Deaf Teenage Girl Now Hears With Her Brain

VIDEO [CC] - Thanks to special technology, 14-year-old Maggie Gleason can now hear. But the really remarkable thing is that she's hearing with her brain, not her ears.



CLEVELAND - Maggie Gleason, 14, who was born Deaf, heard sound for the first time in her life when hearing specialists at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center turned on an innovative electronic device called an auditory brainstem implant (ABI). The implantable device provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly Deaf.



Maggie was born without cochleas, the small snail-shaped bones in her inner ears which house the auditory (hearing) nerve. As a result of her condition, she had no auditory nerve. Maggie had to wait for a technology like ABI to advance to a stage where it could help her. ABI bypasses the ear and stimulates the brain stem.



According to one of her surgeons, Maroun Semaan, MD, of UH Case Medical Center, Maggie may be the first teen with this device for absent cochleas.

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"For someone who has never heard, the perception and awareness of sound is extremely helpful," said Dr. Semaan, Director, Otology, Neurotology, and Balance Disorders at UH Case Medical Center and Associate Professor, Otolaryngology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.



ABI is a prosthetic hearing device that stimulates neurons directly at the human brainstem, bypassing the inner ear and hearing nerve entirely, which in Maggie's case, did not even exist. The device consists of a tiny radio receiver implanted underneath the skin and tiny platinum electrodes implanted into the brain stem. ... READ MORE: http://usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/01/30/teen-hears-brain-ears/

Dog Saves Deaf Boy From Fire

VIDEO - A 2-year-old pit bull named Ace is being called a hero after waking his Deaf owner, a 13-year-old boy, during a devastating house fire. The teen's cochlear implants were turned off, so the dog licked his face to wake him up.



INDIANAPOLIS, IN - A 2-year-old male pit bull named Ace was being hailed as a hero Wednesday, after waking his Deaf teenage owner during a devastating house fire.



At 1:11 p.m., Indianapolis firefighters were called to fight a fire at a home on the city's south side, officials said. Upon their arrival, flames were shooting from the garage.



Officials said Nick Lamb, 13, who is Deaf, was sleeping in the house at the time. Ace was able to alert Nick and awaken him by licking his face. "He was thankful that Ace entered his room and licked his face until he woke up," Indianapolis Fire Department Capt. Rita Reith said in a news release. "The boy quickly covered his nose and mouth with his T-shirt and exited the rear of the house."

Lamb said he was taught at school about covering his face and finding the nearest exit. Without his shoes but with Ace by his side, he darted out of the back door before calling his mother and 911. "I couldn't hear anything because I had my cochlear implants off. ... My dog Ace smelled it," Lamb said. "I just wanted to get out."



The fire-blackened home had $175,000 in damage. But Ace and Lamb made it out safely. No one else was home when the fire started.



Lindsay Bernard, Lamb's mother, says she rushed home from work after getting the call. Her mind was racing throughout the trip. "I went into a little bit of a panic," she said. "When I got here ... the streets were covered. It was mainly just panic and chaos." ... Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/17/pit-bull-saves-deaf-boy-house-fire/12771773/

Exclusive Interview With KODA Girl & Deaf Parents

VIDEO: USA Today reporter interview with a girl signs Christmas concert for Deaf parents.



KODA girl signs Christmas concert for Deaf parents of Clearwater, Fla., A 5-year-old became an Internet sensation overnight for doing what she says is "easy for her." Claire Koch used sign language during her Christmas pageant to share what she was singing with her Deaf parents.



Lori Putney Koch her 5-year-old daughter, Claire, did a better job signing for her Deaf parents at a kindergarten holiday concert at Plumb Elementary School.

Very entertaining video of a KODA (kid of deaf adults) enthusiastically singing holiday songs using sign language and animated facial expressions, as seen on http://youtu.be/zQeygYqOn8g

Source by usatoday.com



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