Sergio Jimenez Foronda
Logroño, (EFE).- The Association for the Hearing Impaired of La Rioja (ADARI) claims that entertainment venues, such as cinemas and conference centers, have magnetic loops so that people with cochlear implants do not have to “ an extra effort,” its president, Esther Ocón, told EFE.
Ocón, whose association has some 80 members in this region, has made these statements on the occasion of the celebration this Saturday, February 25, of World Cochlear Implant Day, a small electronic device that, placed in the head and in the ear , helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing to hear.
He explained that “every day there are more cases of people who are born with these deficiencies and who receive cochlear implants”, which is why it is necessary for society to become aware that, although some 25 or 30 years ago linked the deaf person only with gestural language, “now everything has advanced a lot and these possibilities exist”.
“For example, with the issue of masks in the health center, a deaf person, even if it is implanted, sometimes finds it difficult to understand the professional because, since they were little, they have had that support in lip reading,” she stressed.
Faced with this situation, he believes that, for example, the possibility of listening through transparent masks should be facilitated.
early detection
For people with cochlear implants, he specified, “hearing is different, very metallic, and it is more difficult for them to receive sound”, and, “in noisy environments and where there are many people, such as discos and cinemas, many Sometimes it is difficult for them to understand, so most of them rely on lip reading”.
He has highlighted that, at present, “practically all children are screened after birth and before they go home, through which they determine if they may have a hearing problem or not.”
“If they were born deaf, they enter a cycle with the destination towards the implant, depending on the type of deafness they have,” he explained.
Ocón has specified that “if these children are detected with deafness and implanted early, which is the main thing, in the end, they acquire a language and communication facilities almost like a person with normal hearing”.
The most important thing, he continued, “is time, since in that first period of life, which is when the brain has greater plasticity, it is when we must take advantage of it so that children fully develop language and learn to hear, for so to speak, with that system that is provided to them”.
He has highlighted that, “among older people with hearing problems, there are those who, up to a certain point, have heard normally and those who were born with hearing impairment and who, throughout their lives, have been pulling hearing aids and hearing the way they could until there comes a time when they have lost their hearing.
“Then, these people are the ones who normally have the worst results, but in children, if those who are born deaf are implanted early, they communicate perfectly at two or three years of age,” he stressed. EFE
