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posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 22 2019, @05:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-see^W-hear-what-you-did-there dept.

The Profoundly Deaf Girl Who Found Her Voice after Brain Surgery:

Seven-year-old Leia Armitage lived in total silence for the first two years of her life, but thanks to pioneering brain surgery and years of therapy she has found her voice and can finally tell her parents she loves them.

"We were told you could put a bomb behind her and she wouldn't hear it at all if it went off," said Leia's father, Bob, as he recalled finding out their baby daughter had a rare form of profound deafness.

Leia, from Dagenham in east London, had no inner ear or hearing nerve, meaning that even standard hearing aids or cochlear implants wouldn't help her.

As a result, she was never expected to speak - but despite the risks, her parents fought for her to be one of the first children in the UK to be given an auditory brainstem implant, requiring complex brain surgery when she was two years old.

[...] He and his wife Alison hoped that after the surgery at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust she would be able to hear things like cars beeping their horns as she crossed the road - to make her safer in the world.

However, in the five years since the surgery, her progress has been much greater than they ever expected.

[...] Now, after lots of regular speech and language therapy, she can put full sentences together, attempt to sing along to music and hear voices on the phone.

[...] The cutting-edge surgery involves inserting a device directly into the brain to stimulate the hearing pathways in children born with no cochlea or auditory nerves.

A microphone and sound processor unit worn on the side of the head then transmits sound to the implant.

This electrical stimulation can provide auditory sensations, but it cannot promise to restore normal hearing.

[...] "The outcomes are variable. Some will do better than others," he said.

"They have to adapt to it and younger children do better so we like to insert the implant early if possible."

I had heard of reports doing something similar for completely blind people with brain implants and a custom (low-resolution) video cam. It only makes sense that the technology would be extended to another one of the five senses. Still, I find it amazing what technology can accomplish. Go science!


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  • (Score: 4, Touché) by Whoever on Monday April 22 2019, @05:51AM (1 child)

    by Whoever (4524) on Monday April 22 2019, @05:51AM (#833264) Journal

    ..... socialized medicine and death panels.

    This story can't be true.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:58AM (#833281)

      ikr, she could have done this surgery in Cuba for $20 USD.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:13AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:13AM (#833267)

    We have a profoundly deaf cat. He used to have a really awful unmodulated meow. Over time it has improved, possibly due to feedback from the reaction of out other cats.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday April 22 2019, @07:45AM (4 children)

      by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Monday April 22 2019, @07:45AM (#833295)

      In general, (there's always an exception) cats don't meow at other cats, but to communicate with their slaves....er....caretakers? So perhaps it had more to do with your reactions to his meow.

      --
      Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
      • (Score: 2) by Webweasel on Monday April 22 2019, @09:25AM (3 children)

        by Webweasel (567) on Monday April 22 2019, @09:25AM (#833325) Homepage Journal

        Bollocks. I have 3 cats and they meow at each other all the time. The meows are different from the ones they use with human, much shorter and higher. But they defiantly do talk to each other.

        --
        Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:46PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:46PM (#833358)

          Record it, work out what each meow means, and make a fortune selling it as a translator app for feline speech

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:16PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:16PM (#833362)

            Work out a human to feline translator and make an app for human words or phrases or ideas to be translated into feline.
            Or just jabber at them in LOLspeak like I do.
            Kitty can has cheezeburgerz?

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday April 22 2019, @02:23PM

          by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Monday April 22 2019, @02:23PM (#833387)

          There are always exceptions.
          You are also describing a domesticated clowder of cats that (I'm guessing here) were likely raised together, or brought together at relatively young ages?. In general, cats don't meow at each other. Unfamiliar cats rarely meow, however hissing, growling and ripping are common!
          My sons 2 cats never meow at each other.

          (:

          An interesting article on the subject from the ASPCA
          https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/cat-care/common-cat-behavior-issues/meowing-and-yowling [aspca.org]

          --
          Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:47AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:47AM (#833274)

    1) deaf for life
    2) pioneering brain surgery with a possibility of hearing as a cyborg

    Sometimes smashing someone's skull with a rock might be the best option after all. Life tends to be hard enough with all senses intact.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by ilPapa on Monday April 22 2019, @06:54AM

      by ilPapa (2366) on Monday April 22 2019, @06:54AM (#833278) Journal

      Sometimes smashing someone's skull with a rock might be the best option after all.

      No, the founding fathers gave us impeachment so we don't have to go to those lengths. Though I can understand your sentiment, we are better than that.

      Wait, who were we talking about again?

      --
      You are still welcome on my lawn.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday April 22 2019, @06:52AM (2 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday April 22 2019, @06:52AM (#833276) Journal

    So there is hope for khallow. In the future, a simple operation will remove his Austrian Circle obsession! I am so hopeful. But for jmorris, no surgical prognosis. I am afraid, that when it comes to jmorris, we will just have to remit him to the custody of what family he may have left, or, in lieu of that, to the tender mercies of the state of Louisiana. They have always done well before, on the part of the economically insane.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by RamiK on Monday April 22 2019, @08:16AM (1 child)

      by RamiK (1813) on Monday April 22 2019, @08:16AM (#833303)

      Please consider your words more carefully magister! Cybernetic auditory modifications for khallow and jmorris are the gateway to an expanded commutation bandwidth! Dozens, nay, hundreds of posts would besiege us every day! They will come down from the alps Appalachians riding their red & blue elephants to stomp our poor donkeys!

      Say it isn't so... Say it isn't so!

      --
      compiling...
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday April 22 2019, @08:24AM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Monday April 22 2019, @08:24AM (#833309) Journal

        Good point. I hope the medical boffins have given thought to improving the signal quality, before opening up the bandwidth. But then, perhaps, Runaway, like Eleven, is our prototype? Are we already in the upside-down? The Horror, the horror!!!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @09:06AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @09:06AM (#833318)

    That a medical term? Sounds damn awkward.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 22 2019, @03:50PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Monday April 22 2019, @03:50PM (#833423)

      If they weren't fully deaf, wouldn't they just be hearing-impaired?

      And she's not only merely deaf, she's really most sincerely deaf

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:58AM (#833743)

      Yes its a medical term, or at least it used to be, not sure about these PC days. It means the same as the colloquialism stone deaf. No hearing at all.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Monday April 22 2019, @11:09AM (1 child)

    by Rich (945) on Monday April 22 2019, @11:09AM (#833333) Journal

    I know a lady from Dagenham who seems to have the same kind of deafness - but just one-sided. The other side is impaired in some frequencies, but mostly functional. Might be worth having a look if there are more occurrences, and if so, investigate the cause - is a genetic predisposition found in the area, or might the old May&Baker (later RP, then Sanofi, shut down around 2010) chemical factory be involved? The locals told stories about accidents in the plant and illness showing up shortly after.

    • (Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:03AM

      by Rich (945) on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:03AM (#833784) Journal

      I spoke to her about the issue; she said she had recurring skin irritations since a particularly bad incident at M&B/RP, but her family comes from, and she was born, a few miles west of Dagenham. That's probably far enough away to rule out causes directly related to a local residence.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:43PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:43PM (#833354)

    If it wasn't for the cutting-edge scientific work done by Muslim doctors in the 11th century. in which they made such discoveries as the fact that humans had two ears which were best used for listening to the Quran, we wouldn't have this type of surgery today.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:12AM (#833720)

      How many people were killed to find this interesting educational and fun fact?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:57PM (#834017)

      You probably don't know it but in fact Middle East did have advanced science and much of it was imported into Europe after the Dark Middle Age of religion in a period known as the Renaissance (rebirth). The Middle East had retained ancient European wisdom, Greek and Roman knowledge, hence rebirth.

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