinctive watermarks to link this site with an academic or scholarly Web site. It is linked to the site of Advance Bionics where you can purchase an implant from this company and see success stories. I however, do not know if this company is known in our field, but I am only a student at this time. This organization should be allowed to talk about this subject because they sell and lead you through the steps of cochlear implants so they defiantly should be able to tell you what they will have to go through and what the outcome could lead to. It is also linked to an official website.

Point of view or biases:

This site is directed toward and sells cochlear implants so they are going to show good things about them. The link that I am looking up however from this website is about literacy methods used with children with hearing loss, and offers specific strategies that follow a normal developmental approach to reading. So it is would not be as biased as the information on this site about he actual cochlear implant.

Referral to and/or knowledge of the literature:

The author of this site displays a biography that tells of all of her experience in the field and with aural rehabilitation.

Accuracy or verifiability of details:

When looking at the information that she presents in the presentations on the website you can see that it includes in text citations to allow you to see that this information is in other sources and it is not just her coming up with the information.

Currency:

This websites does not include the date that it was published or the day that it was last updated, but it does include a copyright date. It also includes the dates to which the information that she is using in her presentation was copyrighted letting you know when the information she used was published.

A9.4: Research Question on Literacy

Michelle — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:55:38 +0000

How do Cochlear Implants effect the literacy of children?

A9.1: Adaptive Technology Project Self Evaluation

Michelle — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:19:52 +0000

When looking at my presentation and the requirments I think that my presentation appropriately answers who, what, when, where, how, and why in relation to the technology I selected. It describes that the software is for the deaf and hard of hearing population, it tells how you use it, what it can do with it, where you can use it (in the classroom, work, and everyday life), and the reason why is that it helps improve communication and literacy.
My presentation also describes the technology I selected including the cost (explaining the different packages), features (speech files, ect.), and it describes the capablilities of the technology such as translating the information in 3 different ways. My presentation includes information from my articles because it says that seeing and reading information in sign and written language helps them comprehend the information. The presentation also could be used to help promote and tell others what the technology is for and how it is used. The presentation was also to my ability presented in a professional manner and includes appropriate citations at the end of the presentation. As far as I know it is also produced without errors. Overall I think that I covered all of the requirements for the presentation.
The presentation is professionally produced, error free, and includes appropriate citations.

A9.3: Better Dog Food Web Evaluation

Michelle — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:03:06 +0000

10/22/08
Name of site: Better Dog Food.competchick@betterdogfood.com). It also said that she had experience in her past life of creating a dog breeder magazine. When looking at the CEO and Founder, Carl Malamud worked for the telephone company when he got started and he worked under “the legendary” Arlington Hewes, who I have never heard of. He is an international speaker, and he has a dog named Bob.

URL: http://www.betterdogfood.com/

Accuracy:

When looking at the accuracy of this site you can see that this cite does not cite any other sources. It also tells you a little bit about the management team that included a creator, CEO, and the pet of the site. It says that woman, the creator, has a little experience in her “past life” with digitizing and designing a dog breeder magazine, the CEO/ Founder worked for a telephone company before, and the other is a made up dog named spot.
It is defiantly not possible to determine the legitimacy of the woman’s past life, and when you click on the link for the guys telephone company he worked at it takes you to the telephone companies remote printing service. This is defiantly not legitimate either.
The background of this author, or creator that I can find does not lead him to having any knowledge of the subject whatsoever.
This site is not research based.

Authority:

I did not recognize any names on the management team.
The only information that was given about he management team was that Rebecca Hargrave was the President and Chief Creative Officer of Best Dog Food.com. It also gave and email to reach her that was not very professional (
I have never seen this site referenced anywhere.

Objectivity:

When looking at the title and reading the cite it looks like they are trying to sell you dog food for virtual pets, but the only things that I found on sale were items for real dogs that were from different companies that I have heard of before. I never saw anything about the virtual dog food.
The purpose of the this site was to allow you to make a virtual pet, and sell you dog food to go along with it. It also had link to blogs for your dogs, but you could not make a dog, use the blog, or buy the dog food because either the link didn’t work or their was no place to do it. The blog actually said at the top that it was inactive.
I do not trust and would not trust the author of this site because they have no background experience and their website doesn’t even work.

Currency:

The date was clearly displayed at the bottom of the page and it said 2000.
The date referred to the copyright of the page.
Their were no resources to determine if they were current.
This page defiantly needs updates, and fixed but I do not think that it requires these regularly.
The links on this page were not good at all. The ones on the side of the page of ads for other dog related sites were good, but as far as the actual website they were not. Most of the ones I clicked on didn’t even send you to a page you just got a message that said an error had occurred, the site was unavailable, or the account was no longer active when looking at the blog.

Coverage:

I didn’t see any topics discussed in depth they were all very shallow.
The links on the page were suppose to be comprehensive to help you understand more about what you clicked on. When it had the links listed it only gave you a short blurb about the topic, but when you actually clicked on most of the links they didn’t work.
When looking at the relevance of the links they seemed to go along with the site, but they could have had a few more like the virtual dog food they talked about for you.
The information in this site I do not think is valuable at all. There is really nothing to do on this site, because almost every link is dead.