The Review

Issue date: 4/10/07 Section: Mosaic

Media Credit: Courtesy of Danya Lang [Click to enlarge]

The world of the deaf is not one into which the hearing-capable often venture. There, hand signals form words, lip movements cue understanding and sounds are lost in the break between the mouths of the hearing and the ears of the deaf.

Danya Lang is trying to bridge the gap.

Lang, a 21-year-old university junior from Somers, N.Y., was born almost entirely deaf. Her left ear, declared severely impaired, allows her to hear sounds such as loud bangs or screaming voices. Her right ear does not function at all - it is profoundly impaired, the worst level of hearing impairment.

Speaking with Lang does not immediately reveal her hearing loss. Her speech is bright and mostly clear, with soft "r's" and "s's" that occasionally prompt questions about the origin of her unusual accent.

It is not until one sees the two-and-a-half-inch battery, short, gray wire and small, round magnet hidden under the curly black hair above her right ear that he or she realizes there is something different about her.

The devices are the external portion of a cochlear implant, a relatively new technology Lang received in 2004 to improve the hearing in her right ear. Before her operation she wore a more traditional hearing aid in each ear, which she still uses for her left ear.

The combination of an implant and a hearing aid makes Lang unique in the world.

Receiving a cochlear implant requires an operation in which a small, tail-like device is placed into the snail-shell-shaped cochlear in the inner ear. The tail receives vibrations for the hairs that are supposed to collect sounds - in Lang's case, the hairs have been broken since birth.

The internal and external magnets work together to send signals to the brain, allowing a previously-useless ear to function at 90 percent of its ability.

"I didn't want it for the longest time," Lang says. "I thought it was complicated for some reason, but I am so glad I got it. It's so much better. It ended up that summer that I worked at a glass-blowing place and the machines are so loud. I realized if I didn't have my cochlear implant I wouldn't have been able to hear my bosses so well."

Continued...

Page 1 of 4 next >

Article Tools