Wired For Sound
A Journey Into Hearing
by Beverly Biderman, 1998 When visiting her ENT, Biderman would always ask him if there were any new things that might improve her hearing. In 1992, he said yes. When testing showed that Bidedrman was indeed a candidate for receiving a cochlear implant, she did some research, spoke to people with cochlear implants, and decided to get one. Immediately after activation, Biderman was disappointed. She could not understand the speech of the technician. All sound grated. She was functioning very similarly to someone with severe Central Auditory Processing Disorder. After much fine tuning, careful listening, and effort, Biderman was not so disappointed. She did not have to strain, trying to lipread. She could conduct phone calls, especially if the other person spoke slowly. Her tinnitus, after a brief increase, disappeared. So did the headaches, born of the strain to get along in a hearing world. She could once again appreciate music.
At the time that she wrote this book in, 20,000 people worldwide had cochlear implants. Most Deaf organizations actively opposed cochlear implants, especially for children, feeling that the implants endanger their their culture. As one of the conditions on which cochlear implants are given is that the user live in the hearing world, capital D Deaf people are generally not eligible for cochlear implants anyhow. From the opposite side exists the misunderstanding that cochlear implants are merely better hearing aids. Hearing aids carry bad memories for many deaf, having been painful, or carrying wrong expectations. But cochlear implants are not amplifiers like hearing aids. They do not operate on a person's little remaining hearing; they create it.
This book contains Biderman's own autobiography; excerpts about deafness, Deafness, and cochlear implants; information on the demographics of deaf people; the history and progress of cochlear implants; endnotes; recommended reading; a resources list; an index. As Biderman notes in her prolouge, this book is partly for the benefit of people who have heard about cochlear implants mostly as something that Deaf people do not want, and to that purpose, this is recommended reading(recommended by me). Biderman attempts to present the Deaf side of the argument as well, but not as successfully. Understandably, she is biased. In particular, Biderman underestimates the quality of life of those living in the Deaf world. Due to being Canadian, Biderman's cochlear implant was paid for by national health coverage. This is not the experience one would get in the U.S.. In this book, I see a lot of parallels between Biderman's experience and the experience of living with CAPD. By the end of the book, Biderman processes what she hears better than most people with mild CAPD, but the forms of her continued problems with hearing, and her strategies in getting to the hearing abilities she does get are similar to those used by people with CAPD.
Thoughtful reading.
