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The answer would simply be a resounding YES for Beethovan ;o)
I talk pretty well, but I do have a deaf voice which does not bother me. It takes some people who are more slow-paced in their lives, more patient people to listen to me. Funny, they understand me better than I understand them, ugh!
I know in my heart that my parents would in a heartbeat have me implanted if CI existed in 1960's. My parents were very involved in my education...
I was equipped with hearing aids at the age of 6 months old and my parents said that my eyes lit up and I laughed, vocalized a lot, etc. The tests have constantly showed and still show that I get great benefits from hearing aids (I have 110-120 dB loss in both ears); I hear at the average 30-40 dB with hearing aids.
Because the deaf infants are early detected and the earlier they get implanted the more chances they succeed as well as the normal hearing children, I know that 21st century's deaf children are and will be better off than 20th century's deaf children.
Haha, of course, Beethhoven would have gotten a CI in a heartbeat as his craft was the soul of his life, just as Rush Limbaugh's is!
The toddler got 60db is *much* easier than mine. She is highly qualified for receiving the CI. That's very easy for her to amid any education that her parents can make the choice.
I got 113 db on both ears. No good. Hearing aids do not work for me! Boo-hoo.
If the CI-era existed in 1960's, my parents would have made me to use the CI. My parents and I have talked about it long time ago.
I am pretty sure that you've the same situation as mine, Mike.
As for Beethoven, that's easy for you to say it. A *B-I-G* yes.
Since Beethoven was late-deafened it's hard to say. I'm not sure what kind of hearing loss he had. If it was like mine, he may not have wanted a CI. With a CI you often lose the ability to appreciate pure tone music. The CI was invented to amplify speech sounds. That's not to say some people do not enjoy music, but most often those people were not professional musicians to begin with. I would say it would be a tough choice for Beethoven, especially if faced with the loss of residual hearing where he still might be hearing ** some ** music.
As to baby Beethoven-- a 60db loss is only a moderate hearing loss maybe bordering on severe?. With todays hearing aids, I think she'll do quite well!! 
Yup! Beethoven would've gotten an CI ASAP.
Linus (from Peanuts) would too, if he suddenly lost his hearing from an illness.
Charlie Brown rules!
:o)
Paotie
Beethoven might do what Michael Chorost (author of "Rebuilt") did, and get a specially designed program for hearing music. He wrote an article about that.
Interesting that a CI can have a program especially designed for listening to music. I often wish there's a way to pick up the lyrics as well as the music to a song, something like a contact lens that reads like a rolling captioning in sync with the hearing aid/CI picking up the sound. Come to think of it, the lens program could save a lot of wear and tear on the eyeballs from all that lipreading. In like "The Terminator"...
*laughs*
Well, all you had to understand during the movie was Ahnuld's famous line:
I'll be baahwk. (Not meant phonetically - but lipreadically 'cos like, that's how it looked to me.)
:o)
Paotie
I'm glad my mother gave me the option back in 1977 when CI's were crude, and I said no. Of course, she did try to nudge me into saying yes, but no dice.
I'm glad I had that choice. Nowadays, technology's far better and I just might have gone for it.
I think that her parents are doing the right thing. 60 db is a lot to start with. I had 65 db as a child and wore hearing aids. The possibilities are endless. Better HA's compared to years ago. She would probably do well in the hearing world and not find any need to be part of the deaf world, and if that is the case, more power to her.
Mike,
You boring me
I was a music student at Gallaudet (1988-90) where I played the violin and the cello. For a term paper, I was assigned to write about Beethoven. Much to my surprise, Beethoven hated all ear doctors and called them names that I cannot spell out here. More to the point, after his death which was when he was discovered to have an abnormally enlarged vesticular tube, an English biographer named Green did an exegsis on two segements in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and, much to his joy, was surprised that Beethoven was -- are you ready? -- the true Father of Jazz.
Mr. Green shouted and said he wished there were 4,000 deaf composers after listening to Beethoven's Symphony No.9.
Beethoven did NOT become the greatest Romantic composer UNTIL he became deafened. Meaning what? The composer's greatest success was attributed to his deafness. Had it not been for his deafenedness, he would be "one of those" composers.
Post Scriptum:
I had 115 decibels in the better ear in 1990. At NYLHH (New York League for the Hard-of-Harding), an audiologist had sophisticated audiogram machines, but she could not measure the deciBels in my left ear. My music professor found it phenomenal for me to be able to tell the difference between the D string and the E string on both the violin and the cello. The audiologist disagreed with my music teacher and said, "You can have five people in a room who each have a 115 deciBel hearing loss, and they will all function differently."
I have 65 dB when I wear the hearing aid in the better ear and 85 in the worse one. I have a sister who is "almost" hard-of-hearing", but she is unable to distinguish between the D string and the E string.
Psst! Letz. Don't bother reading my blogs or take the effort to respond if you think it's boring or that I'm boring.
Marielle's hearing loss at 60 dB is quite like my hearing loss (50/55 dB without hearing aid and I can hear 30 dB with my hearing aid. She'll do well with speech therapy and thrive with ASL as well. Marielle has the best of both. I have my opinion about cued speech (my daughter was a cued speech interpreter only because her former husband's family was involved cueing with their daughter who is deaf....won't get into that one). Whatever her folks decide, I am sure Marielle will do well as she gets older.
I experimented with digital hearing aids and they do not work for me at all...sound quality was awful. I have been wearing one conventional hearing aid and love it.
As for Beethoven -- wonder if his music would have gotten better...or worse with the implant. hummm...he was probably better off as he was???
Should have mentioned above that my daughter is no longer interpreting cued speech...she is an ASL (quite good too, Mom is beaming) interpreter and works as itenerant teacher for deaf/hh kids in mainstreamed program.
Beethoven, despite his increasing deafness, heard music in his MIND because he had heard musical sounds perfectly before the onset of his deafness. I suppose imagination in the mind had much to do with his ability to compose music. Deafness maybe helped him to concentrate on his efforts to compose music, if nothing else.
Just as Goya painted his "black paintings" in his house (Quinta del Sordo), Goya was freed from the constraints of Spanish court politics because of his late-deafenedness. He was able to paint as he pleased, painting the suffering of the Spanish under monarchy rule. He no longer had to fill his role as "official Spanish court painter."
One wonders if deafness releases one from certain hearing expectations?
Hey Mike,
You are boring. Why are you OBSESSED WITH CI?
Dummy :-0
Hi Mike-- I think you're exciting and interesting.
If Beethoven knew how pretty the piano sounded with a cochlear implant, I would be willing to be it would be a "hell yeah," from him.
I agree with marielle parents to incorporate visual and verbal communication. I was diagnosed with a 70dB in my right and a 80dB loss in my right when I was three year olds. I was fitted with hearing aids, I was scoring 100% on my speech comprehension scores with two hearing aids. When I turned 11, my right went to 75-80dB and my left went kaput! I was able to hear quite well with my right ear all this time. I was able to fool a lot of people since I was self conscience about my hearing aid and always had my hair down. It wasn't until my right ear went down to 90-100dB range that I gave up and joined the collection. I imagine Marielle will continue to do very well as time goes on.
Really Abbie?? Does it sound that good?? (sigh) I used to have perfect pitch and I played the piano most my life until the high notes became only a "click" on the keyboard with my hearing aids. I can still listen to the piano and enjoy it well enough, but to play it's so distracting because I know what I'm playing and what I'm hearing don't mesh. It's almost better to play without hearing aids sometimes because my aids will even distort some of the notes and make them flat sounding. I know they keep improving implants. One of the advantages of the hybrid is music is supposed to be so much better because you keep your low tones and MOST instrument tones range in low tone frequencies, which is one reason I really, really, really don't want to lose my lows plus the fact that I DO get some speech benefits from them-- though most speech is in the higher ranges where I'm deaf. The hybrid is perfect, but it's experimental and I have all these head issues. Someday though. . .(sigh) Until then, I got my drum.
Dummy, let's not be a self-fulfilling prophesy, and vamoose on out of here. I'm enjoying this discussion.
Ann_C, Chorost somehow had access to a team of engineers and the support of his audiologist to design his music program ... it was a one-shot deal, and not commercially available. Dang! But I'm hoping to work with my audiologist and get them to mickey-mouse a program like that for me. With CI mapping, it's usually all about speech programs. Music that I used to love still sounds nothing like I remember, but "new" music sounds pretty OK.
CE,
Don't know anything much technically about CI's as I wear a hearing aid, but is it possible that a CI can have multiple programs depending on the listening environment? That is, being able to switch from speech program to music/concert program to environmental sound (such as car engine, baby crying in the distance, etc)program? Just wondering, guess I'll have to read Chorost's book.
Kim dear, I have to say all instruments sound pretty with the cochlear implant. When I am listening to a song, I can pick out the different instruments. If I ever get my hands on an organ or piano, you bet I am going to push each and every single one of those keys!
Ann, yes it is possible to have different programs for different listening environments. I have three programs to tinker around with. I have a speech program which is the music program tweaked. It is good for music and listening to speech as well. I have a telephone telephone program that I use since I requested that I do not have t-coil activated. It is pretty cool because when you or the other person talks on the phone, it automatically drowns out the background noise, then when both of you shut up, the background noise creeps back in. Then I have a noise program that is really good for speech recognition. The noise program is the same as my general program but with the window of sound much smaller. You should read Rebuilt, it is VERY interesting! I have to say that Music is sounds so much better, it has depth and clarity to it!
That's with Advanced Bionics, right? The only company in the US offering the hybrid right now in my area is Cochlear. Med-el is also doing hybrid trials, but the UW discontinued because they didn't like Med-El's product as well as Cochlear. Med-el's electrode was longer or something. I talked to a woman last spring at my SWC Con who had two implants. She had previously been a cello player, and she also said she was very happy with the sounds of music-- so I know they've come a long way with the implants and music-- though I've also heard NOT to have high hopes because everyone is different. The thing about this woman I talked to was she lost her hearing suddenly. I'm very interested that you perceive music to be so good because you have had hearing loss since age three. That's really encouraging!! Thanks!
hey mike,
i was wondering, what can a guy like me do to improve my speech now that i'm not in a school environment? *I graduated from RIT a few years ago*
Does it cost serious cash? or is this kind of service able to get funding from outside sources?
thanks for this post.
Improve your speech? Can you hear your own speech? If so, wouldn't hurt to keep talking to hearing people like you friends, parents or whoever as much as you can. Ask them to help correct your enunciation of words. If your speech is that bad then try speech therapy, it's an option and I don't know how much it costs. It's something you'll have to do some research on by yourself.
McConnell made a good point when he asked "cat food" if he could hear his own speech. I feel more confident with my speech when I wear the CI because I can hear all the soft sounds (F, T, S, etc.) that I could not hear before. Also, knowing whether the environment is noisy helps me to know how to modulate or project my voice so the other person can hear me. That's been a big plus because without the CI, my voice is soft and breathy and hard to hear, especially for someone who already has a mild hearing loss, like so many folks do nowadays.
FYI, folks, the article about Chorost's music program is not in the book, "Rebuilt." Michael Chorost also has a web site with a blog and his email address, so anyone can contact him directly. It's very interesting. I found the article about the music program in the anthology, "Best Science Writing of 2006," but think it originally appeared in a magazine, I forget which one.
Hey, thanks for the mention! And thanks to the commenters for their kind words. I was almost afraid to read them but was pleasantly surprised. Well, except for the guy who finds us boring. 
We have indeed been spending every minute of every day for the last 11 months trying to figure out the "right" thing to do.
I will have to get around to writing that ASL in the schools post sooner rather than later. A preview - she is not "deaf enough" to go to the state school for the deaf where they use ASL. Our local county school offers only TC which seems to be more pidgin signing (not sure if that term is right?) and speaking. The students we met did not seem to flourish in that environment. If they used true ASl we would probably consider it much more seriously.
And just to answer a few questions - at 60-65 db she does not currently qualify for an implant. Also she has had her aids since 3 months old though we had a bad audiologist who had them set so low they were providing almost no benefit until 2 months ago. We have seen an amazing change since they were adjusted correctly.
One reason we named the blog Baby Beethoven is because she was born on his birthday. Also my husband and I are both classically trained musicians!
Thanks again. It was great to see everyone's feedback.
Thanks for stopping by, Monica. Your baby is still that young (13 months?) to get her auditory benefits. It's good that you got her started early with a hearing aid. You audiologist may have been a bad one but mine when I was a little over 2 years old when I got my hearing aid (that was 40 years ago) but it was in the wrong ear (my left ear at 95 dB) when it should have been in my right (72 db). That went on for almost a year until the error was discovered (grrr). But even then I progressed rapidly over the years. My speech discrimination score ever since I was in my teens has been around 95%. Keep up with the talking. Get her to start reading and you'll get to the point of reading her books without her having to look at you to understand. Believe in that. It will happen.
BTW, I am musician, too. I play the piano. Been doing that since age 7 years old. I play mostly ragtime and some early Jazz pieces. I do play classical pieces as well. I sold my little badly, badly out of tune piano and looking forward to get a digital piano someday soon. I missed practicing 2 to 3 hours a day on my piano and haven't really done that in ages. Even with my old piano but I couldn't stand playing that thing with sticky keyboards.
I'm sure you'll get your daughter to appreciate music, too.
Oh! I almost forgot - once our audiologist finally cranked up the aids, she put them in the wrong ears. Luckily about a week later I noticed the colors on the battery door tabs were wrong and confirmed with her that she had screwed up.
You think that would be the first thing they teach at audiology school, the difference between left and right!!!
I'm heartened to hear all the deaf/hh commenters who enjoy making and/or listening to music. The Marlee Matlin interview you link to in a more recent post is heartening as well. We recently met a group of deaf and hard of hearing teenagers and all of them said that they don't really enjoy or listen to much music, which made me sad.
I remember seeing the Chorost article! It was in Wired magazine. It was a fascinating article, although I remember disapproving because he focuses on his love for Ravel's Bolero, a piece of music that most musicians can't stand -- probably, in part, because we've had to play it so many times!
I think the previous commenter who felt that Beethoven wouldn't have been as great had he been able to hear is on to something. He definately became much more tonally adventurous later in life. It's hard to say if that would have happened had he retained his hearing or had access to assistive technology, but my personal belief is that having to internalize things rather than listening for familiar patterns at the keyboard contributed to his greatness.
Oh! and the deaf pianist who won the international young soloist award too! It's not just you -- I'm hearing and have really loud computer speakers and I could barely hear that video!!
"Marielle's Daddy",
I know. Unfortunate it had to be that low in the beginning. You could hear the applause at the beginning but barely the piano. Still it's amazing what a deaf person can do.
Had Beethoven not lost his hearing we probably wouldn't produced his "Ninth Symphony." He still needed access to vibration of sound by physically feeling them whether the vibrations mesh well together or not.
Anyway, are you planning to encourage Marielle to try her hands on a musical instrument someday?
I've taught myself the saxophone in the 7th grade, played the violen in the 4th grade, a drummer in middle school and high school (marching band plus marching competitions in the southeast), and the xylophone. And, of course, my piano which is my favorite piece to play on.
She already loves playing with any musical instrument she can get her hands on. You should see her bang on the piano!!
I'll stand behind whatever she wants to do when she gets old enough to choose! I'm secretly hoping she becomes an excellent drummer -- it'd be so darn useful!!
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