Teenagers like to listen to music and can regularly be seen with ear buds nestled into their ears as they go about the business of doing their household chores, exercising and traveling.
It is hard to get the attention of a teenager with those ear buds in. Their hearing is severely impaired when they stick things in their ears that block off the pathways of sound. If you are loud enough, or make the rule that one ear bud is in and one ear bud is out when you are involved in activities that require frequent communication, you can work around the ear buds.
DEAF TEENAGERS ON THE OTHER HAND HEAR NOTHING when they are listening to music on their personal iPods etc. It isn't that the pathway to sound is blocked to their ears by headphones, that pathway has already been blocked by nature causing deafness. But deaf teenagers can program their implants to focus in on the music, and thus any focus on any sound you make is nill, zilch and nadda.
Deaf teenagers also have fancy headphones....or at least head phones that are unlike the kind you just pick up at the store (and much more expensive, too!). In Chance's case, they look like this:
And here is the same cable, plugged into the implant processors:
Chance in the music zone, is like Chance without implants on. We have told him that he has to tell us when he is listening to music just so that we don't go crazy thinking that we are telling him stuff and he can't hear a word we are saying.
Chance looks so innocent when he is walking around not being able to hear anything we say. Chance's older brother has a fondness for music, but he can at least hear an inkling of what we say when he has ear buds in if we talk loud enough:) Chance is completely in "the zone" of no hearing.
We want Chance to be able to listen to music and bee bop around the house while he does his cleaning, we just have to know that unlike other teenagers with headphones in, Chance is completely incapable of hearing us.
It is just nice to know as a parent when your child is not going to respond to your requests:)
Addendum:
Now for the rest of the story - from Chance's Dad : the technical discussion about cochlear implant music options:
1> Adapter cables, like the one above that Chance uses - these are specific to the manufacturer of the implant. It has a normal jack to plug into the music source such as an ipod, then one - or two for bilateral use - adapter plugs that plug into a special port on the implant. These are specialized proprietary cables, and as such are quite expensive, but they do plug directly into the implant so the sound quality is as good as you can get under the circumstances.
2> Telecoil devices, such as the NoizFree Earhooks: This device utilizes a telecoil signal - a local magnetic signal - from the earhook to the hearing aid or cochlear implant. The earhook receives the music signal like any normal earbud, but then instead of converting that signal to sound as a normal earbud would, it converts it to a telecoil signal, and transmits that signal through the earhook to the implant. The implant has to configured to accept telecoil signals - though newer implants are moving towards an 'auto-telecoil' mode - and the earhook sits between the implant processor and the head. While the signal is good, Chance says the direct cable above is better.
3> Loop: This also converts the sound to a telecoil signal, but rather than earhooks, it is a cable loop worn around the neck that sends the signal to the implant. Loop technology was - until recently - commonly used for FM systems.
4> Over-the-ear headphones - This is your normal everyday over-the-ear headphones, that happens to also cover the implant microphone.
Certainly, there are going to be other options, but these are your primary options - at least in our experience with Chance.
Being the awesome kid that he is, Chance has started to tell us when he is going to listen to music. He has also started just plugging in one implant, leaving one side dangling in order to keep contact with us in the outside world.
He also told me,"Mom, I have made it so that I can hear you better when I am listening to music."
That means that he has set his implant to a setting that lets some of the outside noises come through instead of just having them tune into the music.
We're working together to make this very normal teenage activity work out well for all of us:)
It is hard to get the attention of a teenager with those ear buds in. Their hearing is severely impaired when they stick things in their ears that block off the pathways of sound. If you are loud enough, or make the rule that one ear bud is in and one ear bud is out when you are involved in activities that require frequent communication, you can work around the ear buds.
DEAF TEENAGERS ON THE OTHER HAND HEAR NOTHING when they are listening to music on their personal iPods etc. It isn't that the pathway to sound is blocked to their ears by headphones, that pathway has already been blocked by nature causing deafness. But deaf teenagers can program their implants to focus in on the music, and thus any focus on any sound you make is nill, zilch and nadda.
And here is the same cable, plugged into the implant processors:
Chance looks so innocent when he is walking around not being able to hear anything we say. Chance's older brother has a fondness for music, but he can at least hear an inkling of what we say when he has ear buds in if we talk loud enough:) Chance is completely in "the zone" of no hearing.
We want Chance to be able to listen to music and bee bop around the house while he does his cleaning, we just have to know that unlike other teenagers with headphones in, Chance is completely incapable of hearing us.
It is just nice to know as a parent when your child is not going to respond to your requests:)
Addendum:
Now for the rest of the story - from Chance's Dad : the technical discussion about cochlear implant music options:
1> Adapter cables, like the one above that Chance uses - these are specific to the manufacturer of the implant. It has a normal jack to plug into the music source such as an ipod, then one - or two for bilateral use - adapter plugs that plug into a special port on the implant. These are specialized proprietary cables, and as such are quite expensive, but they do plug directly into the implant so the sound quality is as good as you can get under the circumstances.
2> Telecoil devices, such as the NoizFree Earhooks: This device utilizes a telecoil signal - a local magnetic signal - from the earhook to the hearing aid or cochlear implant. The earhook receives the music signal like any normal earbud, but then instead of converting that signal to sound as a normal earbud would, it converts it to a telecoil signal, and transmits that signal through the earhook to the implant. The implant has to configured to accept telecoil signals - though newer implants are moving towards an 'auto-telecoil' mode - and the earhook sits between the implant processor and the head. While the signal is good, Chance says the direct cable above is better.3> Loop: This also converts the sound to a telecoil signal, but rather than earhooks, it is a cable loop worn around the neck that sends the signal to the implant. Loop technology was - until recently - commonly used for FM systems.4> Over-the-ear headphones - This is your normal everyday over-the-ear headphones, that happens to also cover the implant microphone.
Certainly, there are going to be other options, but these are your primary options - at least in our experience with Chance.
Being the awesome kid that he is, Chance has started to tell us when he is going to listen to music. He has also started just plugging in one implant, leaving one side dangling in order to keep contact with us in the outside world.
He also told me,"Mom, I have made it so that I can hear you better when I am listening to music."
That means that he has set his implant to a setting that lets some of the outside noises come through instead of just having them tune into the music.
We're working together to make this very normal teenage activity work out well for all of us:)
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