If this video clip doesn't bring a smile to your face and an "Awwww!" to your lips, there's no hope for you, I'm afraid. It shows eight-month-old Jonathan, born deaf, who's received a cochlear implant so that he can hear. The implant is switched on as we watch, and he hears his mother's voice for the very first time in his life. His reaction . . . well, see for yourself.
If that isn't the very definition of 'warm fuzzy happy stuff', I don't know what is!
Peter
Definitely an Awwww moment. But seriously I am seeing a lot more cochlear implants these days. We have sizeable deaf community and it is great to see this technology in action. Mind you, "deaf" is a culture and many are happy to be that way.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely awesome!
ReplyDeleteI've been associated with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community for over a decade (I'm not deaf.) I really have to question having an implant done at that early an age. The child is still growing as is the child's skull. As the bone structure grows and changes, this baby will have to undergo a series of surgeries. Many physicians will refuse to do an implant on anyone younger than a teenager.
ReplyDeleteI don't really know anything about cochlear implants so I looked it up.
ReplyDeleteFrom wikipedia:
The discovery that electrical stimulation in the auditory system can create a perception of sound occurred around 1790, when Alessandro Volta placed metal rods in his own ears and connected them to a 50-volt circuit, experiencing a jolt and hearing a noise "like a thick boiling soup".
I'd like to write something funny here but I can't quit laughing. He did what?
This made me smile
ReplyDelete