The historical demography of the Martha's Vineyard signing community.

The deaf population of Martha's Vineyard has fascinated scholars for more than a century since Alexander Graham Bell's research on the frequent occurrence of deafness there and since Groce's book on the island's signing community (Groce, N. E. (1985). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.). In Groce's work, and in that of subsequent scholars, the Vineyard signing community has often been portrayed as remote and outlying, having developed independently of mainland signing communities for roughly 133 years until 1825. We re-examine that interpretation in light of historical, demographic, and genealogical evidence covering the period 1692-2008. We argue that the Vineyard signing community began in Chilmark in 1785, 93 years later than previously thought, and that it had had a brief period of independent development, roughly 40 years, before becoming well connected, through deaf education, to the nascent New England signing community. We consider the implications of the Vineyard community's history for our understanding of how village signing communities develop.

The Hard of Hearing Patient.

Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over more than a century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but they also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula rarely include nursing's history, but it's a history worth knowing. To this end, From the AJN Archives highlights articles selected to fit today's topics and times.This February 1944 article is by Louise Neuschutz, who wrote extensively in AJN and elsewhere about the hard of hearing, deafness, and lipreading. Here she discusses the ways in which nurses can help "war-deafened men… returning steadily from the various fronts." Her guidance is critically relevant more than 70 years later, and we would do well today to follow her practical tips for communicating with the hearing impaired.A hearing deficit can magnify the stresses of hospitalization and even affect patient outcomes. In this issue, Amy Funk and colleagues explore the potential hearing-related problems of hospitalized patients in their qualitative study, "Understanding the Hospital Experience of Older Adults with Hearing Impairment."

Dr. Andrew Foster: A Literature Review.

Often compared to Laurent Clerc, Thomas Gallaudet, and Alexander Graham Bell, Dr. Andrew Foster was a deaf African American who founded 32 schools for the deaf in 13 African nations. The 60th anniversary of his arrival in Liberia and Ghana and the 30th anniversary of his tragic death in a Rwanda airplane accident both occur in 2017. Renewed interest in Foster has spawned research and events to reexamine questions about his contributions to the expansion of deaf education in Africa. However, none of these activities have taken a full biographical approach. More in-depth, historical, and biographical research is needed to answer the many remaining questions about Foster's life and legacy. A literature review was conducted to investigate what are considered Foster's key contributions and the factors that might have motivated him to expand access to deaf education in Africa.

Girl in the Looking Glass: A Historical Study of the Life of a Deaf Teacher in 19th-century Ireland.

The author explicates the life story of Anne Smyth, a deaf teacher in 19th-century Ireland. The story was written and published in 1858 by another deaf teacher, Charlotte Mary Kelly, who traced Anne Smyth's life trajectory from her birth to the day she began life in a deaf school until her untimely death at the age of 18 years. The study examines layers of meaning derived from Kelly's narrative, with particular attention to young Anne's practice of going to her bedroom and making up signs in front of a looking glass. The study provides some insight into the meaning of her actions that can inform current understandings of deaf education. The aim is to preserve Anne Smyth's story in order to generate new histories, as well as new discussions in the field of deaf education research.

Early UCSF contributions to the development of multiple-channel cochlear implants.

The early contributions of the UCSF cochlear implant (CI) research team to the development of multiple-channel cochlear implants from about 1971 through the mid-1980s are briefly summarized. Scientists at UCSF conducted fundamental studies related to device safety, the control of patterned electrical stimulation, and the designs of intracochlear electrode arrays, coders, and implanted multiple-channel electrode drivers. They conducted many original studies documenting parameters of hearing with cochlear implants relevant to next-generation CI designs. On these bases, the UCSF team constructed early models of multichannel devices that were progenitors of the Advanced Bionics' Clarion CI. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled .

Auditory implant research at the House Ear Institute 1989-2013.

The House Ear Institute (HEI) had a long and distinguished history of auditory implant innovation and development. Early clinical innovations include being one of the first cochlear implant (CI) centers, being the first center to implant a child with a cochlear implant in the US, developing the auditory brainstem implant, and developing multiple surgical approaches and tools for Otology. This paper reviews the second stage of auditory implant research at House - in-depth basic research on perceptual capabilities and signal processing for both cochlear implants and auditory brainstem implants. Psychophysical studies characterized the loudness and temporal perceptual properties of electrical stimulation as a function of electrical parameters. Speech studies with the noise-band vocoder showed that only four bands of tonotopically arrayed information were sufficient for speech recognition, and that most implant users were receiving the equivalent of 8-10 bands of information. The noise-band vocoder allowed us to evaluate the effects of the manipulation of the number of bands, the alignment of the bands with the original tonotopic map, and distortions in the tonotopic mapping, including holes in the neural representation. Stimulation pulse rate was shown to have only a small effect on speech recognition. Electric fields were manipulated in position and sharpness, showing the potential benefit of improved tonotopic selectivity. Auditory training shows great promise for improving speech recognition for all patients. And the Auditory Brainstem Implant was developed and improved and its application expanded to new populations. Overall, the last 25 years of research at HEI helped increase the basic scientific understanding of electrical stimulation of hearing and contributed to the improved outcomes for patients with the CI and ABI devices. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled .

Goldilocks or Granny?: Portrayals of deafness in the English novel.

This paper examines the portrayal of characters that are deaf in 29 English novels written over 300 years by mainstream authors for a largely hearing readership. Their attributes are examined with particular reference to the mode of communication, education, medical intervention and issues of identity, and as to how far these portrayals resonate with the experience of persons with hearing loss by comparison to contemporary deaf narratives. The reasons why hearing authors include such representations are considered and two categories of iconic character are identified--'Goldilocks' and 'Granny', discussing how far these portrayals truly inform about deafness or reflect the underlying attitudes of the author and the society they represent.

The contributions of William F. House to the field of implantable auditory devices.

William F. House was a pioneer in the evolving field of cochlear implants and auditory brainstem implants. Because of his vision, innovation and perseverance, the way was paved for future clinicians and researchers to carry on the work and advance a field that has been dedicated to serving adults and children with severe to profound hearing loss. Several of William House's contributions are highlighted in this prestigious volume to honor the recipients of the 2013 Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award. Discussed are the early inventive years, clinical trials with the single-channel cochlear implant, the team approach, pediatric cochlear implantation, and the auditory brainstem implant. Readers may be surprised to learn that those early contributions continue to have relevance today. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled .

Getting a decent (but sparse) signal to the brain for users of cochlear implants.

The challenge in getting a decent signal to the brain for users of cochlear implants (CIs) is described. A breakthrough occurred in 1989 that later enabled most users to understand conversational speech with their restored hearing alone. Subsequent developments included stimulation in addition to that provided with a unilateral CI, either with electrical stimulation on both sides or with acoustic stimulation in combination with a unilateral CI, the latter for persons with residual hearing at low frequencies in either or both ears. Both types of adjunctive stimulation produced further improvements in performance for substantial fractions of patients. Today, the CI and related hearing prostheses are the standard of care for profoundly deaf persons and ever-increasing indications are now allowing persons with less severe losses to benefit from these marvelous technologies. The steps in achieving the present levels of performance are traced, and some possibilities for further improvements are mentioned. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled .

The early days of the multi channel cochlear implant: efforts and achievement in France.

On September 10th 2013, the clinical medical research Lasker award winners were rewarded for their work on multichannel cochlear implant. It has been my pleasure to see that such a major topic had caught the attention of the Members of the Jury for this prestigious award. That is why I accepted an invitation to participate in a special issue of Hearing Research devoted to the three winners. Here I highlight four scientific contributions made by the French team in late 1970s and early 1980s to modern multichannel cochlear implant development. 1) Chouard and MacLeod plotted an approximate frequency map of the whole length of the human cochlea, including its "hidden face" corresponding to speech frequencies. Moreover MacLeod suggested a sequential display of electrical stimulation as a function of each electrode, a precursor to today's electrodogram and interleaved stimulation. 2) Chouard performed total cochlear implantation in a deaf adult male with 8 electrically independent electrodes that were evenly distributed along the cochlea. 3) Chouard and MacLeod described in a patent detailed sound signal processing for a functional multichannel cochlear implant and reported speech discrimination without help of lip reading in some totally deafened patients. 4) Chouard experimentally demonstrated in the guinea pig the advantage of early cochlear implantation in treating profound neonatal deafness. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled .

[Deaf Jews in Germany, 1800-1933. A look at the history of a dual minority]. / Jüdische Gehörlose in Deutschland 1800-1933. Blicke in die Geschichte einer doppelten Minderheit.

This study examines the importance of religious denomination in the German community of deaf people in the 19th century and up until 1933, focusing on the dual minority status of deaf Jews. It shows that the educational system for the deaf and the deaf movement as such were, in structure and content, informed by the Christian, primarily the Protestant, faith. This meant that deaf Jewish people were in danger of facing a conflict between their identity as Jews and their identity as deaf people. In order to resolve this dilemma, Jewish philanthropists and deaf people created a range of complementary structures: schools where deaf Jewish children received tuition tailored to their needs, religious services in sign language and a Jewish deaf association for mutual support and companionship. But being members of two stigmatized and marginalized groups made the Jewish deaf vulnerable from several sides. The discursive association of deafness, Judaism and heredity played a particular part in this. This study comes to the conclusion that deaf Jews did not want to choose between their deaf and Jewish identities but they wanted to belong to both. As a result they suffered from the negative views that some deaf people had of Jews and some Jews of deaf people--as well as from the double discrimination by the mainstream society.

Vision loss and hearing loss in painting and musical composition.

This article considers the impact of vision and hearing loss on great painters and musical composers. The visual work of Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet all showed alterations as their vision failed. In contrast, Gabriel Fauré, Bedrich Smetana, and Ludwig von Beethoven wrote many of their best compositions while totally deaf, and Georg Friedrich Handel and Frederick Delius struggled to compose late in life when they lost their vision (although their hearing remained excellent). There are 2 major distinctions between the role of vision and hearing for these artistic disciplines. First, there is a surrogate means of "hearing" music, through the musical score, which allows composers to write and edit music while totally deaf. The greatest problem with deafness for a skilled composer is interference from internal noise (tinnitus). There is no surrogate for vision to allow a painter to work when the subject is a blur or the colors on the canvas cannot be distinguished. Second, although the appreciation of art is visual and that of music is auditory, the transcription of both art and musical composition is visual. Thus, visual loss does pose a problem for a composer accustomed to working with good sight, because it disrupts habitual methods of writing and editing music.

The master hearing aid.

As early as the 1930s the term Master Hearing Aid (MHA) described a device used in the fitting of hearing aids. In their original form, the MHA was a desktop system that allowed for simulated or actual adjustment of hearing aid components that resulted in a changed hearing aid response. Over the years the MHA saw many embodiments and contributed to a number of rationales for the fitting of hearing aids. During these same years, the MHA was viewed by many as an inappropriate means of demonstrating hearing aids; the audio quality of the desktop systems was often superior to the hearing aids themselves. These opinions and the evolution of the MHA have molded the modern perception of hearing aids and the techniques used in the fitting of hearing aids. This article reports on a history of the MHA and its influence on the fitting of hearing aids.

Un patronato para los «anormales»: primeros pasos en la protección pública a los niños con discapacidad intelectual en España (1910-1936) / A national council for «defective» people: first steps in protecting intellectually disabled children in Spain (1910-1936)

En el año 1910 el Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes creaba el Patronato Nacional de Sordomudos, Ciegos y Anormales con el propósito de proteger y tutelar a personas con discapacidad sensorial e intelectual. El objetivo de este trabajo es trazar la trayectoria de esta corporación desde su creación hasta el comienzo de la Guerra Civil y poner de relieve cuál fue su aportación al proceso de institucionalización de la asistencia a los denominados «niños anormales». La fundación del Patronato respondió a un proyecto muy ambicioso que fue sufriendo transformaciones a lo largo del periodo al compás de los continuos cambios políticos. Esta inestabilidad, a la que se sumaron otros problemas de carácter interno, impidió que la institución cumpliese con la mayoría de los objetivos que se le habían encomendado. No obstante, es indiscutible que su actividad ayudó a que el problema de las personas con discapacidad intelectual adquiriese visibilidad en España y sentó las bases para el desarrollo de la educación especial durante las primeras décadas del siglo XX(AU)

In 1910 the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts created the National Council for the Deaf-Mute, Blind and Defectives in order to protect and to be in charge of both sensorial and intellectually disabled people. The aim of this paper is to outline the trajectory of this institution from its creation to the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and to highlight its contribution to the process of institutionalization of assistance to the so-called «abnormal children». The foundation of the Council was based on a very ambitious project that undergone a lot of transformations over time to the beat of ongoing political changes. This instability, along with other internal problems, impeded Council to carry out most of its objectives. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that its activity helped to gain visibility the problem of the intellectually disabled children in Spain and laid the foundations for the development of special education during the first decades of the 20th century(AU)

The history of sign language and deaf education in Turkey.

Sign language is the natural language of the prelingually deaf people particularly without hearing-speech rehabilitation. Otorhinolaryngologists, regarding health as complete physical, mental and psychosocial well-being, aim hearing by diagnosing deafness as deviance from normality. However, it's obvious that the perception conflicted with the behavior which does not meet the mental and social well-being of the individual also contradicts with the definition mentioned above. This article aims to investigate the effects of hearing-speech target ignoring the sign language in Turkish population and its consistency with the history through statistical data, scientific publications and historical documents and to support critical perspective on this issue. The study results showed that maximum 50% of the deaf benefited from hearing-speech program for last 60 years before hearing screening programs; however, systems including sign language in education were not generated. In the light of these data, it is clear that the approach ignoring sign language particularly before the development of screening programs is not reasonable. In addition, considering sign language being part of the Anatolian history from Hittites to Ottomans, it is a question to be answered that why evaluation, habilitation and education systems excluding sign language are still the only choice for deaf individuals in Turkey. Despite legislative amendments in the last 6-7 years, the primary cause of failure to come into force is probably because of inadequate conception of the issue content and importance, as well as limited effort to offer solutions by academicians and authorized politicians. Within this context, this paper aims to make a positive effect on this issue offering a review for the medical staff, particularly otorhinolaryngologists and audiologists.