What If Hearing Aids Do Not Help?

A person is identified as deaf when speech can no longer be understood, no matter how loud the speech is. For the deaf person, hearing aids simply make sounds louder and often times distort speech. If the deaf person is highly motivated and wishes to hear, he/she may want to consider a cochlear implant or a vibro-tactile device.

Cochlear implants bypass damaged parts of the auditory system and stimulate the nerve of hearing directly. It is amazing the number of people cochlear implants have helped. Speech can become clearer. Cochlear implant users may demonstrate improvements in understanding speech without lip-reading and understanding speech over the telephone. Cochlear implant results vary widely among individuals. To be successful, a cochlear-implanted individual must be motivated, have a good rehabilitation program, and a good rehabilitation team.

Vibro-tactile devices have not received widespread success or acceptance. These instruments are a type of hearing aid, which codes sound into vibrations. The vibrator can be a single bone oscillator placed behind the ear or a complex processor strapped across the chest. Since they are not easy to use, bulky, and uncomfortable the user needs to be highly motivated.

Cued speech is another method often used with hearing aids to improve understanding. Cued Speech is the use of hand signs and signs to areas of the face head and neck to help used as the person is speaking to facilitate lip-reading. In this way the listener has the benefit of both auditory cues and visual cues to help. This system has, however has had limited use. Sign language, both formal and informal, is more often used in the Deaf community.

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